n
the hundred years since the birth of Paramahansa Yogananda,
this beloved world teacher has come to be recognized as one of
the greatest emissaries to the West of India’s ancient wisdom.
His life and teachings continue to be a source of light and
inspiration to people of all races, cultures and creeds.

Paramahansa
Yogananda was born Mukunda Lal Ghosh on January 5, 1893, in
Gorakhpur, India, into a devout and well-to-do Bengali family.
From his earliest years, it was evident to those around him that
the depth of his awareness and experience of the spiritual was
far beyond the ordinary. In his youth he sought out many of
India’s sages and saints, hoping to find an illumined teacher to
guide him in his spiritual quest.

It was in 1910, at the age of 17, that he met and became a
disciple of the revered Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri. In the
hermitage of this great master of Yoga he spent the better part
of the next ten years, receiving Sri Yukteswar’s strict but
loving spiritual discipline. After he graduated from Calcutta
University in 1915, he took formal vows as a monk of India’s
venerable monastic Swami Order, at which time he received the
name Yogananda (signifying bliss, ananda, through divine
union, yoga). His ardent desire to consecrate his life to
the love and service of God thus found fulfillment.

Yogananda began his life’s work with the founding, in 1917,
of a “how-to-live” school for boys, where modern educational
methods were combined with yoga training and instruction in
spiritual ideals. Visiting the school a few years later, Mahatma
Gandhi wrote: “This institution has deeply impressed my mind.”

In
1920, Yogananda was invited to serve as India’s delegate to an
international congress of religious leaders convening in Boston.
His address to the congress, on “The Science of Religion,” was
enthusiastically received. That same year he founded Self-Realization
Fellowship to disseminate worldwide his teachings on India’s
ancient science and philosophy of Yoga and its time-honored
tradition of meditation.

For the next several years, he lectured and taught on the
East coast and in 1924 embarked on a cross-continental speaking
tour. The following year, he established in Los Angeles an

international headquarters for Self-Realization Fellowship,
which became the spiritual and administrative heart of his
growing work.

Over
the next decade, Yogananda traveled and lectured widely,
speaking to capacity audiences in many of the largest
auditoriums in the country — from New York’s Carnegie Hall to
the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The Los Angeles Times
reported: “The Philharmonic Auditorium presents the
extraordinary spectacle of thousands….being turned away an
hour before the advertised opening of a lecture with the
3000-seat hall filled to its utmost capacity.”

Yogananda emphasized the underlying unity of the world’s
great religions, and taught universally applicable methods for
attaining direct
personal experience of God. To serious students of his
teachings he introduced the soul-awakening techniques of
Kriya Yoga,
a sacred spiritual science originating millenniums ago in India,
which had been lost in the Dark Ages and revived in modern times
by his lineage of enlightened masters.

Among those who became his students were many prominent
figures in science, business, and the arts, including
horticulturist Luther Burbank, operatic soprano Amelita
Galli-Curci, George Eastman (inventor of the Kodak camera), poet
Edwin Markham, and symphony conductor Leopold Stokowski. In
1927, he was officially received at the White House by President
Calvin Coolidge, who had become interested in the newspaper
reports of his activities.

In
1935, Yogananda began an 18-month tour of Europe and India.
During his yearlong sojourn in his native land, he spoke in
cities throughout the subcontinent and enjoyed meetings with
Mahatma Gandhi (who requested initiation in Kriya Yoga),
Nobel-prize-winning physicist Sir C. V. Raman, and some of
India’s renowned spiritual figures, including Sri Ramana
Maharshi and Anandamoyi Ma. It was during this year also that
his guru, Swami Sri Yukteswar, bestowed on him India’s highest
spiritual title, paramahansa. Literally supreme swan (a
symbol of spiritual discrimination), the title signifies one who
manifests the supreme state of unbroken communion with God.

During the 1930s, Paramahansa Yogananda began to withdraw
somewhat from his nationwide public lecturing so as to devote
himself to the writings that would carry his message to future
generations, and to building an enduring foundation for the
spiritual and humanitarian work of Self-Realization
Fellowship (known in India as Yogoda Satsanga Society of
India).

Under his direction, the personal guidance and instruction
that he had given to students of his classes was arranged into a
comprehensive series of

Self-Realization Fellowship Lessons for home study.

Yogananda’s
life story,
Autobiography of a Yogi, was published in 1946 and
expanded by him in subsequent editions. A perennial best seller,
the book has been in continuous publication since it first
appeared and has been translated into 18 languages. It is widely
regarded as a modern spiritual classic.
On
March 7, 1952, Paramahansa Yogananda entered
mahasamadhi,
a God-illumined master’s conscious exit from the body at the
time of physical death. His passing was marked by an
extraordinary phenomenon. A notarized statement signed by the
Director of Forest Lawn Memorial-Park testified: “No physical
disintegration was visible in his body even twenty days after
death….This state of perfect preservation of a body is, so far
as we know from mortuary annals, an unparalleled
one….Yogananda’s body was apparently in a phenomenal state of
immutability.”

On the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of
Paramahansa Yogananda’s passing, his far-reaching contributions
to the spiritual upliftment of humanity were given formal
recognition by the Government of India. A special commemorative
stamp was issued in his honor, together with a tribute that
read, in part:

“The ideal of love for God and service to humanity found
full expression in the life of Paramahansa Yogananda….Though
the major part of his life was spent outside India, still he
takes his place among our great saints. His work continues to
grow and shine ever more brightly, drawing people everywhere
on the path of the pilgrimage of the Spirit.”