Yogananda – authentic spiritual master and messenger of spirituality in the West

Paramahamsa Yogananda, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh on January 5, 1893 in Gorakhpur, India, is considered to be one of the great spiritual personalities of India.

He is the one who made Kriya Yoga known in western countries, especially in the United States, through his famous book “Autobiography of a Yogi”. First published in 1946, and later translated into over 18 languages, it became a best seller, which fascinated and incited many spiritual seekers.

From his early youth, Mukunda sought answers

He went to various sages, or Indian gurus, hoping to find an enlightened master to guide him in his spiritual quests.
Yogananda’s search ended when, in 1910, at the age of 17, she met her master – guru Swami Yukteswar Giri. He described this first encounter with his Master as a revelation on the nature of the karmic bonds between him and Yukteshwar, which spanned several previous lives.

In 1915 he graduated from the College of Serampore within the University of Calcutta with a bachelor’s degree in arts. This allows him spend more time in Yukteshwar’s ashram in Serampore.

Also during this time he takes some vows to enter the monastic order swami, and thus becomes “Swami Yogananda Giri”.

In 1917, Yogananda founded a spiritual school in West Bengal, in Dihika, the school that would later become the Yogoda Satsanga Society in India, the Indian branch of the American Yogananda Organization.

In 1920 Yogananda arrives for the first time in the States United, where he participates as India’s delegate to Congress International of Religious Liberals, in the city of Boston.

In the same year he founded the “Self Realisation Fellowship”

Through this he spreads throughout the world his spiritual teachings about the Indian millenary practices and philosophies of Yoga-i and meditation.

For several years, he lectures and teaches on the East Coast, and in 1924, he toured the American continent. Thousands of people come to listen to him, attracted by his spiritual teachings and charisma. Among them are celebrities such as soprano Amelita Galli –Turkeys, tenor Vladimir Rosing, and Clara Clemens Gabrilowitsch, daughter of Mark Twain.

The following year he moved to Los Angeles, where he founded the International Center for Self-Realization in Los Angeles, California. It will become, the spiritual and administrative heart of its entire activity in this country.
He lived here between 1920 and 1952 with a one-year interruption (1935-1936), when he returned to India to visit his guru, and to meet other living saints, such as Therese Neumann -the stigmatized woman of Konnesreuth, as well as other places of particular spiritual significance.

In 1935, when he returned to India to visit his master

on Sri Yukteswar, it gives it the title of Paramahamsa – in translation “the swan suprema”, and which indicates the supreme spiritual touch of the one who wears it. Unfortunately, his master dies a year later, when Yogananda was visiting Calcutta.

After returning to America

he continues to lecture, write, and spread the precious spiritual teachings to those who felt drawn to this kind of knowledge.

Among its basic teachings is Kriya Yoga, which means the union (yoga) with the supreme consciousness, through a certain action or ritual (kriya). Rădacina, the word Kriya in Sanskrit is kri, which means to do, to act, or to react.

Kriya Yoga was transmitted to Yogananda through a direct line of masters, starting with Mahavatar Babaji. About Kriya Yoga, Yogananda also speaks in her book “The Autobiography of a Yogi”, where she gives a general description of it, mentioning the fact that this Yoga cannot be learned without having an authentic master.

On March 7, 1952 Yogananda dies

during an official dinner in Los Angeles, California, at the end of his speech in honor of India’s ambassador to the United States – Binay Ranjan Sen.
Those who were present say that he entered directly into the Mahasamadhi, reaching the state of nirvikalpa samadhi, or total enlightenment.