Yogananda

YOGANANDA (1893–1952) was one of the earliest and most influential of the Hindu gurus to come to the West. Growing up in Calcutta in Bengal, India, he was a product of the Bengali Neo-Vedāntic Renaissance and was influenced by the saint Sri Ramakrishna (1836–1886).

The Neo-Vedāntic Renaissance originated in Bengal, one of the areas of India with the most exposure to Western culture as a result of British colonialism. The movement sought to reassert the vigor and worth of Hindu spirituality and philosophy while being open to influences from other religions and Western science and values. Yogananda was affiliated with a lineage of gurus that sought to integrate Hindu spirituality with a modern, Western-influenced lifestyle. Yogananda felt that he had a special destiny: to introduce Hindu concepts and spiritual techniques to westerners. He did this by disseminating a practice called kriyā yoga through his organization, the Self-Realization Fellowship, and by the publication of his books. His most famous published work is his Autobiography of a Yogi, first published in 1946, which has been translated into eighteen languages.

Yogananda was born Mukunda Lal Ghosh, the son of a railway executive in Bengal. His parents were disciples of Lahiri Mahasaya (1828–1895), a householder guru (he continued his married family life while being a guru) who taught a spiritual technique called kriyā yoga.

As a boy, Mukunda's first mentor in spirituality was "M." or Mahendra Nath Gupta, a disciple of Sri Ramakrishna and author of Śrīśrīrāmākṛṣṇakathamṛta, which was shaped by Swami Nikhilananda into The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. M. took Mukunda to worship at the Kālī temple at Dakshineswar, which had been Ramakrishna's residence, and stimulated Mukunda's first mystical experience. One day after M. and his young protégé were exiting a bioscope (an early motion picture), M. tapped Mukunda on his chest. Suddenly all noise on the busy street stopped for Mukunda. He saw the pedestrians and vehicles, but all was silent, and he observed a luminous glow emanating from all phenomena. This experience was the basis of Yogananda's later teaching that the physical world has the reality of a motion picture or a dream.

In 1910 Mukunda became the disciple of Swami Sri Yukteswar (1955–1936), who was a direct disciple of Lahiri Mahasaya. Mukunda completed his A.B. degree at Serampore College. He then took vows of sannyasa (renunciation) and became Swami Yogananda. In 1917 Yogananda demonstrated his considerable administrative ability by founding a boys' school, which he ran under the auspices of an organization he named the Yogoda Satsanga Society.

After Swami Yogananda came to the United States from India in 1920, he attracted numerous disciples by means of his public lectures and writings. Yogananda built up an organization called the Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) to disseminate his presentation of the wisdom and spiritual techniques of Hinduism. Yogananda first came to the United States to deliver an invited lecture to the International Congress of Religious Liberals, sponsored by the American Unitarian Association. He subsequently spoke to large audiences across the United States from 1924 to 1927. In 1925 an estate was acquired at Mount Washington in Los Angeles, California, to be the headquarters of his organization, which was incorporated in 1935 as the Self-Realization Fellowship. In that same year his guru gave him the title Paramahansa ("supreme swan") indicating that he had achieved the highest enlightenment and, while in India on a visit, he initiated Mohandas Gandhi into kriyā yoga. In 1946 Yogananda published his most famous book, Autobiography of a Yogi, in which he describes his meetings with Eastern and Western saints and discusses visions and miracles that demonstrate the availability of supernormal powers and enlightenment to adepts of all religious traditions. In the ensuing years the SRF established a hermitage at Encinitas, California, a temple in San Diego, the Church of All Religions in Hollywood, and the Lake Shrine at Pacific Palisades, California, where a portion of Gandhi's ashes are kept. By 2004 the SRF additionally had forty-four centers and meditation groups in the United States as well as centers and groups in seventeen other countries.

Yogananda is regarded by his disciples as a premavatār, an incarnation of divine love. Yogananda stressed the deep emotional love for God that is associated with Hindu bhakti yoga. Members of the SRF rever Krishna and Christ as the two great gurus from whose works the teachings of Yogananda's lineage of gurus are derived. The SRF offers instruction in kriyā yoga and related philosophy and practices conveyed in a correspondence course called the SRF Lessons. Students pledge to keep the kriyā yoga technique secret from non-initiates. The SRF also has a monastic order for women and men headquartered at Mount Washington.

Yogananda passed away on March 7, 1952, after speaking at a banquet of the India Association of America at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles. His devotees believe that the lack of corruption displayed by his body for twenty days after his death was the physical manifestation of his yogic mastery. Rajarsi Janakananda (formerly James J. Lynn) took over the leadership of the SRF until his death in 1955. An American woman, Sri Daya Mata, has served as SRF president since 1955. The Self-Realization Fellowship continues to disseminate Yogananda's books and to offer instruction in kriyā yoga and other spiritual techniques. Although Yogananda has passed from the material world, he is regarded as a still-living master who continues to guide his disciples.

Gandhi, Mohandas.

Self-Realization Fellowship. Pictorial History of Self-Realization Fellowship (Yogoda Satsanga Society of America). Los Angeles, 1975. Helpful history of Yogananda and the SRF.

Wendell, Thomas. Hinduism Invades America. New York, 1930. Yogananda approved the chapter appearing on pages 177 to 245, which discusses his work.

Wessinger, Catherine. "Hinduism Arrives in America: The Vedanta Movement and the Self-Realization Fellowship." In America's Alternative Religions, edited by Timothy Miller. Albany, N.Y., 1995, pp. 173–190. Essay on Yogananda and Swami Vivekananda and the other swamis who first brought Hinduism to the United States.

Yogananda, Paramahansa. The Divine Romance. Los Angeles, 1986. Describes Yogananda's basic approach to loving God.

Yogananda, Paramahansa. Autobiography of a Yogi, 12th ed. Los Angeles, 1990. Yogananda's most famous and widely influential book.

Yogananda, Paramahansa. The Science of Religion. Los Angeles, 1990. Text of Yogananda's first lecture in America.