Early Life and Spiritual Search

Sri Sri Paramahansa Yogananda was born Mukunda Lal Ghosh on January 5, 1893, in the holy city of Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh. From his earliest years, it was clear that his life was marked for a divine destiny. According to those closest to him, even as a child the depth of his awareness and experience of the spiritual was far beyond the ordinary. In his youth he sought out sages and saints, hoping to find an enlightened guru.

It was in 1910, at the age of seventeen, that he met and became a disciple of the revered sage Sri Sri Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri. Sri Yukteswarji was one of a line of exalted gurus with whom Yoganandaji had been linked from birth: Sri Yogananda's parents were disciples of Sri Sri Lahiri Mahasaya, guru of Swami Sri Yukteswarji. When Yoganandaji was an infant in his mother's arms, Lahiri Mahasaya, had blessed him and foretold: "Little mother, thy son will be a yogi. As a spiritual engine, he will carry many souls to God's kingdom." Lahiri Mahasaya was a disciple of Sri Sri Mahavatar Babaji, the deathless master who revived in this age the ancient science of Kriya Yoga. Mahavatar Babaji then revealed the sacred Kriya to Lahiri Mahasaya, who handed it down to Sri Yukteswarji, who taught it to Paramahansa Yogananda.

The Beginning of a World Mission

After Sri Yogananda graduated from Calcutta University in 1915, his guru bestowed on him the formal vows of a sannyasi of the venerable monastic Swami Order. In 1917, at his guru’s behest he began his organisational work with the founding of Yogoda Satsanga Society of India. He started an ashram in Ranchi, Jharkhand, which included a "how-to-live" school for boys, where modern educational methods were combined with yoga training and instruction in spiritual ideals.

Perpetuating these principles, the Yogoda educational institutions now comprise twenty-three schools for boys and girls throughout India. These include a degree college in arts, commerce, and science, a boys' school, girls' school, music school, pre-school, Sevashrama clinic with allopathic and homeopathic sections, and an eye clinic in Ranchi, a degree college in Palpara; and higher secondary schools, primary schools, and homeopathic medical dispensaries in Bherir Bazar, Chandigarh, Ghatal, Ismalichak, Kulabahal, Lakhanpur, Palpara, Payarachak, and Suraikhet.

Three years later, in 1920, Yoganandaji was invited to serve as India's delegate to an International Congress of Religious Liberals convening in Boston, U.S.A. Just before his departure, Mahavatar Babaji blessed him and confirmed his divinely ordained world mission: "You are the one I have chosen to spread the message of Kriya Yoga in the West. Long ago I met your guru Yukteswar at a Kumbha Mela; I told him then I would send you to him for training. Kriya Yoga, the scientific technique of God-realization, will ultimately spread in all lands, and aid in harmonising the nations through man's personal, transcendental perception of the Infinite Father."

A Pioneer of Yoga in the West

Paramahansaji's maiden address in Boston, on "The Science of Religion," was enthusiastically received. For the next several years, Paramahansaji lectured and taught on the East coast of the United States, and in 1924 he embarked on a cross-continental speaking tour. In Los Angeles, he began a two-month series of lectures and classes in January of 1925. As elsewhere, his talks were greeted with interest and acclaim. 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 3,000-seat hall filled to its utmost capacity." Later that year, Yoganandaji established in Los Angeles the international headquarters of Self-Realization Fellowship. Yogoda Satsanga Society of India and Self-Realization Fellowship were founded by Sri Sri Paramahansa Yogananda as the instruments for the dissemination of his teachings on the ancient science and philosophy of Yoga and its liberating Raja Yoga technique of meditation.

Return to India (1935-36)

Paramahansaji returned to India in 1935 for a long-awaited reunion with his guru, Swami Sri Yukteswarji. It was while he was here that Sri Yukteswarji bestowed on him India's highest spiritual title Paramahansa. During his eighteen-month trip, he also travelled through Europe and gave classes and lectures in London and Rome, as well as all over India. Reporting on one of Paramahansaji's classes, a Mysore newspaper, The Daily Post wrote: "The audience was very enthusiastic and attentive Town Hall, the largest hall in Bangalore ¦was packed to overflowing with 3,000 some on windowsills, in aisles, doorways, on the stage, and standing outside...seeking to know God." While in his motherland, Yoganandaji devoted much of his attention to the guidance of his disciples and his Yogoda Satsanga work. He established a permanent foundation for the Society and its centres in various parts of India.

Mahatma Gandhi invited Paramahansaji to his Wardha ashram. At Gandhiji's request Yoganandaji initiated the Mahatma and a few satyagrahis into the liberating technique of Kriya Yoga. In the South the guru was an official guest of the State of Mysore. Here he was greeted by Sir C. V. Raman, Nobel laureate and President of the Indian Academy of Science. In Arunachala, the guru met the renowned sage Ramana Maharshi (below left). Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya (below centre), founder of the Banaras Hindu University and many other educators and leaders greeted him. He also met the revered saint Ananda Moyi Ma (below right).

A Spiritual Foundation

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 Yogoda Satsanga Society of India/Self-Realization Fellowship.

Under his direction, the personal guidance and instruction that he had given to students of his classes was arranged into a comprehensive series of Yogoda Satsanga Society of India Lessons for home study.

A beautiful Hermitage overlooking the Pacific Ocean at Encinitas, California, had been built for the Guru during his absence in India by his beloved disciple Sri Sri Rajarsi Janakananda. Here the Guru spent many years working on his autobiography and other writings, and began the Retreat programme which continues to this day.

He also founded several Self-Realization Fellowship temples (Encinitas, Hollywood, and San Diego), speaking regularly there to devoted audiences of SRF members and friends on a vast array of spiritual subjects. Many of these talks, which were recorded stenographically by Sri Sri Daya Mata, have since been published by YSS/SRF in the three volumes of Yoganandaji’s Collected Talks and Essays and in Yogoda Satsanga Magazine.

Yogananda’s life story, Autobiography of a Yogi, was published in 1946 (and significantly 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 34 languages. It is widely regarded as a modern spiritual classic.

In 1950, Paramahansaji held the first Self-Realization Fellowship World Convocation at its International Headquarters in Los Angeles — a weeklong event that today attracts thousands each year from all around the globe. He also dedicated the beautiful SRF Lake Shrine in Pacific Palisades, enshrining a portion of Mahatma Gandhi’s ashes in the ten-acre lakeside meditation gardens that has since become one of California’s most prominent spiritual landmarks.

Final Years and Mahasamadhi

On March 7, 1952, Paramahansaji 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 notarised 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."

His passing occasioned an outpouring of reverent appreciation from spiritual leaders, dignitaries, friends, and disciples all over the world. His Holiness Swami Sivananda, founder of The Divine Life Society, wrote: "A rare gem of inestimable value, the like of whom the world is yet to witness, Paramahansa Yogananda has been an ideal representative of the ancient sages and seers, the glory of India."

In 1977, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the mahasamadhi of Paramahansa Yogananda, the Government of India issued a commemorative stamp in his honour. With the stamp, the Government published a descriptive leaflet, which 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 of 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."

Today the spiritual and humanitarian work begun by Paramahansa Yogananda continues under the guidance of Sri Sri Mrinalini Mata, one of his closest disciples. As Sanghamata and President of Yogoda Satsanga Society of India/Self-Realization Fellowship. Mrinalini Mataji faithfully carries out Paramahansa Yoganandaji's ideals and wishes for the dissemination of his teachings worldwide. In addition to publishing Paramahansa Yogananda's books, lectures, writings and informal talks - including a comprehensive series ofYogoda Satsanga Lessons for home study - YSS/SRF guides members in their practice of Sri Yoganandaji's teachings; oversees YSS/SRF ashrams, temples, retreats, kendras, and meditation centres around the world, as well as the YSS/SRF monastic communities; and coordinates the Worldwide Prayer Circle, which serves as an instrument to help bring healing to those in physical, mental, or spiritual need, and greater harmony among the nations.