Paramahansa Yogananda was born in Gorakphur India January 5th 1893. Gorakphur is in the north of India and is associated with the great saint Gorakshanath who lived in the 10th – 12th Century. Yogananda was brought up in a devout loving Hindu family. At an early age Yogananda’s mother passed away and this pushed the young Mukunda (as he then was) into a deep grief. However this experience encouraged Yogananda to seek beyond the world and practise spiritual discipline.

In his famous autobiography of a Yogi he explains how his early life was filled with visiting various the various saints of Bengal and seeking to learn from their spiritual wisdom. One of these early teachers was Master Mahasaya who was a direct disciple of Sri Ramakrishna and wrote the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna. Yogananda’s interest in spiritual studies did not however extend to academic studies and his book explains how he sought to do as little academic work as possible. In fact at one point he left home to go on a pilgrimage to the Himalayas. His family however disapproved of his tendency to “renounce the world” and he was found by his brother and bought back. At the age of 17 years Yoganada met his Spiritual Master Sri Yukteswar. Sri Yukteswar was a disciple of Lahiri Mahasaya who in turn had received initiation from the immortal Babaji in the Himalayas. On becoming a disciple of Sri Yukteswar Yogananda spent most of his time in the ashram of his Master where he practised meditation for many hours on end seeking to attain a glimpse of the cosmic consciousness.

After many years of practise and another aborted trip to the Himalaya’s Yoganada attained his long sought after experience through the grace of his Master Sri Yutkeswar. Yogananda explains his experience of Samadhi

“My body became immovably rooted; breath was drawn out of my lungs as if by some huge magnet. Soul and mind instantly lost their physical bondage, and streamed out like a fluid piercing light from my every pore. The flesh was as though dead, yet in my intense awareness I knew that never before had I been fully alive. My sense of identity was no longer narrowly confined to a body, but embraced the circumambient atoms. People on distant streets seemed to be moving gently over my own remote periphery. The roots of plants and trees appeared through a dim transparency of the soil; I discerned the inward flow of their sap”

From: Chapter 14 Autobiography of a Yoga

In 1917 Yogananda started work as a teacher in a school in Ranchi. The school was a special combination of modern educational methods and the ancient Indian Yoga systems to promote spiritual and physical well being. Mahatma Gandhi visited the school and was moved to say:

“This institution has deeply impressed my mind.”  Increasingly Yogananda felt a call to travel to America and with his Guru’s blessings Yogananda left India for America in 1920 as a delegate to an international congress of religious leaders in Boston. In 1924 he returned to America to begin a lecture tour in which he offered the highest spiritual ideals of Vedanta in a format appropiate for modern American audiences. It was also in 1924 that Yogananda founded the Self Realisation Fellowship an organisation dedicated to promoting the ideals of Yogananda and providing an opportunity for seekers to practise his teachings.

Over the next 20 years the teachings of Yogananda prospered and many sincere seekers were attracted to the yoga system and teachings he offered. Therefore Yogananda sought to establish a spiritual community or ashram in Los Angeles. This has now become the headquarters of the Self Realisation Fellowship.
In 1935 Yogananda returned to India for 18 months. Here he embarked on another tour meeting many of India’s great saints of the days. These included Mahatma Gandhi, Ramana Maharshi and Sri Anandamayi Ma. And are recounted in his bestselling book “Autobiography of a Yogi”.

After returning to America Yoganada retreated somewhat from public life seeking to spend more time in meditation and writing spiritual guidance for the future when he was no longer living. On March 7th 1952 Yogananda entered mahasamadhi (which is a Yogi’s conscious decision to leave the body). He left behind a legacy of spiritual poetry and writings and his teaching flourish to this day.

By: Tejvan Pettinger

Related Pages

• Self Realisation Fellowship
• Autobiography of a Yogi

re-printed courtesy biographyonline.net

The Gurus of Sgt Pepper

George Harrison of the Beatles was a devotee of Yogananda, and Yogananda’s image appears on the cover of the album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band [1]. Mahavatar Babaji, Lahiri Mahasaya and Swami Sri Yukteswar, other gurus in Yogananda’s lineage, are also on the album cover. [2]

Harrison

Harrison liked to give away copies of his “Autobiography of a Yogi.” [3]

Harrison’s interest in India began during production of the Beatles’ second movie, Help! (1965), with its slapstick Hindu subplot. He was intrigued by the sitar used in an Indian restaurant scene filmed in London.

While beach scenes were being filmed in the Bahamas, the Beatles were approached by a man in orange robes who handed them a signed copy of his book on yoga.

It was Swami Vishnu-Devananda, the founder of Sivananda Yoga. Intrigued, Harrison began to study Hinduism. He then traveled to India to study the sitar with Ravi Shankar, who gave him a copy of Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi. [4]

Related:

THE SPIRITUAL BELIEFS
OF CHART-TOPPING ROCK STARS,
IN THEIR LIVES AND LYRICS

What do George Harrison, Peter Gabriel, Van Morrison, Jon Anderson (of Yes), Kerry Livgren (of Kansas), and Madonna have in common?

They’ve all been convinced, at one time or another, that Paramahansa Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi was a record of real events, which could beneficially be taken seriously. [5]

Be that as it may, Supertramp’s Roger Hodgson once wrote a song—“Babaji,” from 1977’s Even in the Quietest Moments album—inspired by Yogananda’s teachings. In that case, the lyrics were motivated by the Himalayan guru upon whose behest kriya yoga was given to the world, through Yogananda for one. Hodgson further spent time at the northern California “Ananda” ashram of one of Yogananda’s direct disciples—J. Donald Walters, a.k.a. Kriyananda. His sister Caroline has resided in the same community. Indeed, Roger met his future wife, Karuna, when the latter was living in a teepee in that very ashram.

George Harrison, although not himself a disciple of Yogananda, was interviewed for SRF’s “Lake Shrine” video, quoting there from Sri Yukteswar’s (1977) book, The Holy Science. (Ravi Shankar was featured in the same film. Shankar introduced George to Yogananda’s writings in 1966.) At Harrison’s prompting, images of four of the SRF line of gurus—Babaji, Lahiri Mahasaya, Sri Yukteswar and Yogananda—were included on the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s album cover collage. (Jesus was omitted so as to not further aggravate public religious feelings still raw from Lennon’s “the Beatles are more popular than Jesus Christ” observation.) References to Yogananda in Harrison’s solo work include the songs “Dear One,” “Life Itself” and “Fish on the Sand.” Harrison’s family further donated the U.S. proceeds from the re-release, in early 2002, of his “My Sweet Lord” single, to SRF.

Madonna—yes, that Madonna, again—has likewise spoken positively of Yogananda’s Autobiography. Pamela Anderson (2005) herself has swooned top-heavily over Paramahansa’s (1986) Divine Romance.And the brilliant comedian/actor Robin Williams—a friend of both George Harrison and Christopher Reeve, having roomed at Juilliard with the latter—actually subscribed to at least part of the SRF Lessons series. That, at least, according to a former-Deadhead monk whom I met during my own otherwise-unpleasant stay in the SRF ashrams, which will be detailed later on.

Gary “Dream Weaver” Wright—another friend of Harrison’s—has also been rumored to be an SRF member.

The King of Rock and Roll, too, found inspiration in the kriya yoga path:

Elvis loved material by guru Paramahansa Yogananda, the Hindu founder of the Self-Realization Fellowship (Cloud, 2000).

Following Yogananda’s passing, Presley—whom we may dub a hillolayavatar, or “incarnation of rock and roll”—actually made numerous phone calls and trips, over a twelve-year period, to see SRF’s Daya Mata. (Apparently she reminded him of his deceased mother, as did the Theosophical Society’s famously unkempt and grotesquely obese Madame Blavatsky.) Indeed, the Meditation Garden at Graceland—where Elvis came to be buried—is said to have been inspired by SRF’s Lake Shrine (Mason, 2003). Elvis actually “took this spiritual inquiry so seriously that he considered devoting the rest of his life to it by becoming a monk” (Hajdu, 2003). [6]

In the Footsteps of Paramahansa Yogananda

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These are the public domain photos from Paramhansa Yogananda’s ‘Autobiography of a Yogi’.

Photo album

Lahiri Mahasaya

A website devoted to the preservation of Kriya Yoga as taught by Yogiraj Sri Sri Lahiri Mahasay and his Eminent Disciples.

If you wish to link to Yoga Niketan (Kriya Library) please link to the opening page at www.yoganiketan.net

What you will find – the following materials can be read for free online:

• Paramhansa Swami Yogananda: Life Portrait and Reminiscences
• Spiritual Commentary on Srimad Bhagavad Gita by Yogiraj Sri Sri Shyamacharan Lahiri Mahasaya
• Patanjali Yoga Sutras – Spiritual Commentary by Yogiraj Sri Sri Lahiri Mahasaya

Yogananda said, “When I am gone, read my Whispers from Eternity. Eternally though it, I will talk to you…”

Start Reading

* Foreword
* Whispers from Eternity
* Key to Demands
* Hints to the Reader
* Watching the Cosmic Motion Picture of Life

Prayer Demands by Subject

* Sacred Demands to the Infinite
* Prayers for Universality
* Miscellaneous Demands
* Prayers of Devotion
* Prayer-Demands for Children

Poems, Chants, and More

* Chants
* Poems
* Our Dream World

Read it online