Paramahansa Yogananda (1893–1952) was the yogi who carried Kriya Yoga from the Himalayas to the wider world. Through his teaching and his beloved Autobiography of a Yogi, he introduced millions in the West to the science of meditation and to the masters of the Kriya lineage — Babaji, Lahiri Mahasaya and his own guru, Sri Yukteswar.

The Disciple Long Awaited

Born Mukunda Lal Ghosh in Gorakhpur, India, he showed an intense spiritual longing from childhood. As a young man he found his guru, Sri Yukteswar, who trained him for ten years and gave him the monastic name Yogananda — “bliss through divine union.” Sri Yukteswar foreknew his coming and embraced him as one long expected.

The Mission to the West

In 1920 Yogananda sailed to America to address a congress of religious leaders, and he remained for most of the rest of his life, teaching Kriya Yoga to Western audiences who had never encountered such a science. He founded Self-Realization Fellowship (1920) and, in India, Yogoda Satsanga Society (1917) to preserve and disseminate the teachings. He lectured to packed halls across the United States and showed that the deepest truths of India could speak to the modern, scientific mind.

Autobiography of a Yogi

Published in 1946, Autobiography of a Yogi became one of the most influential spiritual books of the twentieth century, never out of print and translated into dozens of languages. Its warm, vivid stories of saints, miracles and the search for God have drawn countless readers onto the path. It remains the warmest doorway into the whole tradition.

His Message

Yogananda taught that direct, personal experience of God — not mere belief — is the purpose of religion, and that Kriya Yoga is a practical, universal method to attain it. “Self-realisation,” he said, is “the knowing in all parts of body, mind and soul that you are now in possession of the kingdom of God.” He taught the original unity of yoga and true Christianity, the scientific nature of meditation, and a balanced life of inner devotion and outer service.

Mahasamadhi and the Incorruptible Body

Yogananda entered mahasamadhi on 7 March 1952 in Los Angeles. In a widely noted statement, the director of Forest Lawn Memorial Park certified that his body showed no visible signs of decay for weeks after death — “the most extraordinary case in our experience,” he wrote — a phenomenon his followers regard as outer testimony to the inner state he had attained.