On his Birth Anniversary
By Tushar Joshi
“Little mother, thy son will be a yogi. As a spiritual engine, he will carry many souls to God’s kingdom.” With these spiritual blessings, Lahiri Mahasaya, the householder saint of Varanasi, blessed infant Mukunda in his lap. This prophecy foretold the life that was to come for the child Mukunda, later known to the world as Paramahansa Yogananda.
Born to a devout Bengali Hindu family on 5 January, 1893, at Gorakhpur, Mukunda’s earliest recollections were of a past life as a Himalayan yogi. His parents, Bhagbati Charan Ghosh and mother Gyana Prabha Ghosh, were householder yogis, initiated into the science of Kriya Yoga by Lahiri Mahasaya. The early loss of his mother triggered in Mukunda the longing for the Divine Mother. Years of soul stirring prayers, travels to the Himalayas and heaven shaking determination
for God culminated in Mukunda finding his Guru, Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri, in 1910.
Mukunda’s meeting with his Guru was not an event per chance, rather a part of the divine mission planned by the ever-living Mahavatar Babaji and Lahiri Mahasaya. Sri Yukteswar had been informed of this divine plan by Mahavatar Babaji himself in the Prayagraj Kumbha Mela of 1894.
“Some years hence, I shall send you a disciple whom you can train for yoga dissemination in the West. The vibrations there of many spiritually seeking souls come flood like to me. I perceive potential saints in America and Europe, waiting to be awakened,” were Babaji’s instructions to Sri Yukteswar.
After years of training at his master’s hermitage, practice of Kriya Yoga meditation and experiences into universal consciousness of samadhi, Mukunda was initiated as a monk of the Swami order by Swami Sri Yukteswar in July 1915. The name chosen for him was Yogananda meaning “bliss (ananda) through divine union (yoga)”. As per his Guru’s wishes, Yogananda had already obtained a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Calcutta a month earlier. Foreseeing his disciple’s future responsibilities, Swami Sri Yukteswar encouraged Swami Yogananda to take up organisational responsibilities. What started in 1917 as an ashram for boys in the small town of Dihika in Bengal was transformed into Yogoda Satsanga Brahmacharya Vidyalaya at Ranchi in 1918 with the help of Maharaja Manindra Chand Nundy of Kasimbazaar.
Yogananda’s organisation is known today by the name, ‘Yogoda Satsanga Society of India’ (YSS), and has more than 200 kendras, ashrams and meditation circles across the country where his teachings and the knowledge of Kriya Yoga science are disseminated.
Swami Yogananda’s mission in the West began in 1920 with an invitation to serve as a delegate from India to the International Congress of Religious Liberals in Boston, America. Presenting India’s age-old wisdom as The Science of Religion, Yogananda was able to create a receptivity towards yoga science in a more logic oriented American society. With an increasing base of students willing to dedicate their lives to the path of yoga and asceticism, Yogananda established the international headquarters of his Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) in 1925 at Los Angeles, California. The title of Paramahansa was bestowed upon him by his guru in the year 1935.
Bringing harmony between the East and the West by revelation of common scientific principles underlying all religions was amongst the chief missions entrusted upon Yogananda by his Gurus.
With his “Autobiography of a Yogi” inspiring millions and serving as an entry door towards India’s offerings to the world, Yogananda is today more fondly known as the father of Yoga in the west.
His teachings have inspired, among others, the likes of Steve Jobs, George Harrison of the Beatles, sitarist Ravi Shankar, cricketer Virat Kohli and Thalaiva Rajinikanth on their own spiritual journeys. In Swami Sivananda’s words, “A rare gem of inestimable value, the like of whom the world is yet to witness, HH Sri Paramhansa Yogananda has been an ideal representative of the ancient sages and seers, the glory of India.”
