Yogananda was an Indian yogi who came to the United States in 1920 to spend over 30 years working with Americans interested in the practice of yoga or God-realization.
Background
Yogananda was born Mukunda Lal Ghose in 1893 in Gorakhpur, India.
Both of his parents were disciples of Lahiri Mahasaya, and his father was an executive of the Bengal-Nagpur Railway.
He lived in a world in which he encountered healings through photographs and physical contact with yogis, a vision which predicted the death of his mother, the materialization of an amulet, the ability to materialize an extra body, the miraculous restoration of a severed arm, clairvoyent knowledge of the future, and the ability to levitate.
Career
Yogananda means bliss through yoga or union with God, while Paramahansa means highest swan.
The sacred swan was thought to have the power to extract milk from a mixture of milk and water and is therefore a symbol of spiritual discrimination.
His Autobiography of a Yogi depicts his search for God-realization and for a spiritual teacher who could guide him to that goal.
It describes his encounter with numerous Indian holy men, most of whom possessed supranormal powers.
The specific method for God-realization was kriya yoga.
A year later, the Maharajah of Kasimbazar donated his palace and 25 acres of land in Bihar for this school, which was named Yogoda Satsanga Vidyalaya.
Its counterpart in the United States is the Self-Realization Fellowship.
The American Missionary As numerous other Indian gurus who came to the United States in the 20th century, Yogananda came as a result of an order from his guru Sri Yukteswar, who told him to "spread to all peoples the knowledge of the self-liberating yoga techniques. "
He began that mission in 1920 when he addressed the International Congress of Religious Liberals in Boston on the topic "The Science of Religion. "
Self-Realization Fellowship centers were also established in major cities.
Temples were built in Hollywood (1942), San Diego (1943), and Long Beach (1947).
Yogananda was convinced that the yoga that he taught could be found in all scriptures and was the essence of all religions.
The Ten Commandments were seen as the first step of Patanjali's yoga.
Yogananda also used his understanding of yoga to interpret the sayings of Jesus and Paul, being convinced that both Jesus and Paul were yoga masters.
He was certain that a Western Christian would find nothing contradictory in adopting his kriya yoga once both Christianity and yoga were properly understood.
He found it equally comfortable to quote from the Old and New Testaments as from Indian religious texts.
A yogi consciously exits from the body at the appropriate time.
Yogananda's "exit" was on March 7, 1952.
It was reported that 20 days after his death his body showed no signs of deterioration.
The report received considerable publicity in newspapers and magazines.
Further Reading The most important source for the life of Yogananda is his Autobiography of a Yogi, a 572-page account of his life published by the Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) in 1946.
After that one can proceed to some of the works of Yogananda also published by the SRF.
Those works are The Science of Religion (1953), Scientific Healing Affirmations (1958), Cosmic Chants (1938, 1943), Metaphysical Meditations (n. d. ), Whispers from Eternity (1959), and Songs of the Soul (1983).
