Paramahansa Yogananda

Paramahansa Yogananda ( Bengali: যোগানন্দ Yogānanda; Mukunda Lal Ghosh bourgeois; born January 5, 1893 in Gorakhpur, Bengal, † March 7, 1952 in Los Angeles, USA) was an Indian yoga master, philosopher and writer.

In Yogananda see his followers who worship him as their Guru, a Premavatar, a divine incarnation. As the founder of Yogoda Satsanga Society of India ( YSS ) in 1917 and the Self-Realization Fellowship ( SRF) in 1920 in the U.S., he made the Kriya Yoga, which is understood as being part of Raja Yoga, known in the West.

Yogananda grew up in a wealthy family. His father Bhagabati Charan Ghosh (1853-1942) was a high ranking official of the Indian Railways. His mother Gyana Prabha Ghosh (1868-1904) died young. Among his many siblings belongs to the internationally known bodybuilders and Bishnu Charan Ghosh Hathayogi. Yogananda met his guru Yukteswar Giri in 1910 at the age of 17 years. After completing his studies in 1915 at the Scottish Church College, connected to the University of Calcutta, he joined the Order. In 1917 he founded the Yogoda Satsanga Society of India ( YSS ) and a boys' school in Ranchi. Here he combined modern training methods with yoga training and spiritual techniques. Twenty years after his admission in Swami Yogananda orders received by Yukteswar the title Paramahansa awarded, which means " highest Swan" means a Hindu honorific title.

Kriya Yoga

Yogananda worked on the west by the mediation of Kriya Yoga, a spiritual technology. Yukteswar himself was a disciple of Lahiri Mahasaya, who in turn said to have been a disciple of Mahavatar Babaji. Babaji was also said to have revived Kriya Yoga, Lahiri Mahasaya and he is said to have begun to provide for the re- distribution of this technology. Yogananda brought this finally to the West.

Lecture tours in the West

Yogananda was prepared by his guru Yukteswar Giri through extensive training for his mission in the West. He left India reluctantly, and it should be a farewell forever. In 1920 he was invited, as an Indian delegate at the " Congress of Religious Liberals " in Boston participate. He remained in the West and held in the following years, lectures on the entire East Coast. In 1924 he undertook a lecture tour across the North American continent, where he filled large halls, such as Carnegie Hall in New York City and the Philharmonic Auditorium in Los Angeles until the last seat. 1925, Yogananda established the headquarters of the SRF, the International Mother Center in Los Angeles and devoted himself in the following years the structure of this organization.

In 1931, he met in Salt Lake City, Utah, later President of the SRF Daya Mata ( Faye Wright real name ) know and only a year later, James J.Lynn in Kansas City. His lecture tours he continued. Some of his students and closest friends helped him build the worldwide organization or helped him materially. 1927 received him, then American President Calvin Coolidge at the White House. 1935 brought him a 18- month journey through Europe and back to his home, to India. Later India Yogananda honored with a special stamp. In his travels Yogananda met famous people, such as Therese Neumann, the Hindu saint Anandamayi Ma, Mahatma Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore and the Nobel laureate and physicist CV Raman. The 1930s were marked by a retreat Yogananda from public life and the turn to literary activity in the seclusion of Encinitas: to introduce future generations his teaching.

Work

Yogananda put his teaching, first in 18 correspondence lessons is that should prepare for the Kriya Yoga initiation. The community he founded the self-realization ( SRF), registered in the U.S. as a church, added to these letters today to more than 180 pieces. In 1946 he published the Autobiography of a Yogi, which was an important work for the understanding of Indian philosophy in the West. This work, the authentic biography of an advanced yogi, has been translated into countless languages ​​and quickly became a yoga classic world.

Parallel Yogananda worked intensively on his commentaries on the Bhagavad Gita, God Talks with Arjuna, as well as those of the New Testament, that the Christian Bible, The Second Coming of Christ, The Resurrection of the Christ Within You, which could not be published during his lifetime. In his commentaries on the New Testament Yogananda developed in his opinion, fundamental unity between the teaching of Christ, the teachings of Krishna and of classical yoga.

To this day, Yogananda's humanitarian life's work of the launched of its constituent organizations, the Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF ) in the west and the Yogoda Satsanga Society of India ( YSS ), managed. These organizations have affiliated temples and meditation centers worldwide. After Yogananda's death in 1952 was Rajarsi Janakananda ( James J. Lynn ), a closest confidant Yogananda, at the top of the organization. He was succeeded in 1955 Daya Mata ( Faye Wright ), a long-time student of Yogananda, as President.