Hinduism · Yoga · Bhakti · Advaita Vedanta
Paramahansa Yogananda
পরমহংস যোগানন্দ · মুকুন্দলাল ঘোষ · परमहंस योगानन्द
1893 – 1952Historically documented person
Bengali monk of the Kriya Yoga lineage (Mahavatar Babaji, Lahiri Mahasaya, Sri Yukteswar) who lived in the United States from 1920 until his death. He founded Self-Realization Fellowship and Yogoda Satsanga Society of India, initiated tens of thousands into meditation and wrote Autobiography of a Yogi (1946), one of the most widely read spiritual books of the twentieth century. He taught the unity of Krishna's yoga and original Christianity. His publishing legacy and the accounts of his death remain contested.
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Paramahansa Yogananda, retrato de la «pose estándar» · Public domain
In their words
«The characteristic features of Indian culture have long been a search for ultimate verities and the concomitant disciple-guru relationship.»Autobiography of a Yogi (1946), cap. 1, «My Parents and Early Life», primera frase
Their central idea
Kriya yoga: A meditation technique based on controlling life energy along the spine, which Yogananda presents as an ancient science revived by Mahavatar Babaji and spread by Lahiri Mahasaya from 1861.
See in context
Biography
5 min read
A child of Gorakhpur in a household of disciples
Mukunda Lal Ghosh was born on 5 January 1893 in Gorakhpur, in the north of British India, the fourth of eight children in a Bengali family of the kayastha caste. His father, Bhagabati Charan Ghosh, was a senior official of the Bengal-Nagpur Railway; his mother, Gyana Prabha, died when the boy was eleven. Both were disciples of Lahiri Mahasaya, the Benares householder who in the second half of the nineteenth century had spread a meditation technique called kriya yoga. That domestic inheritance—a photograph of the master on the wall, the memory of a healing attributed to him—is the starting point of everything Yogananda would later tell. It should be said at the outset that almost everything we know of his childhood comes from his own account, written half a century later with a devotional and teaching purpose.
Sri Yukteswar and the order of swamis
A restless adolescent, Mukunda sought out saints and ascetics in Calcutta and Benares and once ran away from home towards the Himalayas. In 1910, aged seventeen, he met in Benares the man who would be his guru: Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri, a disciple of Lahiri Mahasaya, amateur astronomer, author of The Holy Science and head of a small hermitage at Serampore on the Hooghly. For ten years he alternated the discipline of that hermitage with studies at Serampore College, affiliated to the University of Calcutta, from which he graduated in 1915. In July of that year his master gave him the vows of the monastic Swami order, Giri branch, and he took the name Yogananda, "bliss through divine union".
In 1917 he founded at Dihika, in Bengal, a school for boys that combined the ordinary curriculum with yoga and outdoor life; the following year, through the patronage of the Maharaja of Kasimbazar, it moved to Ranchi. From it grew Yogoda Satsanga Society of India, the body that still looks after his work on the subcontinent.
Boston, 1920: yoga as the science of religion
In August 1920 he sailed for the United States as India's delegate to the International Congress of Religious Liberals, convened in Boston by the American Unitarian Association. His address, "The Science of Religion", put forward a thesis he would repeat all his life: that the religions share one goal—the direct experience of God as bliss—and that yoga offers a verifiable method for reaching it. That same year he founded in Boston the organisation that from 1935 would be called Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF).
Over the following decade he was very probably the most visible Indian teacher in North America. He crossed the country with lecture series that filled halls with thousands of people, advertised as courses in "Yogoda", a system of "energization" exercises and concentration sold in instalments. In 1925 he established his headquarters in the former Mount Washington hotel in Los Angeles. In 1927 President Calvin Coolidge received him at the White House. Historians—Anya Foxen and Philip Goldberg among them—stress how skilfully he translated yoga into the idiom of practical psychology, personal success and American liberal Christianity. That success had its shadow: the press linked him to the "Hindu menace", there was racial hostility in some cities, and in 1929 his former associate Swami Dhirananda sued him for unpaid wages.
Return to India and the title of Paramahansa
In 1935–36 he travelled back to India by way of Europe and the Near East. At Konnersreuth in Bavaria he visited the stigmatic Therese Neumann; at Wardha, Gandhi, to whom by his own account he taught the kriya technique; he also met Ramana Maharshi and Anandamayi Ma. Sri Yukteswar conferred on him the monastic title of paramahansa, "supreme swan", and died at Puri on 9 March 1936. On his return to California his wealthiest disciple, the Kansas City businessman James J. Lynn, gave him the hermitage at Encinitas on the Pacific cliffs.
The Autobiography and the writing years
In that hermitage he spent a decade writing the book that would outlive him: Autobiography of a Yogi, published in New York by The Philosophical Library in December 1946. It is hard to classify: memoir, hagiography of his lineage—Mahavatar Babaji, Lahiri Mahasaya, Sri Yukteswar—, catalogue of saints and wonders and initiation manual all at once. What it relates about levitations, materialisations or resurrections is, for the historian, testimony of faith rather than documented fact, and it is presented as such in this Atlas. Its influence, by contrast, is a fact: translated into more than fifty languages and sold in several million copies, it is among the books that have brought most Westerners to meditation. The 1946 first edition is now in the public domain in the United States; SRF has continued to revise the text in later editions.
In the same years he produced the commentaries that SRF would publish after his death—on the Bhagavad Gita, the Gospels and Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat—which first appeared in instalments in his magazines East-West and Inner Culture. In 1946, after the change in immigration law, he applied for American citizenship, granted in 1949. In 1950 he dedicated the Lake Shrine at Pacific Palisades, with a memorial to Gandhi that holds part of his ashes.
Death at the Biltmore
On 7 March 1952, at a banquet at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles in honour of the Indian ambassador Binay Ranjan Sen, he gave a short speech and read the closing lines of his poem "My India". According to SRF witnesses he collapsed as he finished. The death certificate gave acute coronary occlusion as the cause; his disciples speak of mahasamadhi, the conscious exit from the body. He is buried at Forest Lawn, Glendale.
A contested legacy
Yogananda's inheritance is also a story of institutions. SRF and Yogoda Satsanga Society, led after him by Rajarsi Janakananda (Lynn), Sri Daya Mata and their successors, hold his Lessons, his recordings and his publishing rights. In 1962 SRF dismissed one of its monks, Swami Kriyananda (J. Donald Walters), who in 1968 founded the Ananda community near Nevada City. The suit SRF brought against Ananda in 1990 over the use of the words "Self-Realization" and over the copyrights in the master's works, photographs and recordings lasted twelve years: the courts denied SRF exclusive rights to the name and to his image, and the 2002 jury upheld its ownership of the copyrights and found infringement over certain recordings. Ananda, for its part, reissues the first edition of the Autobiography and defends its own versions of his teachings.
Another subject of controversy is the account of his "incorrupt" body, based on a letter from the Forest Lawn mortuary director whose full version mentioned an ordinary embalming. What remains beyond dispute is the reach of his work: Yogananda was the first Indian guru to live almost all his adult life in the West and to leave there an institution able to outlive him.
Sources: Yogananda, Paramhansa. Autobiography of a Yogi. Nueva York: The Philosophical Library, 1946 (1.ª ed.; texto en Project Gutenberg #7452). · Goldberg, Philip. The Life of Yogananda: The Story of the Yogi Who Became the First Modern Guru. Carlsbad (California): Hay House, 2018. · Yogananda, Swami. The Science of Religion. Los Ángeles: Yogoda and Sat-Sanga Headquarters, 4.ª ed., septiembre de 1925 (copyright 1924; 1.ª ed. en la India). Ejemplar digitalizado en Internet Archive. · Self-Realization Fellowship. Paramahansa Yogananda: In Memoriam. Los Ángeles: Self-Realization Fellowship, 1958 (reproduce la carta notarial de Harry T. Rowe, director de la funeraria de Forest Lawn, publicada antes en Self-Realization, mayo-junio de 1952). · Kriyananda, Swami (J. Donald Walters). The Path: Autobiography of a Western Yogi. Nevada City (California): Ananda Publications, 1977; reeditado como The New Path, Crystal Clarity, 2009.
Timeline
A life, year by year
Each point is a documented event. Click to read it, with its source and degree of certainty.
January 5, 1893age 0Gorakhpur
Birth of Mukunda Lal Ghosh
Born into a Bengali family; his parents, Bhagabati Charan Ghosh and Gyana Prabha, are disciples of Lahiri Mahasaya.
DocumentedWikidata, «Paramahansa Yogananda» (Q312549): nacimiento 05-01-1893 en Gorakhpur, muerte 07-03-1952 en Los Ángeles, sepultura en Forest Lawn (Glendale); 84 enlaces entre wikis.
After their death
- 1962Kriyananda's departure
- 1990SRF v. Ananda lawsuit
January 5, 1893 · age 0
Birth of Mukunda Lal Ghosh
Born into a Bengali family; his parents, Bhagabati Charan Ghosh and Gyana Prabha, are disciples of Lahiri Mahasaya.
Documented
1904 · age 11
Death of his mother
The death of Gyana Prabha, which he dates to his eleventh year, opens by his own account an intense spiritual search.
Probable
1910 · age 17
Meeting Sri Yukteswar
Meets Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri, a disciple of Lahiri Mahasaya, and becomes his disciple at the Serampore hermitage.
Documented
July 1915 · age 22
Swami vows: Yogananda
After graduating from Serampore College (University of Calcutta), he takes the vows of the Swami order, Giri branch, with the name Yogananda.
Documented
1917 · age 24
Ranchi school and Yogoda Satsanga Society
Founds at Dihika a school for boys that moves to Ranchi in 1918 with the support of the Maharaja of Kasimbazar; origin of Yogoda Satsanga Society of India.
Documented
October 1920 · age 27
Congress of Religious Liberals
Indian delegate to the International Congress of Religious Liberals; delivers "The Science of Religion" and founds the organisation that will become Self-Realization Fellowship.
Documented
1925 · age 32
Mount Washington headquarters
Acquires the former Mount Washington hotel, which becomes SRF's international headquarters.
Documented
1927 · age 34
Received by Calvin Coolidge
President Coolidge receives him at the White House; the press reports it as an unprecedented visit by an Indian teacher.
Documented
1929 · age 36
Swami Dhirananda's lawsuit
His former associate Basu Kumar Bagchi (Swami Dhirananda) sues him for unpaid wages and royalties; the case is settled.
Documented
1935 · age 42
Journey to India and title of Paramahansa
Visits Therese Neumann in Bavaria and Gandhi at Wardha; Sri Yukteswar confers on him the title of paramahansa. Self-Realization Fellowship is legally incorporated.
Documented
March 9, 1936 · age 43
Death of Sri Yukteswar
His master dies at Puri while he is in Calcutta; the chapter on Sri Yukteswar's "resurrection" in the Autobiography is a visionary account.
Documented
1936 · age 43
The Encinitas hermitage
Back in California he receives as a gift from James J. Lynn (Rajarsi Janakananda) the Encinitas hermitage, where he will write the Autobiography.
Documented
December 1946 · age 53
Publication of Autobiography of a Yogi
The Philosophical Library publishes the first edition; that edition is now in the public domain in the United States.
Documented
1949 · age 56
American citizenship
Obtains the citizenship he had applied for in 1946, after the Luce–Celler Act.
Documented
August 1950 · age 57
Dedication of the Lake Shrine
Dedicates the Lake Shrine and the Gandhi World Peace Memorial, which holds part of Gandhi's ashes.
Documented
March 7, 1952 · age 59
Death at Ambassador Sen's banquet
After a short speech and the reading of his poem "My India" he collapses; death certificate: acute coronary occlusion. His disciples call it mahasamadhi.
Documented
May 1952
The Forest Lawn letter
SRF publishes Harry T. Rowe's notarised letter on the absence of visible signs of decay; the full version mentions embalming.
Documented
1962
Kriyananda's departure
SRF's board asks Swami Kriyananda (J. Donald Walters) to resign; he will found Ananda in 1968.
Documented
1990
SRF v. Ananda lawsuit
SRF sues Ananda over the name "Self-Realization" and the rights in Yogananda's works, photographs and recordings; the litigation ends in 2002.
Documented
Works
Essential works
The works without which their legacy cannot be understood.
Written work · 1946
Autobiography of a Yogi
An account of his life from childhood in Gorakhpur to the founding of his work in America, woven together with the story of his lineage—Mahavatar Babaji, Lahiri Mahasaya and Sri Yukteswar—and with encounters with figures such as Rabindranath Tagore, Gandhi, Therese Neumann, Anandamayi Ma and Luther Burbank. It mixes memoir, hagiography and doctrinal exposition: it presents kriya yoga as a science of liberation and narrates wonders to be read as testimony of faith. One of the most widely read spiritual books of the twentieth century, translated into more than fifty languages, it was the gateway to meditative yoga for several generations of Western readers.
13 editions · amazon.com
Published lectures · 1975
Man's Eternal Quest
Lectures given mostly in SRF temples between the 1930s and 1952: the nature of God, reincarnation, karma, health, family life, world peace. It shows Yogananda the preacher, with humour, homely examples and a more intimate tone than the Autobiography, and is the most direct route to his spoken teaching.
4 editions · amazon.com
Posthumous work · 1995
God Talks with Arjuna: The Bhagavad Gita
A translation of and commentary on the Gita's eighteen chapters read as an allegory of yoga: the field of Kurukshetra is the body, the Pandavas are the soul's faculties and the battle is meditation against the ego's habits. It develops the correspondence between the verses and the subtle centres of the spine, and presents Krishna as the guru who teaches kriya yoga. Alongside the Autobiography, it is his most ambitious doctrinal work.
5 editions · amazon.com
Posthumous work · 2004
The Second Coming of Christ
The Second Coming of Christ: The Resurrection of the Christ Within You
A reading of Jesus's words as a teaching of yoga: the "second coming" is not a future historical event but the awakening of Christ consciousness in each person through meditation. It comments on the baptism, the Sermon on the Mount, the miracles and the resurrection in parallel with the Bhagavad Gita, and argues for the essential unity of original Christianity and Krishna's yoga.
3 editions · amazon.com
Complete works (38)
The Science of Religion
1920
Songs of the Soul
1923
Scientific Healing Affirmations
1924
Paramahansa Yogananda
Psychological Chart and the Yogoda booklets
The Conscious LibraryPsychological Chart and the Yogoda booklets
1925
Whispers from Eternity
1929
Paramahansa Yogananda
Self-Realization Fellowship Lessons
The Conscious LibrarySelf-Realization Fellowship Lessons
1934
Metaphysical Meditations
1932
Cosmic Chants
1938
The Law of Success
1944
Sayings of Paramahansa Yogananda
1952
How You Can Talk with God
1957
Prayers of a Master for His Disciples
1965
Spiritual Diary
1968
The Divine Romance
1986
Where There Is Light
1988
Wine of the Mystic
1994
Journey to Self-Realization
1997
In the Sanctuary of the Soul
1998
Inner Peace
1999
To Be Victorious in Life
2002
Why God Permits Evil and How to Rise Above It
2002
Living Fearlessly
2003
The Yoga of Jesus
2007
The Yoga of the Bhagavad Gita
2007
Quotations
Quotations located in a specific work. Each carries its provenance and its level of confidence.
The characteristic features of Indian culture have long been a search for ultimate verities and the concomitant disciple-guru relationship.VerifiedAutobiography of a Yogi (1946), cap. 1, «My Parents and Early Life», primera frase
Last words
Later account by witnesses
«"Where Ganges, woods, Himalayan caves, and men dream God— I am hallowed; my body touched that sod."»Where Ganges, woods, Himalayan caves, and men dream God— I am hallowed; my body touched that sod.
These are the closing lines of his poem "My India", which he read at the end of his speech at the Biltmore Hotel banquet (7 March 1952) for Ambassador Binay Ranjan Sen. The account comes from Self-Realization Fellowship witnesses—among them Sri Daya Mata, who was in the room—and was spread through Self-Realization magazine (May–June 1952), the In Memoriam booklet and later editions of the Autobiography. There is no independent transcript of the moment; the exact coincidence between the last line and his collapse belongs to the devotional account.
Source: Self-Realization Fellowship. Paramahansa Yogananda: In Memoriam. Los Ángeles: Self-Realization Fellowship, 1958 (reproduce la carta notarial de Harry T. Rowe, director de la funeraria de Forest Lawn, publicada antes en Self-Realization, mayo-junio de 1952).
Ask
What their work answers
Twelve great human questions and what their texts allow us to answer, with references. We never put words in their mouth.
What is the Absolute? Does God exist?
God is formless Spirit and also Divine Mother to whom one speaks
Both personal and impersonalStated explicitly
Paramahansa Yogananda describes God with the Vedantic formula of existence, consciousness and bliss, which he renders as ever-existing, ever-conscious, ever-new bliss: an omnipresent, formless Spirit from which creation proceeds. In chapter 14 of Autobiography of a Yogi he recounts an experience of cosmic consciousness in which he perceives the whole universe as light within his own being. But his work is also intensely devotional: he speaks with God as Divine Mother, prays, asks and receives answers, and holds that the divine can manifest in the form the devotee loves. In his commentaries on the Bhagavad Gita and the Gospels he presents both facets as complementary. The divine has, for him, a formless ground and a personal face that are equally real.
Compare this question with other teachersWho am I? Is there a true self?
The soul is individualised Spirit returning to God through many lives
An evolving soulStated explicitly
Paramahansa Yogananda defines the soul as individualised Spirit: a reflection of God, of the same blissful nature, which has forgotten its origin by identifying with body and ego. That soul passes through many incarnations, subject to the law of karma, and inhabits not only physical bodies but also subtle sheaths; in chapter 43 of Autobiography of a Yogi, his master Sri Yukteswar, after his death, describes to him the astral and causal worlds and the three bodies of the human being. The practice of Kriya Yoga hastens that evolution. The goal is reunion with Spirit, in which, according to Yogananda, the soul knows its unity with God without wholly losing its individuality. The true self is thus a divine soul on its way back, not the ego with which it is confused.
Compare this question with other teachersWhy do we suffer?
Pain arises from misused free will and pushes the soul back to God
Karma and the soul's learningStated explicitly
Paramahansa Yogananda explains suffering with two intertwined ideas. The first is karma: the human being, endowed with free will, sows by its acts the causes of what befalls it, in this life or others, and pain is the harvest of actions contrary to divine law. The second is maya, the cosmic delusion that makes the soul identify with the body and forget its divine nature; from that forgetfulness it seeks happiness in what cannot give it. Yogananda often compares the world to a film projected by God's light, in which suffering is real for those absorbed in it. Pain has, in his view, a function: it awakens longing for something more and pushes the soul, over many lives, to seek God.
Compare this question with other teachersWhat happens after death?
The soul passes into astral worlds and reincarnates until it is free
Rebirth according to karmaStated explicitly
Yogananda offers a detailed description of the beyond in the chapter of Autobiography of a Yogi entitled «The Resurrection of Sri Yukteswar». He relates that his master, who died in 1936, appeared to him in a body of flesh and blood and explained the structure of the after-death worlds: the human being has a physical, an astral and a causal body; at death one passes into the astral world, made of light and energy, where one remains for a time according to karma, and afterwards most return to incarnate on earth. Only when desires and karma have been exhausted does the soul also leave the astral and causal bodies and unite with Spirit. In his commentary on the Bhagavad Gita he develops the image of the soul changing bodies as one changes clothes. Kriya yoga, he holds, speeds up that evolution.
Compare this question with other teachersHow is liberation or salvation attained?
Kriya Yoga, a technique received from the guru, accelerates evolution towards union with God
Through disciplined practiceStated explicitly
In Autobiography of a Yogi, Paramahansa Yogananda presents Kriya Yoga as the principal means of liberation. In the chapter devoted to its «science» he describes it as a psychophysiological method, based on controlling the life energy through the breath, which accelerates spiritual evolution and lets the practitioner achieve in a few years what would take many lives of natural development. The technique is received by initiation within a lineage of masters (Babaji, Lahiri Mahasaya, Sri Yukteswar) and is practised together with devotion to God, ethical discipline and daily meditation. The goal is Self-realisation and conscious communion with God, whom Yogananda conceives as ever-new Bliss.
Compare this question with other teachersIs a teacher necessary?
The guru-disciple bond and initiation into the lineage are the sure path
IndispensableStated explicitly
Autobiography of a Yogi is, in large part, the story of searching for a master and of the relationship with him. Paramahansa Yogananda narrates his meeting with Sri Yukteswar, whom he recognised as the guru he had been awaiting, and the years of discipline in his hermitage, where he learned an obedience he describes as liberating. Kriya Yoga is transmitted through initiation within a lineage of masters (Mahavatar Babaji, Lahiri Mahasaya, Sri Yukteswar and himself), and Yogananda presents the true guru as a channel of God whose help accompanies the disciple beyond death. The organisation he founded, Self-Realization Fellowship, maintains that conception of the guru lineage as guarantor of the teaching.
Compare this question with other teachersIs the world real?
A universe of light dreamed by God, with physical, astral and causal worlds
Planes of existenceStated explicitly
In Autobiography of a Yogi, Paramahansa Yogananda describes the universe as a projection of light similar to a motion picture, sustained by God's consciousness: in the chapter on the law of miracles he presents it as God's cosmic dream, whose ultimate substance is light. That universe has levels. In the chapter on the resurrection of his master Sri Yukteswar he relates the description the latter allegedly gave him of the astral and causal worlds, subtler than the physical, in which souls live between incarnations. The physical world is real as a level of creation, but it is maya, an illusion relative to God, and the yogi learns to perceive it as such.
Compare this question with other teachersWhat is love?
All human love reflects the love of God, which draws the soul back
Longing and unionStated explicitly
For Paramahansa Yogananda love is God's nature and the force that draws the soul back to Him. He holds that the love of parents, friends or lovers is a partial reflection of divine love, which expresses itself through them and is never exhausted in any one of them; that is why no human love fully satisfies. The devotee must learn to recognise God behind every affection and direct to Him a constant longing, until feeling His love in deep meditation. In Whispers from Eternity and in the prayers of How You Can Talk with God he addresses to God petitions of personal love, as Divine Mother or as Beloved, and in Autobiography of a Yogi he describes experiences of ecstatic communion. Friendship, to which he gives great value, is for him the purest form of human love.
Compare this question with other teachersAre we free, or is everything determined?
The stars point to karma, but the wise can outwit them
Karma and choiceStated explicitly
In chapter 16 of *Autobiography of a Yogi*, «Outwitting the Stars», Yogananda recounts his master Sri Yukteswar's teaching on astrology: the birth chart does not cause destiny but indicates it, because a child is born at the moment when the celestial rays harmonise with his individual karma. That karma, however, is not final. Prayer, will power, deep meditation and the counsel of a sage can soften or cancel its effects. Yogananda thus acknowledges a real determination inherited from previous lives, but stresses that the soul, made in God's image, keeps the power to free itself. His teaching of *Kriya Yoga* is presented precisely as the swiftest means to burn accumulated karma.
Compare this question with other teachersWhy meditate or pray?
Talking with God as a child demands of a father, with Kriya as method
Friendship with GodStated explicitly
Yogananda joins two elements that appear separately in other teachers. On one side, a precise technique, *Kriya Yoga*, which in *Autobiography of a Yogi* (1946) he describes as a scientific method of controlling life energy to accelerate spiritual evolution. On the other, a deeply personal conception of prayer: in *Whispers from Eternity* and in his booklet *How You Can Talk With God* he teaches one to address God as Father, Mother or Friend, not with fearful pleading but with a child's confident demand, until an answer comes. Meditation stills mind and body so that this communion is possible; its end is conscious union with God, which he calls Self-realisation.
Compare this question with other teachersCan reason know the ultimate?
A science of the soul, transmitted by initiation and verifiable by intuition
Esoteric knowledgeStated explicitly
Yogananda presents religion as an experimental science. In *The Science of Religion* (1920) he holds that all religions seek the same end, the removal of pain and the attainment of bliss, and that the methods for reaching it can be tested in experience. His instrument is not reason but intuition, the soul's faculty that perceives truth directly. In *Autobiography of a Yogi* he narrates the transmission of *Kriya Yoga* through a lineage of masters —Babaji, Lahiri Mahasaya, Sri Yukteswar— as an ancient technique lost and recovered, received through initiation and verified in practice. Reason and modern science are cited as allies, but subordinate to intuitive knowledge.
Compare this question with other teachersWithdraw from the world or transform it?
Acting in the world without attachment, anchored in daily meditation
Contemplation in actionStated explicitly
Paramahansa Yogananda, a monk of the order of swamis, taught mainly Western lay people and maintained that the spiritual life does not require abandoning family or work. His model is the one he attributes to his lineage: Lahiri Mahasaya, master of kriya yoga, was a householder with a job and responsibilities, and in Autobiography of a Yogi he presents him as proof that realisation is compatible with life in the world. In his commentary on the Bhagavad Gita he interprets Krishna's exhortation to Arjuna as a call to fulfil one's own duty without attachment to the fruits, sustained by meditation. He recommended a balance between activity and recollection, a life of simple living and high thinking, and proposed the creation of world brotherhood colonies, communities in which spiritual practice would be united with work and life in common.
Compare this question with other teachers
Affinities & tensions
Affinities and tensions
Calculated question by question from their positions. The reason for each agreement or clash, on click.
Thinks most like
Helena Roerich
They agree on: Who am I? Is there a true self? · Why do we suffer? · What happens after death?
Annie Besant
They agree on: What is the Absolute? Does God exist? · Is the world real? · Who am I? Is there a true self?
Alice A. Bailey
They agree on: What is the Absolute? Does God exist? · Who am I? Is there a true self? · Why do we suffer?
Helena Blavatsky
They agree on: Is the world real? · Who am I? Is there a true self? · Why do we suffer?
Thinks most unlike
Jiddu Krishnamurti
They clash on: How is liberation or salvation attained? · Is a teacher necessary?
Nikolai Berdyaev
They clash on: What happens after death? · Is a teacher necessary?
Baruch Spinoza
They clash on: Is a teacher necessary?
Alan Watts
They clash on: How is liberation or salvation attained? · Is a teacher necessary?
They clash onApparent contradiction
Paramahansa Yogananda · Nisargadatta Maharaj
The lineage that transmits and the guru within: two grateful disciples
Why: The contradiction is apparent because both describe the same relationship from opposite ends. Both had a decisive guru and both belonged to a lineage with initiation; they differ in where they place the emphasis. Yogananda writes for Western readers to whom he wants to present a living tradition and an organisation, Self-Realization Fellowship, that guarantees transmission; hence he stresses lineage. Nisargadatta speaks to seekers who came to his home in Bombay with years of accumulated practices, and he urges them not to depend on anyone, himself included. The Hindu tradition knows this double face well: the outer master points to the inner one, which is the Self.
They agree on
Paramahansa Yogananda · Jesus of Nazareth
Christ consciousness: a yogi comments on the Gospels
Why: The relationship is documented in one direction: Yogananda read and commented on the Gospels and presented Jesus as a realised master. His reading, however, is yogic and Vedantic: he distinguishes the historical Jesus from a universal Christ consciousness, reads some passages in terms of reincarnation and meditative technique, and conceives God as having a formless ground besides a personal face. None of this appears in the Synoptics, which present a first-century Jew who presupposes the God of Israel and announces his Kingdom, and Christian theology rejects reincarnation. They agree on the way of praying, not on the doctrine surrounding it.
They agree on
Paramahansa Yogananda · Sadhguru
Yoga as a testable science: from kriya to inner engineering
Why: They converge because they share a strategy for presenting yoga to global audiences, inaugurated at the end of the nineteenth century: translating an initiatory tradition into the language of science and efficacy, for readers who distrust dogma. There is no relation between them and their lineages are different. They differ in theology: Yogananda is intensely devotional, speaks to God as Divine Mother and comments on the Gospels; Sadhguru prefers an impersonal language, in which the ultimate is a dimension of life accessed through experience. The claims of both about the effects of their techniques are doctrinal: the library sets them out, it does not verify them.
Anecdotes and stories
Anecdotes and stories
Testimony1910
The meeting in a Benares lane
Origin of the story: Single source: Yogananda himself, Autobiography of a Yogi (1946), ch. 10, "I Meet My Master, Sri Yukteswar". There is no independent testimony of the meeting; the 1910 date is confirmed by the biographies (Goldberg, 2018).
Testimony1935
Gandhi's kriya at Wardha
Origin of the story: Autobiography of a Yogi (1946), ch. 44, "With Mahatma Gandhi at Wardha", which reproduces Wright's travel notes. Photographs of Yogananda with Gandhi survive (Wikimedia Commons). No mention of the initiation is known in Gandhi's own writings.
Testimony1935
The stigmatic of Konnersreuth
Origin of the story: Autobiography of a Yogi (1946), ch. 39, "Therese Neumann, the Catholic Stigmatist". The visit is plausible and fits the known itinerary; the claims about inedia are Neumann's and her circle's, unverified.
Hagiographic account1936
Sri Yukteswar's 'resurrection'
Origin of the story: Autobiography of a Yogi (1946), ch. 43, "The Resurrection of Sri Yukteswar". No other testimony exists; classified as a hagiographic, visionary account.
Testimony1952
'My India' at the Biltmore
Origin of the story: An account by SRF witnesses published in Self-Realization (May–June 1952) and in Paramahansa Yogananda: In Memoriam (1958); the current institutional version is YSS, "Final Years and Mahasamadhi". The medical cause comes from the death certificate cited by Time.
Source: Self-Realization Fellowship. Paramahansa Yogananda: In Memoriam. Los Ángeles: Self-Realization Fellowship, 1958 (reproduce la carta notarial de Harry T. Rowe, director de la funeraria de Forest Lawn, publicada antes en Self-Realization, mayo-junio de 1952).
Disputed1952
The 'incorrupt' body: origin of the story
Origin of the story: Primary source: Harry T. Rowe's letter in Self-Realization (May–June 1952) and in Paramahansa Yogananda: In Memoriam (SRF, 1958); reported by Time (4 August 1952). Critique: Harry Edwards (1995) and David C. Lane's summary in Integral World. SRF continues to present the case as a sign of sanctity.
Source: Self-Realization Fellowship. Paramahansa Yogananda: In Memoriam. Los Ángeles: Self-Realization Fellowship, 1958 (reproduce la carta notarial de Harry T. Rowe, director de la funeraria de Forest Lawn, publicada antes en Self-Realization, mayo-junio de 1952).
Documented1990–2002
SRF v. Ananda: twelve years in court
Origin of the story: Court decisions: 59 F.3d 902 (9th Cir. 1995) and 206 F.3d 1322 (9th Cir. 2000); 2002 verdict as reported by The Union (Grass Valley). Partisan account: Ananda Sangha. The $29,000 figure comes from the press and Wikipedia ("Kriyananda").
Teachings
Teachings
The notions that structure their thought, explained in context.
Kriya yogakriya-yoga
Autobiography of a Yogi, ch. 26; God Talks with Arjuna; SRF Lessons.
Self-realizationself-realization
Autobiography of a Yogi; Man's Eternal Quest; SRF v. Ananda litigation.
Source: Self-Realization Fellowship, sitio oficial (biografía, Forest Lawn, publicaciones).
Christ consciousness and the unity of Krishna and Christchrist-consciousness
The Second Coming of Christ; God Talks with Arjuna; The Yoga of Jesus.
Energization (Yogoda)energization
Yogoda booklets (1925); Autobiography of a Yogi; SRF Lessons; Foxen (2017).
Source: Foxen, Anya P. Biography of a Yogi: Paramahansa Yogananda and the Origins of Modern Yoga. Nueva York: Oxford University Press, 2017.
The world as a cosmic motion picturecosmic-motion-picture
Autobiography of a Yogi, ch. 30 ("The Law of Miracles"); Why God Permits Evil and How to Rise Above It.
The SRF line of gurusguru-parampara-srf
Autobiography of a Yogi, chs. 33–36; Goldberg (2018).
Retreats
Retreats and centres
Places and gatherings linked to their teaching. We put you in touch with the organisers.
Encinitas, California · Estados Unidos
SRF How-to-Live retreats in Encinitas
Self-Realization Fellowship
Encinitas was one of Yogananda's most beloved places: here is the Hermitage where he wrote much of Autobiography of a Yogi, beside gardens on the Pacific cliffs. Self-Realization Fellowship runs its How-to-Live retreat centre in this setting, silent retreats intended, in the teacher's words, as a dynamo of silence where one may be recharged by the Infinite. Guests join the monastics for morning and evening meditation and may attend classes and receive spiritual counselling. There are personal retreats as well as conducted weekends with a more concentrated schedule on the teachings and techniques.
Ranchi, Jharkhand (y ashrams en Dakshineswar, Noida, Dwarahat y Chennai) · India
Yogoda Satsanga Society: Ranchi ashram and sadhana sangams
Yogoda Satsanga Society of India
Yogoda Satsanga Society of India is the organisation Yogananda founded in India in 1917, the sister society of Self-Realization Fellowship. Its Ranchi ashram grew out of the boys' school the young yogi opened there, and preserves places connected with his life. Together with the ashrams at Dakshineswar, Noida, Dwarahat and Chennai, it organises retreats and sadhana sangams, gatherings of intensive practice with group meditations and classes given by monastics of the order. It is the reference path in India for studying his Lessons, which are available in English and in several Indian languages.
Pacific Palisades, Los Ángeles, California · Estados Unidos
Lake Shrine: SRF meditation gardens
Self-Realization Fellowship
Lake Shrine is the sanctuary Yogananda dedicated in 1950 beside a small natural lake in Pacific Palisades, a few minutes from the Pacific. Its meditation gardens, open to people of every faith, are designed for quiet recollection, and its temple holds Sunday meditation and inspirational services. After the January 2025 fire in the area, the gardens have reopened by advance reservation while recovery continues, but the retreat house remains closed until further notice. It is one of the most visited of the places the teacher founded during his lifetime, and a gentle introduction to his spirit.
Estudio en casa (correo postal y aplicación) · Internacional
Self-Realization Fellowship Lessons
Self-Realization Fellowship
The Self-Realization Fellowship Lessons are the home-study course Yogananda himself prepared to pass on his teaching to those who could not be with him. The basic series teaches three techniques: the Energization Exercises, the Hong-Sau Technique of Concentration and the Aum Technique of Meditation, together with guidance on prayer, affirmation and daily life. After the first months the student may apply for Kriya Yoga initiation. They arrive by post and through an app, and include access to spiritual counselling from the order's monastics, who remain the custodians of his method.
Videos
Videos
Recordings, interviews and documentaries. Videos play from YouTube; they are not hosted here.
Paramahansa Yogananda on the Dream-Nature of the World
Original recording· EN· 5 min
Self-Realization FellowshipOfficial channel
Paramahansa Yogananda on How to Destroy Suffering by Its Roots
Original recording· EN· 3 min
Self-Realization FellowshipOfficial channel
Paramahansa Yogananda on Karma
Original recording· EN· 5 min
Self-Realization FellowshipOfficial channel
God Is as Real as You Are | Paramahansa Yogananda
Lecture· EN· 4 min
Self-Realization FellowshipOfficial channel
AWAKE: The Life of Yogananda – Theatrical Trailer
Documentary· EN· 2014· 2 min
Self-Realization FellowshipOfficial channel
Trailer Oficial Español – Awake: La Vida de Yogananda
Documentary· ES· 2014· 1 min
AntropoDocs & Films
Yogananda // Official Trailer (HD) – French Version
Documentary· FR· 2014· 2 min
Jupiter Films
Il Sentiero della Felicità – Awake, The Life of Yogananda – Trailer Ufficiale
Documentary· IT· 2014· 2 min
Cineama
Celebrating Yogananda's Founding of the SRF International Headquarters 100 Years Ago
Lecture· EN· 2025· 79 min
Self-Realization FellowshipOfficial channel
«Karunamay Gurudeva» — Kirtan Chanting by the Sannyasis of Yogoda Satsanga Society of India
Third-party recording· HI· 7 min
Yogoda Satsanga Society of IndiaOfficial channel
Energization Exercises of Paramhansa Yogananda
Third-party recording· EN· 17 min
The Expanding Light Retreat
Gallery
Gallery
Images with verified licences. Each keeps its authorship and attribution.
Connections
Connections
Influences, discipleships and affinities. Documented relations are distinguished from similarities identified by analysis.
Met
Luther Burbank
Friendship with the Santa Rosa botanist, who received kriya initiation from him; he dedicated the Autobiography to him (ch. 38 and dedication).
Documented relation
Disciple of
His guru from 1910 to 1936; ordained him swami in 1915 and gave him the title of paramahansa in 1935.
Documented relation
Influenced by
Lahiri Mahasaya
Teacher of his parents and of Sri Yukteswar; Yogananda spread his kriya yoga.
Documented relation
Influenced by
He devoted his major Gospel commentary to him and placed him in the SRF lineage alongside Krishna.
Documented relation
Influenced by
He identifies kriya yoga with the pranayama of the Yoga Sutras and quotes Patañjali when explaining it.
Documented relation
Met
Visited him at Tiruvannamalai in late November 1935 with his secretary C. R. Wright; the visit is recorded in Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi and in photographs. The first edition of the Autobiography does not mention it.
Documented relation
Met
Mahatma Gandhi
Spent several days at Wardha in August 1935 and, by his account, initiated him into kriya yoga.
Documented relation
Met
Meeting in 1936 in Calcutta, narrated in the Autobiography (ch. 45) and photographed.
Documented relation
Met
Therese Neumann
Visit at Konnersreuth (Bavaria) in July 1935.
Documented relation
Met
Rabindranath Tagore
Meeting at Santiniketan, where they compared their schools (Autobiography, ch. 29).
Documented relation
Teacher of
Swami Kriyananda (J. Donald Walters)
Disciple from 1948; removed from SRF in 1962, he founded Ananda in 1968.
Documented relation
Teacher of
Sri Daya Mata
Disciple from 1931 and president of SRF from 1955 to 2010; witness of his death.
Documented relation
Ideas akin to
Both presented yoga to the West as a universal science of religion; Yogananda reached the United States a quarter of a century later.
Similarity identified by analysis
Contemporary of
Bengali contemporaries with spiritual readings of the Gita and of the evolution of consciousness; no meeting is recorded.
Similarity identified by analysis
Sources
Sources
Bibliography and catalogues consulted for this profile.
- Yogananda, Paramhansa. Autobiography of a Yogi. Nueva York: The Philosophical Library, 1946 (1.ª ed.; texto en Project Gutenberg #7452).
- Goldberg, Philip. The Life of Yogananda: The Story of the Yogi Who Became the First Modern Guru. Carlsbad (California): Hay House, 2018.
- Wikidata, «Paramahansa Yogananda» (Q312549): nacimiento 05-01-1893 en Gorakhpur, muerte 07-03-1952 en Los Ángeles, sepultura en Forest Lawn (Glendale); 84 enlaces entre wikis.
- Yogananda, Swami. The Science of Religion. Los Ángeles: Yogoda and Sat-Sanga Headquarters, 4.ª ed., septiembre de 1925 (copyright 1924; 1.ª ed. en la India). Ejemplar digitalizado en Internet Archive.
- Self-Realization Fellowship. Paramahansa Yogananda: In Memoriam. Los Ángeles: Self-Realization Fellowship, 1958 (reproduce la carta notarial de Harry T. Rowe, director de la funeraria de Forest Lawn, publicada antes en Self-Realization, mayo-junio de 1952).
- Time, 4 de agosto de 1952: nota sobre la carta de Harry T. Rowe (Forest Lawn Memorial-Park) acerca del cuerpo de Yogananda.
- Wikipedia (en), «Paramahansa Yogananda», consultada el 2026-10-23 (secciones Death, Lawsuits; resumen de los párrafos de la carta de Rowe sobre el embalsamamiento y la mancha en la nariz).
- Kriyananda, Swami (J. Donald Walters). The Path: Autobiography of a Western Yogi. Nevada City (California): Ananda Publications, 1977; reeditado como The New Path, Crystal Clarity, 2009.
- Self-Realization Fellowship Church v. Ananda Church of Self-Realization, 59 F.3d 902 (9th Cir. 1995), y decisión del Noveno Circuito de 23 de marzo de 2000 (n.º 97-17407) sobre los derechos de autor de las obras de Yogananda.
- «Jury: Copyrights violated by church», The Union (Grass Valley, California), 2002 (veredicto del jurado en el pleito SRF contra Ananda).
- Ananda Sangha, «Self-Realization Fellowship vs. Ananda: Religious Freedom Lawsuit 1990-2002» (versión de una de las partes).
- Self-Realization Fellowship, sitio oficial (biografía, Forest Lawn, publicaciones).
- Yogoda Satsanga Society of India, sitio oficial.
- Open Library, registros de ediciones de Paramahansa Yogananda (consultados por ISBN).
- Foxen, Anya P. Biography of a Yogi: Paramahansa Yogananda and the Origins of Modern Yoga. Nueva York: Oxford University Press, 2017.
- Wikimedia Commons, metadatos de licencia de las fotografías de Paramahansa Yogananda (API imageinfo) y Library of Congress, National Photo Company Collection (LCCN 2016842956).
- Yogananda, Swami. Songs of the Soul. Los Ángeles: Yogoda Sat-Sanga, 1923. Ejemplar digitalizado en Internet Archive.
- Williamson, Lola. Transcendent in America: Hindu-Inspired Meditation Movements as New Religion. Nueva York: New York University Press, 2010.
- Lane, David C. «The Incorruptible Body of Paramahansa Yogananda» (Integral World), que resume y cita el artículo de Harry Edwards «Incorruptibility: Miracle or Myth?» (noviembre de 1995) y las gestiones del profesor Angel ante el registro civil de Los Ángeles (certificado de defunción firmado por el embalsamador Kenneth I. Johnson).
- Self-Realization Fellowship Church v. Ananda Church of Self-Realization, 206 F.3d 1322 (9th Cir., 23 de marzo de 2000): los escritos y conferencias de Yogananda no eran «obras por encargo»; cuestión de las cesiones devuelta a juicio.
- Wikipedia (en), «Kriyananda» (salida de SRF en 1962, fundación de Ananda en 1968, pleito SRF contra Ananda 1990-2002 y su desenlace), consultada el 2026-10-25.
- Wikipedia (en), «Paramahansa Yogananda bibliography» (catálogo de títulos de SRF y YSS), consultada el 2026-10-25.
- Self-Realization Fellowship Bookstore, catálogo de libros de Paramahansa Yogananda.
- Crystal Clarity Publishers (editorial de Ananda), catálogo de obras de Paramhansa Yogananda, incluida la reimpresión de la primera edición de 1946 de Autobiography of a Yogi.
- Yogoda Satsanga Society of India, «Final Years and Mahasamadhi» (versión institucional de los últimos años, del banquete del Biltmore y de la carta de Forest Lawn).
- Venkataramiah, Munagala (Swami Ramanananda Saraswati), ed. Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi. Tiruvannamalai: Sri Ramanasramam, 1955 (conversaciones anotadas entre 1935 y 1939; incluye la visita de Yogananda y de su secretario C. R. Wright a finales de 1935).
- Yogoda Satsanga Society of India, librería en línea: fichas de «Who Made God?» (ISBN 9788189535360), «Developing Dynamic Will», «Awake in the Cosmic Dream» (grabación del 5 de enero de 1952, ℗ 1987 SRF), «The Great Light of God» (grabación del 23 de diciembre de 1951, ℗ 1993 SRF) y «Self-Realization: The Inner and the Outer Path» (grabación del 25 de diciembre de 1950, ℗ 2002/2004 SRF). Consultadas el 2026-10-25.
- Rights holder
- Self-Realization Fellowship (Los Ángeles) y, en la India, Yogoda Satsanga Society of India, como herederas de Yogananda; el jurado de 2002 confirmó la titularidad de SRF. La primera edición de 1946 de Autobiography of a Yogi está en dominio público en EE. UU.
- Official site
- yogananda.org/
Pending confirmation
What this profile has not yet been able to settle. We would rather say so than fill it in.
- Anotado (2026-10-25): Folletos de YSS publicados solo en la India (The Art of Living, Developing Dynamic Will, Man's Greatest Adventure, Nervousness: Cause and Cure, Seek God Now, Who Made God?, Habit—Your Master or Your Slave?, etc.; una decena según Wikipedia «Paramahansa Yogananda bibliography»): no registrados uno a uno. → agrupados en la obra «yss-booklets» con tres ediciones verificadas; faltan ISBN verificados de The Art of Living, Increasing the Power of Initiative, Habit, Man’s Greatest Adventure y Seek God Now (Open Library no los registra y Google Books tenía la cuota agotada).
- Revistas East-West (1925-1934) e Inner Culture (1934-1942): primera publicación de muchos textos; no se tratan como obras.
- Confirmar ISBN de Solving the Mystery of Life (SRF, 2025) y de Cosmic Chants en español.
- Fecha exacta del primer encuentro con Calvin Coolidge (enero o febrero de 1927 según las fuentes).
- Cotejar el texto íntegro de la carta de Harry T. Rowe (In Memoriam, 1958) para citar literalmente la fecha de la carta y la mención del embalsamamiento.
- Obras de Swami Kriyananda basadas en Yogananda (Conversations with Yogananda, The Essence of the Bhagavad Gita, Revelations of Christ): pertenecen a la ficha de Kriyananda, no se registran aquí como obras de Yogananda.
- Sala de lectura (2026-10-25): los cuatro textos registrados (Autobiography 1946, The Science of Religion 1925, Songs of the Soul 1923, Whispers from Eternity 1929) son dominio público en EE. UU. y en la UE, pero no en España hasta el 1-1-2033 (80 años desde 1952): van con caution. Revisar entonces.
- Sala de lectura: Metaphysical Meditations (1932) y Scientific Healing Affirmations (1924) podrían ser dominio público en EE. UU.; no se ha localizado un texto completo con OCR limpio.
- Grabaciones de su voz: además de las tres añadidas y Beholding the One in All, SRF edita otras charlas grabadas (catálogo de la librería de SRF/YSS); inventariar la serie completa.
Researched on 2026-10-25