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Born
in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, on January 5, 1893, Paramahansa Yogananda
devoted his life to helping people of all races and creeds to realise
and express more fully in their lives the beauty, nobility, and true divinity
of the human spirit.
After graduating from the Calcutta University in 1915,
Sri Yogananda was initiated into sannyas by his guru Swami Sri
Yukteswar Giri. Sri Yukteswar had foretold that his life’s mission was
to spread throughout the world, India's ancient meditation technique of
Kriya Yoga.
He started his mission by starting a small ashram and
school in 1917. He was encouraged in this undertaking by his Guru, who
reminded the young sannyasi that he who renounces the worldly duties must
love and serve as his own the larger family of humanity. Subsequently
he established Yogoda Satsanga Society of India, which now has centres
throughout the Indian subcontinent.
In 1920, Paramahansaji went to the USA as the delegate
from India to an International Congress of Religious Liberals in Boston.
His teachings met with phenomenal success and led to the formation there
of Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF), which makes available throughout
the world the ancient teachings of Kriya Yoga. Today SRF has centres
and meditation groups in all six continents.
In the more than thirty years that Yoganandaji lived and
taught in the West, he travelled extensively in the US and abroad, lecturing
in principal cities and initiating thousands of sincere seekers in the
science of Kriya Yoga. Wherever he went, he found people eager
to receive his message. He pointed out the underlying unity of the scriptures
of East and West and sought to awaken in all a greater understanding of
the harmony underlying all true religions and the one goal they all share
– God-realization.
Through his writings and extensive lecture tours in India,
America, and Europe, as well as through the creation of numerous ashrams
and meditation centres, he introduced thousands of truth-seekers to the
ancient science and philosophy of Yoga and its universally applicable
methods of meditation. Yogananda entered mahasamadhi on March 7,
1952 in Los Angeles.
His remarkable life story, Autobiography of a Yogi,
has been recognised as a landmark work in its field. Selected as one of
“The Hundred Best Spiritual books of the twentieth Century,” this acclaimed
autobiography presents a fascinating portrait of one of the great spiritual
figures of our time. Today the spiritual and humanitarian work begun by
Paramahansa Yogananda continues under the guidance of Sri Sri Daya Mata,
one of his earliest and closest disciples. As Sanghamata and President
of Yogoda Satsanga Society of India/Self-Realization Fellowship since
1955, Daya Mataji faithfully carries out Paramahansa Yoganandaji’s ideals
and wishes for the dissemination of his teachings worldwide.
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Jharkhand Alumni