Paramahansa Yogananda

began his life's work with the founding, in 1917, of a "how-to-live" school for boys, where modern educational methods were combined with yoga training and instruction in spiritual ideals. Visiting the school a few years later, Mahatma Gandhi wrote: "This institution has deeply impressed my mind."

In 1920, Yogananda was invited to serve as India's delegate to an international congress of religious leaders convening in Boston. His address to the congress, on "The Science of Religion," was enthusiastically received. That same year he founded Self-Realization Fellowship to disseminate worldwide his teachings on India's ancient science and philosophy of Yoga and its time-honored tradition of meditation.

For the next several years, he lectured and taught on the East coast and in 1924 embarked on a cross-continental speaking tour. The following year, he established in Los Angeles an international headquarters for Self-Realization Fellowship, which became the spiritual and administrative heart of his growing work.

the next decade, Yogananda traveled and lectured widely, speaking to capacity audiences in many of the largest auditoriums in the country -- from New York's Carnegie Hall to the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The Los Angeles Times reported: "The Philharmonic Auditorium presents the extraordinary spectacle of thousands....being turned away an hour before the advertised opening of a lecture with the 3000-seat hall filled to its utmost capacity."

Yogananda emphasized the underlying unity of the world's great religions, and taught universally applicable methods for attaining direct personal experience of God. To serious students of his teachings he introduced the soul-awakening techniques of Kriya Yoga, a sacred spiritual science originating millenniums ago in India, which had been lost in the Dark Ages and revived in modern times by his lineage of enlightened masters.

Among those who became his students were many prominent figures in science, business, and the arts, including horticulturist Luther Burbank, operatic soprano Amelita Galli-Curci, George Eastman (inventor of the Kodak camera), poet Edwin Markham, and symphony conductor Leopold Stokowski. In 1927, he was officially received at the White House by President Calvin Coolidge, who had become interested in the newspaper reports of his activities.

1935, Yogananda began an 18-month tour of Europe and India. During his yearlong sojourn in his native land, he spoke in cities throughout the subcontinent and enjoyed meetings with Mahatma Gandhi (who requested initiation in Kriya Yoga), Nobel-prize-winning physicist Sir C. V. Raman, and some of India's renowned spiritual figures, including Sri Ramana Maharshi and Anandamoyi Ma. It was during this year also that his guru, Swami Sri Yukteswar, bestowed on him India's highest spiritual title, paramahansa. Literally supreme swan (a symbol of spiritual discrimination), the title signifies one who manifests the supreme state of unbroken communion with God.

March 7, 1952, Paramahansa Yogananda entered mahasamadhi, a God-illumined master's conscious exit from the body at the time of physical death. His passing was marked by an extraordinary phenomenon. A notarized statement signed by the Director of Forest Lawn Memorial-Park testified: "No physical disintegration was visible in his body even twenty days after death....This state of perfect preservation of a body is, so far as we know from mortuary annals, an unparalleled one....Yogananda's body was apparently in a phenomenal state of immutability."

On the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of Paramahansa Yogananda's passing, his far-reaching contributions to the spiritual upliftment of humanity were given formal recognition by the Government of India. A special commemorative stamp was issued in his honor, together with a tribute that read, in part:

"The ideal of love for God and service to humanity found full expression in the life of Paramahansa Yogananda....Though the major part of his life was spent outside India, still he takes his place among our great saints. His work continues to grow and shine ever more brightly, drawing people everywhere on the path of the pilgrimage of the Spirit."

Thank you to Self Realization Fellowship for this insightful history!

worked as a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner in the 1990's. In 1993, an epidemic
of Pertussis or Whooping Cough broke out across the United States.

I did not know about this epidemic at the time.

A four month old non-immunized baby came to see me who was
diagnosed with Pertussis, and died soon thereafter.

I got the disease from her, but was unaware of the seriousness of the illness and
also did not know that what I had was Whooping Cough.

The details of what I had and how I got it came together later.

For a period of a month, I could not sleep because of the violence of the cough.
It was an odd and tremendously forceful cough.

This was how it was: a series of short, hacking coughs, followed by a sharp, wheezing inhalation, followed by vomiting.

I could no longer sleep with my husband because the cough woke him up.

So I slept out on the sunporch, and witnessed the fireflies of summer, and the moon's journey across the sky. I was always relieved to see the first rays of dawn.

Then I went to worked and coughed like this all day, as well.

My friend, whom I affectionately call "Pediatric Guru," head of Pediatrics at the time, (now retired), heard the cough.

He pulled me aside. "Kate, your cough sounds exactly like Whooping Cough."

And with that diagnosis, I had permission to take a few days off with well needed
antibiotics.

The Pediatric Guru put it all together: the baby who died of Pertussis, the exact day I took care of her, and the sadness of parents losing their baby.

But again, this all came later.

Finally at home and recuperating, I began to feel a deep spiritual emptiness deep within my soul. I can't explain it other than to say that the illness opened the doorway to a "Spiritual Awakening."

A publication arrived inexplicably in the mail inviting me to order the "Self Realization Fellowship Lessons" written by Paramahansa Yogananda.

Yogananda was no stranger to me.

My mother was a fan of Yogananda and particularly of the "Autobiography Of A Yogi" which she got ahold of and gave copies to all of her friends, around 1955.

I was four at the time and remember this well.

my mother woke me from my nap, she gave me lectures about the third eye, which the great Yogi loved and taught about extensively.

As a four year old, I took the concept of the third eye very literally.

Did development of the third eye mean that suddenly a third eye would appear on
my forehead?

No one else seemed to have this third eye.

Won't I look odd if I am the only one who has one?

The same was true of the stigmata.

My mother always told me bedtime stories about the stigmata that Saint Francis had, and Theresa Neuman, too, whom Yogananda wrote about in his Autobiography.

These concepts: the stigmata and the third eye were huge to a four year old child.

Yet I remember wanting to have a third eye.

The stigmata was not necessarily as compelling!

So I knew about Yogananda.

You might say he was ingrained in my psyche.

The Self Realization Lessons came in good time and I followed their instruction to the
letter.

I healed my lungs with those lessons.

A year later, I was initiated as a Kriya Yogi in Washington D.C. by members of SRF in an overwhelmingly moving ceremony.

Kriya Yoga is a Big Secret, so I can't tell you how to do it. Yet it is both simple and
eloquent in practice and suddenly you feel the infinite blessings of the great gurus
of India and you soar above and beyond the Universe herself.

I love Kriya Yoga and the legacy which brought this great gift to the west.

Yogananda is a Spiritual Giant. He lives still amongst the hearts of those who practice the great spiritual techniques that Yogananda taught and are preserved because of his prolific writings.

In his words: "Every minute becomes eternity because eternity can be experienced in that minute. Every day and minute and hour is a window through which you may see eternity. Life is brief yet it is unending.The soul is everlasting, but out of the short season of this life you should reap the most you can of immortality." SRF Lessons.