Ananda's Spiritual Lineage
“Those who join us on this path of Self-realization are not connected to some printing press, but to a line of God-realized masters. God Himself, through them, overshadows this work. All who follow it sincerely, with devotion, will be brought to Him.”
—Paramhansa Yogananda
Paramhansa Yogananda
Yogananda was the first great master of yoga to make his home in the West, coming to the U.S. from India in 1920 and living here until his passing. Ananda is based on the teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda and his line of gurus.
Known also as Swami Yogananda, Paramhansa Yogananda was the first yoga master of India to take up permanent residence in the West.
Born Mukunda Lal Ghosh in Gorakhpur, India, in January 1893, Yogananda intensely longed for God from his earliest childhood. As he relates in Autobiography of a Yogi, much of his youth was spent seeking out many different saints. He met his guru, Swami Sri Yukteswar, in Varanasi around the year 1912 and frequented Yukteswar’s hermitage in Serampore, Bengal while earning an A.B. degree from Calcutta University at Serampore College. To read more about our lineage of spiritual masters, see the Ananda Line of Gurus.
Shortly after graduation in July 1914, Sri Yukteswar initiated Mukunda into the ancient Swami order, at which time the young man assumed the monastic name Swami Yogananda (or, more properly, Yogananda of the Giri branch of the Swami order).
It was as Swami Yogananda that he arrived in America in 1920 and proceeded to travel throughout the United States on his “spiritual campaigns” for the next four years.
During this time, hundreds of thousands filled the largest halls in major American cities to hear the yoga master from India. Yogananda transcended cultural, social, and religious boundaries.
In 1925, Swami Yogananda acquired and settled in Mount Washington in Los Angeles, California as the headquarters of what would become a worldwide work. It was here he gathered disciples and trained many of them as teachers and ministers, including Ananda’s founder, Swami Kriyananda. In 1927, he received an unprecedented invitation to the White House, where he was received by President Calvin Coolidge.
From 1935 to 1936 Yogananda made a return visit to India. During this time Sri Yukteswar bestowed on him the higher monastic title of Paramhansa, literally “supreme swan” (representing qualities of making discriminating choices for the highest).
Thus, Swami Yogananda became Paramhansa Yogananda, the name by which he is known today. (The title Paramhansa supersedes Swami, thus he is properly referred to as Paramhansa Yogananda rather than Swami Paramhansa Yogananda.) Mahatma Gandhi asked Yogananda to initiate him into Kriya Yoga, the highest technique on Yogananda’s path of Self-realization.
After returning to America in 1936, Yogananda continued to lecture and write until his passing in 1952. Although his impact on Western culture was truly impressive during his lifetime, his lasting spiritual legacy has been even greater. His Autobiography of a Yogi, first published in 1946, helped launch a spiritual revolution in the West. Translated into more than 50 languages, it remains a best-selling spiritual classic to this day.
Yogananda’s Greatest Gift: The Path of Self-Realization
The lasting contribution brought by Yogananda to the West is the non-sectarian, universal spiritual path of Self-realization. He emphasized the
direct inner experience of God. His teachings offer a practical approach to spiritual awakening.
Yogananda gave this definition to the term Self-realization:
Self-realization is the knowing in all parts of body, mind, and soul that you are now in possession of the kingdom of God; that you do not have to pray that it come to you; that God’s omnipresence is your omnipresence; and that all that you need to do is improve your knowing. According to Yogananda the Kriya Yoga technnique is “the fastest route to Self-realization. The Kriya technique was hidden in secrecy for many centuries. In 1861 it was revived, when the great yogi Mahavatar Babaji taught the technique to his disciple Lahiri Mahasaya. Lahiri then taught the technique to his disciple Sri Yukteswar, who taught it to his disciples, including Paramhansa Yogananda, who brought it to the West.
Swami Sri Yukteswar
Swami Sri Yukteswar is the guru of Paramhansa Yogananda and a disciple of Lahiri Mahasaya. He met Babaji in 1894, who told him that one of his disciples was to be sent to America to share the teachings of yoga with the West. He did not have many disciples, as he was known for his strictness. He had two ashrams, one in Serampore and one in Puri. He is author of The Holy Science.
Sri Yukteswar was born to a wealthy business man and his wife on May 10, 1855, in Serampore, India. He was given the name Priya Nath Karar.
Upon leaving college, he married and had a daughter, and in 1884 he became a disciple of Lahiri Mahasaya. After the death of his wife, Priya Nath Karar became a Swami and received the name Sri Yukteswar Giri. He met Babaji, the guru of Lahiri Mahasaya, in 1894. Babaji told him that one day he would send Sri Yukteswar a disciple who would share the teachings of yoga in the West. This disciple turned out to be Paramhansa Yogananda, who is best known for his book, Autobiography of a Yogi. Babaji also asked Sri Yukteswar to write a book on the essential unity of the Bible and Bhagavad Gita, the most well-known scripture in India. Sri Yukteswar titled this book The Holy Science.
Sri Yukteswar founded two hermitages, one of which was his family home given to him by his father as his inheritance. In the last year of his life, Sri Yukteswar turned over all his properties to Paramhansa Yogananda, asking him to find someone to maintain them.
Sri Yukteswar left his body on March 9, 1936. Soon after, he appeared to Yogananda and described to him the nature of the afterlife. This description can be found in Autobiography of a Yogi.
Lahiri Mahasaya
Shyama Charan Lahiri was the birth name of the great yoga master. His disciples lovingly added “Mahasaya,” which means “great-minded one.” Born in Bengal, India, to a pious brahmin family, Lahiri Mahasaya was the one who made the ancient science of Kriya Yoga available not just to those who had renounced the world, but to all sincere souls.
Lahiri Mahasaya was a married householder with two sons. He held a job as an accountant to support his family. A yoga master of the highest achievement, his entire life served as an example of how to live “in the world, yet not of the world.”
Unknown to society in general, a great spiritual renaissance began to flow from a remote corner of Benares [home of Lahiri Mahasaya]. Just as the fragrance of flowers cannot be suppressed, so Lahiri Mahasaya, quietly living as an ideal householder, could not hide his innate glory. Slowly, from every part of India, the devotee-bees sought the divine nectar of the liberated master.
—Paramhansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi
Mahavatar Babaji
Mahavatar Babaji is the guru of Lahiri Mahasaya and the one who re-introduced the ancient science of Kriya Yoga, which was lost during the Dark Ages. Paramhansa Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi introduced the world to this mysterious master. Still alive and residing in the Himalayas for centuries or even thousands of years, Babaji has been a guide for great spiritual teachers to carry out their special dispensations. For this reason, he is called a mahavatar, a great incarnation of God.
Why Is Jesus Christ on the Altar?
Jesus is at the center of our altar because he appeared to the yoga master Babaji and asked him to send someone to the West to spread the teachings of original Christianity.
Jesus told Babaji that his followers needed to learn how to receive him through deep meditation, as beautifully described in the verse, “As many as received Him, to them He gave the power to become children of God” (John 1:12). He said that although his followers still do good works, they have lost the ability to commune inwardly with God. Because of Jesus’s request, Paramhansa Yogananda came to the West. Thus, Jesus Christ is honored with a place on our altars and in our daily prayers. Yogananda shares further in Chapter 33 of Autobiography of a Yogi, “The Mahavatar is in constant communion with Christ; together they send out vibrations of redemption, and have planned the spiritual technique of salvation for this age. The work of these two fully-illumined masters—one with the body, and one without it—is to inspire the nations to forsake suicidal wars, race hatreds, religious sectarianism, and the boomerang-evils of
materialism.” A purpose of Ananda’s worldwide work is to carry out Babaji and Christ’s plan to aid the evolution of consciousness in this ascending age.
Paramhansa Yogananda
Yogananda was the first great master of yoga to make his home in the West, coming to the U.S. from India in 1920 and living here until his passing. Ananda is based on the teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda and his line of gurus.
Known also as Swami Yogananda, Paramhansa Yogananda was the first yoga master of India to take up permanent residence in the West.
Born Mukunda Lal Ghosh in Gorakhpur, India, in January 1893, Yogananda intensely longed for God from his earliest childhood. As he relates in Autobiography of a Yogi, much of his youth was spent seeking out many different saints. He met his guru, Swami Sri Yukteswar, in Varanasi around the year 1912 and frequented Yukteswar’s hermitage in Serampore, Bengal while earning an A.B. degree from Calcutta University at Serampore College. To read more about our lineage of spiritual masters, see the Ananda Line of Gurus.
Shortly after graduation in July 1914, Sri Yukteswar initiated Mukunda into the ancient Swami order, at which time the young man assumed the monastic name Swami Yogananda (or, more properly, Yogananda of the Giri branch of the Swami order).
It was as Swami Yogananda that he arrived in America in 1920 and proceeded to travel throughout the United States on his “spiritual campaigns” for the next four years.
During this time, hundreds of thousands filled the largest halls in major American cities to hear the yoga master from India. Yogananda transcended cultural, social, and religious boundaries.
In 1925, Swami Yogananda acquired and settled in Mount Washington in Los Angeles, California as the headquarters of what would become a worldwide work. It was here he gathered disciples and trained many of them as teachers and ministers, including Ananda’s founder, Swami Kriyananda. In 1927, he received an unprecedented invitation to the White House, where he was received by President Calvin Coolidge.
From 1935 to 1936 Yogananda made a return visit to India. During this time Sri Yukteswar bestowed on him the higher monastic title of Paramhansa, literally “supreme swan” (representing qualities of making discriminating choices for the highest).
Thus, Swami Yogananda became Paramhansa Yogananda, the name by which he is known today. (The title Paramhansa supersedes Swami, thus he is properly referred to as Paramhansa Yogananda rather than Swami Paramhansa Yogananda.) Mahatma Gandhi asked Yogananda to initiate him into Kriya Yoga, the highest technique on Yogananda’s path of Self-realization.
After returning to America in 1936, Yogananda continued to lecture and write until his passing in 1952. Although his impact on Western culture was truly impressive during his lifetime, his lasting spiritual legacy has been even greater. His Autobiography of a Yogi, first published in 1946, helped launch a spiritual revolution in the West. Translated into more than 50 languages, it remains a best-selling spiritual classic to this day.
Yogananda’s Greatest Gift: The Path of Self-Realization
The lasting contribution brought by Yogananda to the West is the non-sectarian, universal spiritual path of Self-realization. He emphasized the
direct inner experience of God. His teachings offer a practical approach to spiritual awakening.
Yogananda gave this definition to the term Self-realization:
Self-realization is the knowing in all parts of body, mind, and soul that you are now in possession of the kingdom of God; that you do not have to pray that it come to you; that God’s omnipresence is your omnipresence; and that all that you need to do is improve your knowing. According to Yogananda the Kriya Yoga technnique is “the fastest route to Self-realization. The Kriya technique was hidden in secrecy for many centuries. In 1861 it was revived, when the great yogi Mahavatar Babaji taught the technique to his disciple Lahiri Mahasaya. Lahiri then taught the technique to his disciple Sri Yukteswar, who taught it to his disciples, including Paramhansa Yogananda, who brought it to the West.
Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri
Swami Sri Yukteswar is the guru of Paramhansa Yogananda and a disciple of Lahiri Mahasaya. He met Babaji in 1894, who told him that one of his disciples was to be sent to America to share the teachings of yoga with the West. He did not have many disciples, as he was known for his strictness. He had two ashrams, one in Serampore and one in Puri. He is author of The Holy Science.
Sri Yukteswar was born to a wealthy business man and his wife on May 10, 1855, in Serampore, India. He was given the name Priya Nath Karar.
Upon leaving college, he married and had a daughter, and in 1884 he became a disciple of Lahiri Mahasaya. After the death of his wife, Priya Nath Karar became a Swami and received the name Sri Yukteswar Giri. He met Babaji, the guru of Lahiri Mahasaya, in 1894. Babaji told him that one day he would send Sri Yukteswar a disciple who would share the teachings of yoga in the West. This disciple turned out to be Paramhansa Yogananda, who is best known for his book, Autobiography of a Yogi. Babaji also asked Sri Yukteswar to write a book on the essential unity of the Bible and Bhagavad Gita, the most well-known scripture in India. Sri Yukteswar titled this book The Holy Science.
Sri Yukteswar founded two hermitages, one of which was his family home given to him by his father as his inheritance. In the last year of his life, Sri Yukteswar turned over all his properties to Paramhansa Yogananda, asking him to find someone to maintain them.
Sri Yukteswar left his body on March 9, 1936. Soon after, he appeared to Yogananda and described to him the nature of the afterlife. This description can be found in Autobiography of a Yogi.
Sri Yukteswar was born to a wealthy business man and his wife on May 10, 1855, in Serampore, India. He was given the name Priya Nath Karar.
Upon leaving college, he married and had a daughter, and in 1884 he became a disciple of Lahiri Mahasaya. After the death of his wife, Priya Nath Karar became a Swami and received the name Sri Yukteswar Giri. He met Babaji, the guru of Lahiri Mahasaya, in 1894. Babaji told him that one day he would send Sri Yukteswar a disciple who would share the teachings of yoga in the West. This disciple turned out to be Paramhansa Yogananda, who is best known for his book, Autobiography of a Yogi. Babaji also asked Sri Yukteswar to write a book on the essential unity of the Bible and Bhagavad Gita, the most well-known scripture in India. Sri Yukteswar titled this book The Holy Science.
Sri Yukteswar founded two hermitages, one of which was his family home given to him by his father as his inheritance. In the last year of his life, Sri Yukteswar turned over all his properties to Paramhansa Yogananda, asking him to find someone to maintain them.
Sri Yukteswar left his body on March 9, 1936. Soon after, he appeared to Yogananda and described to him the nature of the afterlife. This description can be found in Autobiography of a Yogi.
Lahiri Mahasaya
Shyama Charan Lahiri was the birth name of the great yoga master. His disciples lovingly added “Mahasaya,” which means “great-minded one.” Born in Bengal, India, to a pious brahmin family, Lahiri Mahasaya was the one who made the ancient science of Kriya Yoga available not just to those who had renounced the world, but to all sincere souls.
Lahiri Mahasaya was a married householder with two sons. He held a job as an accountant to support his family. A yoga master of the highest achievement, his entire life served as an example of how to live “in the world, yet not of the world.”
Unknown to society in general, a great spiritual renaissance began to flow from a remote corner of Benares [home of Lahiri Mahasaya]. Just as the fragrance of flowers cannot be suppressed, so Lahiri Mahasaya, quietly living as an ideal householder, could not hide his innate glory. Slowly, from every part of India, the devotee-bees sought the divine nectar of the liberated master.
—Paramhansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi
Mahavatar Babaji
Mahavatar Babaji is the guru of Lahiri Mahasaya and the one who re-introduced the ancient science of Kriya Yoga, which was lost during the Dark Ages. Paramhansa Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi introduced the world to this mysterious master. Still alive and residing in the Himalayas for centuries or even thousands of years, Babaji has been a guide for great spiritual teachers to carry out their special dispensations. For this reason, he is called a mahavatar, a great incarnation of God.
Why is Jesus on our altar?
Jesus is at the center of our altar because he appeared to the yoga master Babaji and asked him to send someone to the West to spread the teachings of original Christianity. Jesus told Babaji that his followers needed to learn how to receive him through deep meditation, as beautifully described in the verse, “As many as received Him, to them He gave the power to become children of God” (John 1:12). He said that although his followers still do good works, they have lost the ability to commune inwardly with God. Because of Jesus’s request, Paramhansa Yogananda came to the West. Thus, Jesus Christ is honored with a place on our altars and in our daily prayers. Yogananda shares further in Chapter 33 of Autobiography of a Yogi, “The Mahavatar is in constant communion with Christ; together they send out vibrations of redemption, and have planned the spiritual technique of salvation for this age. The work of these two fully-illumined masters—one with the body, and one without it—is to inspire the nations to forsake suicidal wars, race hatreds, religious sectarianism, and the boomerang-evils of
materialism.” A purpose of Ananda’s worldwide work is to carry out Babaji and Christ’s plan to aid the evolution of consciousness in this ascending age.