Who it is for
For people who want a structured path of meditation within a lineage and an organisation, and who are at ease with devotional language and accounts of miracles.
Life and places
- He was born Mukunda Lal Ghosh in Gorakhpur, India, on 5 January 1893, and in 1917 he founded a school for boys at Ranchi. 1
- He arrived in Boston in September 1920 and gave his first speech to the International Congress of Religious Liberals. 1
- Early in 1925 he reached Los Angeles and established the international headquarters of Self-Realization Fellowship on Mount Washington; during his visit to India in 1935, a hermitage at Encinitas, California, was built for him. 1
- He died in Los Angeles on 7 March 1952, after a short speech at a banquet at the Biltmore Hotel for India's ambassador, Binay R. Sen. 1
Public context
Works
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Autobiography of a Yogi
Book · 1946 · Philosophical Library, New York
Yogananda's account of his life up to the mid-1940s: his childhood in Bengal, his years with Sri Yukteswar, his meetings with Indian and Western saints, Kriya Yoga, and his work in America. It also tells the lives of Lahiri Mahasaya and Sri Yukteswar and includes many accounts of miracles.
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God Talks With Arjuna: The Bhagavad Gita. Royal Science of God-Realization
Book · 1995 · Self-Realization Fellowship, Los Angeles
His translation of the Bhagavad Gita with a verse-by-verse commentary that reads it as a guide to yoga and meditation. He revised it towards the end of his life; disciples completed the editing for the book.
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The Science of Religion
Book · 1924 · Yogoda and Sat-Sanga Headquarters, Los Angeles
A short book arguing that all people seek lasting freedom from pain and the experience of bliss, and that religion in its universal sense is the methods that lead there. It compares an intellectual, a devotional and a meditative method with a 'scientific' technique of turning the life force inward, which it does not explain in detail.
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Whispers from Eternity
Book · 1929 · Yogoda and Sat-Sanga, Mount Washington Center, Los Angeles
A book of prayers and poems addressed to God. The foreword explains his idea of praying by claiming one's relationship with God as a child rather than begging.
The short summaries are ours.
In their own words
Short passages in the words of Paramahansa Yogananda, each with its source. Where the quoted text is not in the language of this page, a translation follows and says whose it is.
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The characteristic features of Indian culture have long been a search for ultimate verities and the concomitant disciple-guru relationship.
Autobiography of a Yogi · Chapter 1 (My Parents and Early Life), opening sentence; 1946 edition · en.wikisource.org -
By daily stilling my thoughts, I could win release from the delusive conviction that my body was a mass of flesh and bones, traversing the hard soil of matter.
Autobiography of a Yogi · Chapter 14 (An Experience in Cosmic Consciousness); 1946 edition · en.wikisource.org
Documented teaching relationships
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Learned personally with Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri
SRF describes Yogananda’s personal training with Yukteswar from 1910; Harvard Pluralism also names Yukteswar as his teacher.
Biographical tradition · yogananda.org , pluralism.org
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Personal encounter with Anandamayi Ma
In Autobiography of a Yogi, Paramahansa Yogananda describes meeting Anandamayi Ma in the Bhowanipur district of Calcutta, her later visit with her party to his school at Ranchi, and a further brief meeting on the station platform at Serampore.
Self-reported · en.wikisource.org , anandamayi.org
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Tradition traced to Adi Shankara
In Autobiography of a Yogi, Yogananda writes that every swami belongs to the monastic order organised in its present form by Shankara, that all its monks trace their spiritual lineage to him, and that Sri Yukteswar and he himself belong to its Giri branch.
Self-reported · en.wikisource.org
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Personal encounter with Ramana Maharshi
Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi records that Swami Yogananda came to Sri Ramanasramam with four others on 29 November 1935, had lunch there and asked Ramana Maharshi questions before leaving; his organisation names Ramana Maharshi among those he met in India in 1935–36.
Stated by an institution · archive.arunachala.org , yssofindia.org
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Personal encounter with Lahiri Mahasaya
In Autobiography of a Yogi, Paramahansa Yogananda gives his late mother's account that she carried him as a baby to Lahiri Mahasaya's home in Benares, where Lahiri Mahasaya seated him on his lap and blessed him.
Self-reported · gutenberg.org
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Personal teacher of Paramahamsa Hariharananda
The Bibliothèque nationale de France records Hariharananda as a disciple of Yogananda from 1935; his organisation's biography says he received the second Kriya from Yogananda that year.
Stated by an institution · catalogue.bnf.fr , kriya.org
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Recognised teaching areas of Paramahamsa Hariharananda
The biography of Kriya Yoga International says Paramahansa Yogananda appointed Hariharananda acharya of the Karar Ashram in Puri in 1950 and empowered him in 1951 to initiate seekers into Kriya Yoga.
Stated by an institution · kriya.org
Teaching relationships are documented statements. They confer no trust and do not attest realisation.
Sources
- A Beloved World Teacher · yogananda.org Self-Realization Fellowship, the organisation he founded; biography accessed 10 Oct 2026
- Kriya Yoga Path of Meditation · yogananda.org Self-Realization Fellowship; description of the path it teaches accessed 10 Oct 2026
- Self-Realization Fellowship Lessons · yogananda.org Self-Realization Fellowship; content and price of the course and conditions for Kriya initiation accessed 10 Oct 2026
- Autobiography of a Yogi (1946) · Project Gutenberg eBook #7452 His own book; text of the 1946 first edition, transcribed by volunteers accessed 10 Oct 2026
- Yogananda, by Catherine Wessinger · Encyclopedia of Religion, on Encyclopedia.com Reference article by a scholar of religious studies accessed 10 Oct 2026
- Self-Realization Fellowship Church v. Ananda Church of Self-Realization, 206 F.3d 1322 (9th Cir. 2000) · Wikisource Opinion of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit accessed 10 Oct 2026
Compiled by us from the sources listed. Last checked 11 Oct 2026.
This description is factual. It contains no recommendation, ranking or assurance. Statements about effects are those of the respective source.