SRI SRI PARAMAHANSA YOGANANDA
(1893-1952)

"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."

In these words, the Government of India paid tribute to the founder of Yogoda Satsanga Society of India/Self-Realization Fellowship, upon issuing a commemorative stamp in his honor on March 7, 1977, the twenty-fifth anniversary of his passing.

Paramahansa Yogananda entered mahasamadhi (a yogi's final conscious exit from the body) in Los Angeles, California, on March 7, 1952, after concluding his speech at a banquet held in honour of H.E. Binary R. Sen, Ambassador of India.

A world teacher whose persence among us illumined the path for counless souls, Paramahansa Yogananda lived and taught the highest truths of life. Born in Gorakhpur, India, in 1893, Paramahansa Yogananda was sent by his Guru to the United States in 1920 as India's delegate to an International congress of Religious Liberals. Subsequent lectures in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia were enthusiastically received, and in 1924 he embarked on a cross-continental speaking tour.

For the next decade Paramahansaji traveled extensively, giving lectures and classes in which he instructed thousansds of men and women in the yoga science of meditation and balanced spiritual living.

The work he began, with the founding of Yogoda Satsanga Society of India in 1917 and the establishment of the international headquarters of Self-Realization Fellowship in Los Angeles in 1925, continues under the guidance of Sri Sri Daya Mata. In addition to publishing Paramahansa Yogananda's writings, lectures, and informal talks (including a comprehensive series of lessons for home study)*, his society oversees ashrams, kendras, and meditation centers around the world; monastic training programs; and the Worldwide Prayer Circle, which serves as a channel to help bring healing to those in need and greater peace and harmony among all nations. Seekers in India and surrounding territories are served by Yogoda Satsanga Society of India.

Quincy Home, Jr., Ph. D., Professor of Ancient Languages, Sacripps College, wrote: "Paramahansa Yogananda brought to the West not only India's perennial promise of God-realization, but also a practical method by which spiritual aspirants from all walks of life may progress rapidly toward that goal. Originally appreciated in the West only on the most lofty and abstract level, the spiritual legacy of India is now accessible as practice and experience to all who aspire to know God, not in the beyond, but in the here and now.... Yogananda has placed within the reach of all the most all exalted methods of contemplation."

The life and teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda are described in his Autobiography of a Yogi, which has become a classic in its field since its publication in 1946, and is now used as a text and reference work in many colleges and universities throughout the world.