Paramahansa Yogananda: Core Teachings, Key Ideas and Practices
Paramahansa Yogananda brought Kriya Yoga to the West and wrote Autobiography of a Yogi. What he taught, the Hong-Sau practice you can try this week, and the honest criticism.
Who was Paramahansa Yogananda?
Paramahansa Yogananda was an Indian monk who moved to the United States in 1920, spent the rest of his life teaching meditation there, and wrote Autobiography of a Yogi. He was born Mukunda Lal Ghosh on January 5, 1893, in Gorakhpur, into a Bengali family whose parents were disciples of the householder yogi Lahiri Mahasaya. Around 1910 he became the disciple of Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri of Serampore, and in 1915 he took formal vows in the Swami Order and received the name Yogananda. He completed a degree at Serampore College, then affiliated with the University of Calcutta. In 1917 he opened a school for boys in Bengal that combined ordinary academic subjects with yoga training, and it later moved to Ranchi. He sailed for Boston in 1920 as India's delegate to the International Congress of Religious Liberals and never resettled in India. Through the 1920s he lectured across American cities, established a headquarters on Mount Washington in Los Angeles in 1925, and received the monastic title Paramahansa from Sri Yukteswar in 1935. He died in Los Angeles on March 7, 1952, at fifty-nine.
What made Paramahansa Yogananda unusual among early Indian teachers in America is that he stayed. Swami Vivekananda had toured and gone home. Yogananda bought property, built temples, incorporated an organization and spent more than three decades addressing American audiences in their own idiom. He arrived during a period of restrictive United States immigration law and open public hostility toward Asian teachers, and he adapted by presenting yoga as a science rather than a foreign religion, and by quoting the Gospels as often as the Bhagavad Gita. A Kansas City insurance executive named James J. Lynn became his most prominent American disciple and funded much of the work, including a hermitage at Encinitas on the California coast where Yogananda wrote most of his memoir. He returned to India once, in 1935 and 1936, visiting his aging guru, meeting Mahatma Gandhi at Wardha, and touring the country before sailing back; Sri Yukteswar died during that period. In his last years Yogananda pulled back from constant lecturing to write and supervise editorial work, and he dedicated the Lake Shrine in Pacific Palisades in 1950. He is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial-Park in Glendale, California.
Was Paramahansa Yogananda his real name?
Paramahansa Yogananda was born Mukunda Lal Ghosh in 1893. Yogananda was the monastic name he received on taking Swami Order vows in 1915. Paramahansa is a title, conferred by his guru Sri Yukteswar in 1935. Early editions of his book spelled it Paramhansa, and Ananda still prefers that spelling.
Who was Paramahansa Yogananda's guru?
Paramahansa Yogananda's guru was Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri of Serampore, a scholar and amateur astronomer who wrote The Holy Science. The line as Yogananda described it runs from Mahavatar Babaji to Lahiri Mahasaya to Sri Yukteswar to Yogananda, and Self-Realization Fellowship still names those four as its gurus.
What is Autobiography of a Yogi and why is it famous?
Autobiography of a Yogi is Paramahansa Yogananda's memoir, first published in 1946 by Philosophical Library in New York, and it remains the main entry point to everything he taught. The book traces his childhood search for a teacher, his years with Sri Yukteswar, the founding of his school in Bengal, and his move to America. Interleaved with the memoir are chapters on Indian holy figures he met or heard about: Bhaduri Mahasaya, described as levitating; Giri Bala, a woman said to live without food; a swami who wrestled tigers; and Mahavatar Babaji, whom Yogananda described as a deathless master living in the Himalayas. Other chapters cover people well outside that world, including the plant breeder Luther Burbank, to whom the book is dedicated, the scientist Jagadis Chandra Bose, the poet Rabindranath Tagore, and the Bavarian Catholic stigmatic Therese Neumann. The book explains what Kriya Yoga is meant to accomplish but does not teach it. Its reach has been wide: Yogananda and his three lineage gurus appear on the cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and Steve Jobs arranged for copies to be given to guests at his memorial.
The strategy behind Autobiography of a Yogi explains much of why it traveled. Paramahansa Yogananda wrote for readers who trusted laboratories more than temples, so he framed yoga as repeatable method and saints as evidence, using a vocabulary of energy, current and law. He also folded Christianity in rather than setting it against yoga, which lowered the barrier for American readers unwilling to change religion. The prose is warm, digressive and crowded with coincidence, and it reads as testimony rather than argument. One practical caution: the text has a publishing history. Yogananda revised it during his lifetime, and Self-Realization Fellowship issued further revised editions after his death in 1952. Swami Kriyananda's Ananda organization later published a facsimile of the 1946 first edition and argued that the posthumous revisions changed meaning in places, particularly around how Yogananda had described the future of his own organization. Self-Realization Fellowship maintains that the changes reflect corrections and intentions Yogananda left behind. Both versions are in print, so a reader who cares about exact wording can compare them rather than accept either side's summary.
When was Autobiography of a Yogi published?
Autobiography of a Yogi was first published in 1946 by Philosophical Library in New York. Paramahansa Yogananda wrote most of it at the Self-Realization Fellowship hermitage in Encinitas, California. He revised the text during his lifetime, and further revised editions appeared after his death in 1952.
Is Autobiography of a Yogi historically accurate?
Autobiography of a Yogi is a devotional memoir rather than verified reportage. The checkable parts, such as Paramahansa Yogananda's schooling, his 1920 voyage to Boston and his American lecture tours, hold up against the record. The miracle accounts rest on Yogananda's own testimony, have no independent corroboration, and are best read as claims.
What is Kriya Yoga as Paramahansa Yogananda taught it?
Kriya Yoga, in Paramahansa Yogananda's presentation, is a breath and concentration technique that works on the spine and the energy centers along it, and he taught that practicing it speeds spiritual growth far beyond what ordinary living produces. The practitioner mentally directs life energy up and down the spine in coordination with a regulated breath, with attention held at the point between the eyebrows. Yogananda described the effect in physiological language, saying the technique decarbonizes the blood, quiets the heart and withdraws the nervous system from sensory input so the mind can settle. He anchored it in scripture, citing Patanjali's Yoga Sutras on pranayama and the verses in the Bhagavad Gita about offering the incoming breath into the outgoing breath. The historical claim attached to Kriya Yoga is that the technique is ancient, was lost, and was revived by Mahavatar Babaji, who gave it to Lahiri Mahasaya in 1861. Yogananda also made a quantitative claim, that a set number of Kriyas is equivalent to a year of natural spiritual evolution. That ratio is a doctrine of the lineage rather than a measurement, and no method exists for testing it.
It helps to be clear about what Kriya Yoga is not. It is not hatha yoga, and postures play almost no role in Paramahansa Yogananda's system beyond sitting upright with a straight spine. It is not the kundalini yoga popularized by Yogi Bhajan, which comes from a different lineage with different practices. And it is not something anyone can pick up from a paragraph online, because in every organization descended from Yogananda the technique is transmitted at an initiation, and the initiate agrees not to pass it on. That secrecy is a genuine obstacle for readers and worth stating plainly: you can read a great deal about Kriya Yoga and still not know it. What you can do without initiation is everything surrounding it, which is not nothing. The posture, the concentration technique, the affirmation method and the ethical framing are all published. Yogananda treated those preliminaries as necessary rather than optional, and Self-Realization Fellowship expects roughly a year of them before it will consider an application for Kriya initiation.
Do you need initiation to learn Kriya Yoga?
Every lineage descended from Paramahansa Yogananda gives Kriya Yoga only at an initiation, after preparatory study. Self-Realization Fellowship requires students to work through its home-study Lessons first. Ananda, the Kriya Yoga Institute in the Hariharananda line, and the Center for Spiritual Awareness founded by Roy Eugene Davis also initiate, with differences in detail and in how long they ask you to wait.
Is Kriya Yoga safe for beginners?
Kriya Yoga involves regulated breathing, which is one reason Paramahansa Yogananda's organizations gate it behind months of preparation rather than teaching it on day one. Anyone with asthma, cardiovascular disease, epilepsy, a panic disorder or a history of trauma should discuss breath-based practice with a clinician first. Simple breath watching is far gentler than regulated pranayama.
What did Paramahansa Yogananda actually teach about God and the soul?
Paramahansa Yogananda taught that the purpose of life is Self-realization, which he defined as direct knowledge that the soul is one with an omnipresent Spirit rather than belief in that proposition. In his framing, Spirit is conscious, blissful and personal enough to be loved, and the individual soul is a spark of it that has forgotten what it is. That forgetting he called maya, the cosmic delusion which makes a dream of separateness feel solid. Karma and reincarnation follow: consequences carry across lives, and the soul returns until the delusion breaks. He described the human being as having a physical, an astral and a causal body, with life energy moving through spinal centers that meditation redirects. Alongside the metaphysics he was insistent about ordinary life. He argued for daily meditation combined with active work in the world rather than withdrawal from it, for vegetarian diet, for the deliberate use of will to draw energy into the body, and for what he called balanced living. His organization's stated aims include the claim that the original teaching of Jesus and the original yoga of Krishna describe one underlying science.
The Christian element in Yogananda teachings is not decoration, and it is the part most often missed. Paramahansa Yogananda held that Christ-consciousness is a state rather than a person, and that Jesus attained it as others have. He spent years on a verse-by-verse reading of the Gospels through a yogic lens, published after his death as The Second Coming of Christ. He treated the Bhagavad Gita the same way, reading Arjuna's battlefield as an internal one and Krishna's instruction as technical guidance about breath and attention. The other practical strand is his teaching on will and energy. He argued that the body draws energy from a cosmic source through the medulla and not only from food, and he built a set of exercises around consciously tensing and relaxing body parts to direct it. He also taught affirmation as a graded discipline rather than as positive thinking, insisting that the words had to be repeated with attention until they sank below the conscious mind. His claims about healing through affirmation are claims, and nothing he wrote supports skipping medical care.
What did Paramahansa Yogananda teach about Jesus?
Paramahansa Yogananda taught that Jesus was a fully realized master who had attained Christ-consciousness, a universal state also reached by yogis, and that original Christianity and original yoga describe one path. His commentary The Second Coming of Christ reads the Gospels through that lens. Most Christian theologians reject the reading as foreign to what the texts say.
Did Paramahansa Yogananda teach reincarnation?
Yes. Paramahansa Yogananda taught reincarnation and karma as ordinary features of reality, holding that souls return through many lives until delusion dissolves and that Kriya Yoga shortens the process. He also taught that the soul passes through astral and causal worlds between incarnations, which he described at length in Autobiography of a Yogi.
What is Self-Realization Fellowship and how does it teach?
Self-Realization Fellowship is the organization Paramahansa Yogananda founded to preserve and publish his teachings, with international headquarters on Mount Washington in Los Angeles. He began the work in 1920 after arriving in Boston and incorporated it in California in the mid-1930s. Its Indian counterpart, Yogoda Satsanga Society of India, dates from 1917, is headquartered at Dakshineswar near Kolkata, and has its best known campus at Ranchi. Self-Realization Fellowship runs temples and meditation centers in many countries, publishes Yogananda's books, maintains monastic orders of monks and nuns, and administers the home-study Lessons through which the techniques are taught. Its notable sites include the Encinitas hermitage where Yogananda wrote, the Hollywood Temple, and the Lake Shrine in Pacific Palisades, dedicated in 1950, which holds a portion of Mahatma Gandhi's ashes in a memorial. Leadership passed after Yogananda's death to his disciple Rajarsi Janakananda, the American businessman James J. Lynn, then to Sri Daya Mata, who led for decades, then to Sri Mrinalini Mata, and then to Brother Chidananda. All were monastics formed inside the organization.
The mechanism by which Self-Realization Fellowship teaches is the Lessons, a graded home-study series that arrives in installments and now runs online as well as by post. The sequence matters. Students first receive the Energization Exercises, then the Hong-Sau technique of concentration, then the Aum technique of meditation, and only after sustained practice may they apply for Kriya initiation. There is a fee, framed as covering costs, and applicants make commitments about loyalty to the line of gurus and about not teaching the technique themselves. That structure is both the strength and the sticking point. It produces students who have actually practiced something before receiving the central technique, which is more than most meditation offerings ask of anyone. It also means a paywall, a waiting period and a hierarchy, and it puts a single organization in the position of gatekeeper for what Paramahansa Yogananda taught. Self-Realization Fellowship also holds an annual convocation in Los Angeles, maintains a worldwide prayer circle, and publishes a magazine descended from the East-West magazine Yogananda started in the 1920s.
How do you get Kriya initiation from Self-Realization Fellowship?
Self-Realization Fellowship gives Kriya initiation only to students who have enrolled in its Lessons and practiced the preliminary techniques, generally for about a year, before applying. Initiation involves pledges of loyalty to the gurus of the line and of confidentiality about the technique itself. Paramahansa Yogananda established that sequence during his lifetime.
Is Self-Realization Fellowship a religion?
Self-Realization Fellowship describes itself as a worldwide religious organization and runs temples with regular services, so functionally it operates as a church. Paramahansa Yogananda did not require members to leave their existing faith, and many members identify as Christian, Jewish or Hindu while practicing his techniques. Membership is not required to buy his books.
Which Paramahansa Yogananda practice can you try this week?
The Paramahansa Yogananda practice you can start this week without any initiation is Hong-Sau, the concentration technique he taught as the first step toward Kriya Yoga. Sit upright on a firm chair with both feet flat, or cross-legged, keeping the spine off the backrest and the chin level. Rest your hands palms upward where the thighs meet the abdomen. Inhale, tense the whole body at once for a few seconds, then exhale sharply through the mouth and let everything go loose. Close your eyes and lift your gaze gently toward the point between the eyebrows, without straining the eye muscles. Now stop controlling the breath entirely and simply watch it. As air comes in, mentally say Hong. As it goes out, mentally say Sau, pronounced saw. The syllables stay silent and follow the breath rather than being imposed on it. When you notice you have drifted into thinking, come back at the next breath without commentary. Start with ten minutes twice a day, morning and before bed, and stay seated in the quiet for two or three minutes afterward instead of standing straight up.
Two things reliably surprise beginners at Hong-Sau. The first is that the breath shortens on its own as attention settles, and it may pause between breaths for several seconds. Paramahansa Yogananda treated that pause as the point of the exercise rather than a problem, and it is not dangerous, because you are not holding the breath, you simply are not needing it yet. If the pause makes you anxious, breathe normally and come back to it another day. The second surprise is how fast the mind fills the silence. Counting how many times you return is more useful than trying to prevent the wandering. Yogananda's affirmation method can be added to the same sitting and takes two minutes. Pick one short sentence in the present tense, something concrete rather than grandiose. Say it aloud with attention, then more quietly, then in a whisper, then mentally, then hold the meaning with no words at all. He taught that a sentence has to move from noise to conviction, which is why the volume descends. A realistic first week is five sessions of ten minutes, with the affirmation closing three of them, plus a written note on what actually happened.
What does Hong-Sau mean?
Hong-Sau derives from the Sanskrit hamsa, traditionally read as I am He or I am That, and hamsa also means swan. Paramahansa Yogananda taught the two syllables as a mantra tied to the natural breath rather than as a phrase to think about, and the meaning is meant to become experiential rather than intellectual.
What are the Energization Exercises?
The Energization Exercises are a series of tension and relaxation movements Paramahansa Yogananda devised early in his teaching career, in which the practitioner consciously tenses a specific body part with will, holds briefly, then releases, working through the body in order. Self-Realization Fellowship teaches the full series in its Lessons. The underlying principle, tense then release completely, can be practiced generally.
How long should a beginner meditate?
Paramahansa Yogananda's practical counsel favored regularity over duration, and ten to fifteen minutes twice daily is a workable start for Hong-Sau. Extend the sitting only once the shorter one has become automatic. Early morning before the day loads up, and evening before sleep, are the two slots his students traditionally use.
What are the main Paramahansa Yogananda books?
Paramahansa Yogananda's essential books are Autobiography of a Yogi from 1946, his two-volume Bhagavad Gita commentary God Talks With Arjuna, and his two-volume Gospel commentary The Second Coming of Christ. Only the first appeared in his lifetime. The commentaries were assembled from his writing and talks and published by Self-Realization Fellowship decades after his death in 1952, God Talks With Arjuna in 1995 and The Second Coming of Christ in 2004. Shorter distillations of both exist as The Yoga of the Bhagavad Gita and The Yoga of Jesus. His early works include The Science of Religion, which grew out of the address he gave in Boston in 1920, and Scientific Healing Affirmations, which sets out his affirmation method. His devotional writing appears in Whispers from Eternity and Songs of the Soul, and his chants in Cosmic Chants. Three volumes of collected talks, Man's Eternal Quest, The Divine Romance and Journey to Self-Realization, are where his practical instruction sits. The Law of Success and Metaphysical Meditations are short and function as the usual gift books.
Reading order matters more than usual here, because the Paramahansa Yogananda books were written for different audiences. Start with Autobiography of a Yogi, which is narrative and needs no background. If it holds you, go next to Man's Eternal Quest rather than to the commentaries, because the collected talks are where Yogananda addresses ordinary problems in plain language: worry, money, discouragement, how to sit, what to do when meditation feels dead. God Talks With Arjuna and The Second Coming of Christ are long, dense and doctrinal, and they reward a reader who already accepts the framework. One editorial caveat is worth carrying through all of it. Because Self-Realization Fellowship compiled the major commentaries and the talk volumes after Yogananda's death from manuscripts, transcripts and class notes, the wording you read has passed through editors. That is normal for posthumous publication and implies nothing underhanded, but it does mean the books are not equally direct evidence of what he said. The 1946 Autobiography is the closest thing to unmediated Yogananda in print.
Which Paramahansa Yogananda book should you read first?
Read Autobiography of a Yogi first. It requires no prior knowledge of Indian philosophy, it explains why Paramahansa Yogananda considered Kriya Yoga worth a life, and it is the book that carried his name worldwide. Read Man's Eternal Quest second if you want practical instruction rather than miracle narrative.
Did Paramahansa Yogananda write his Gita and Bible commentaries himself?
Paramahansa Yogananda worked on both commentaries for years, writing and dictating, but neither God Talks With Arjuna nor The Second Coming of Christ appeared during his lifetime. Self-Realization Fellowship editors assembled and published them long after his death in 1952. The content is his; the final arrangement and wording involved editorial hands.
What criticism and controversy surround Paramahansa Yogananda?
The substantive criticism of Paramahansa Yogananda falls into four areas, and none of it involves the kind of personal scandal attached to some later gurus. First, the miracle claims. Autobiography of a Yogi presents levitation, a woman living without food, a deathless Himalayan master and Sri Yukteswar's appearance after death as reported fact, and none of it is independently corroborated. Mahavatar Babaji in particular has no documented existence outside accounts internal to this lineage. Second, the incorruptibility claim. Self-Realization Fellowship has long cited a letter from a Forest Lawn mortuary director describing an absence of visible decay in the weeks between Yogananda's death and interment. That letter came from the establishment handling the funeral, was never an independent forensic examination, and as published notes a discoloration appearing on the nose near the end of the period. Third, the editorial changes made to Autobiography of a Yogi after 1952, which Ananda has publicly contested. Fourth, the structure itself: paid Lessons, confidentiality pledges and one organization holding the copyrights, which critics read as a commercial gate on teachings Yogananda described as belonging to everyone.
Two lawsuits are part of the record and are frequently confused with each other. In the 1930s a close associate, Swami Dhirananda, born Basu Kumar Bagchi, who had come from India to help run the American work, broke with Paramahansa Yogananda and sued him over money, and the case went against Yogananda. Bagchi left the movement and later worked as an academic physiologist in the United States. Separately, in the 1990s Self-Realization Fellowship sued Swami Kriyananda's Ananda organization over copyrights, trademarks and the use of Yogananda's name and image. The Ninth Circuit ruled against Self-Realization Fellowship on significant points, including that it did not hold some copyrights it had claimed and could not exclusively own the phrase self-realization. Kriyananda's later troubles belong to him rather than to Yogananda: a California jury found against Kriyananda and Ananda in a suit brought by a former member alleging sexual misconduct within the organization, and Ananda Church sought bankruptcy protection afterward. Yogananda died in 1952 and had no part in any of it, but anyone researching Kriya Yoga will meet the dispute and should know which figure it concerns.
Is Mahavatar Babaji a real historical person?
There is no documentation of Mahavatar Babaji outside the accounts of this lineage. The chapter in Paramahansa Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi is the source most people encounter, and it describes a master who neither ages nor dies. Treat the figure as a claim of the tradition rather than as a historical record.
Did Paramahansa Yogananda's body really not decay?
The claim rests on a single letter from the mortuary director at Forest Lawn, where Paramahansa Yogananda was interred after his death in 1952, reporting no visible decay over roughly twenty days. No independent pathologist examined the body, the letter came from the firm handling the funeral, and it records a discoloration appearing near the end. It is testimony rather than an independent finding.
Are Paramahansa Yogananda's healing claims supported by evidence?
No clinical evidence supports the specific healing claims in Paramahansa Yogananda's Scientific Healing Affirmations, which argues that affirmations charged with will and attention can reach the body through the subconscious. Meditation has a research base for stress and blood pressure, but that literature examines general practices, not Kriya Yoga or his affirmation method, and none of it justifies replacing medical treatment.
How do Yogananda teachings differ from other teachers?
The nearest adjacent teacher to Paramahansa Yogananda is Swami Vivekananda, who reached America in 1893 for the World's Parliament of Religions and founded the Vedanta Society, and the difference is decisive. Vivekananda mainly taught philosophy and a framework for Raja Yoga, then returned to India, while Yogananda settled permanently in California and organized everything around transmitting one initiatory technique to lay people with jobs and families. Against Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and Transcendental Meditation, the contrast is preparation and evidence: TM is a mantra practice taught in a short course and promoted heavily through clinical research, while Kriya Yoga asks for about a year of preliminary work and a lifelong relationship with a line of gurus, and Self-Realization Fellowship has not pursued clinical validation. Against Jiddu Krishnamurti the contrast is total, since Krishnamurti dissolved his own organization and rejected gurus, methods and spiritual authority outright. Against Ramana Maharshi, whose self-inquiry needs no technique, no energy anatomy and no institution, Yogananda's system is elaborate and physiological. Sadhguru's Shambhavi Mahamudra and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's Sudarshan Kriya are structurally closer, both initiatory breath practices taught in courses, but both came later and neither carries Yogananda's Christ and Krishna synthesis.
The honest limits are worth stating before anyone commits a year to this. Kriya Yoga is not therapy and Paramahansa Yogananda never presented it as one. It will not resolve trauma, clinical depression, an addiction or a failing relationship, and breath-focused practice makes anxiety worse for some people rather than better. The central claim, that a given number of Kriyas equals a given span of natural spiritual evolution, cannot be falsified, so you have no way to check whether you are getting what was described. Progress in this system is assessed by inner experience, which is exactly the sort of evidence a motivated person can talk themselves into. It also suits some temperaments badly. If devotional language about God and guru grates on you, if you dislike hierarchy, or if paying for graded lessons and signing a confidentiality pledge feels wrong, that discomfort will not fade with practice. Yogananda teachings ask for daily discipline, theistic framing and loyalty to a line of teachers. Anyone wanting a secular technique with none of that is better served elsewhere, and Hong-Sau on its own is a legitimate place to stop.
How is Kriya Yoga different from Transcendental Meditation?
Kriya Yoga is a breath and spinal energy technique given after roughly a year of preparation and a lasting commitment to a lineage, while Transcendental Meditation is a silent mantra practice taught by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's organization in a short course. Paramahansa Yogananda's line has not pursued clinical research, whereas TM built its public case on it.
Who should not practice Kriya Yoga?
Kriya Yoga suits people who want structure, daily discipline and a devotional relationship with a line of gurus. Paramahansa Yogananda's system will frustrate anyone who objects to secrecy pledges, paid lessons, hierarchy or theistic language. People with panic disorders, uncontrolled asthma or cardiovascular conditions should seek medical advice before taking up any regulated breathing practice.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who was Paramahansa Yogananda?
Paramahansa Yogananda was an Indian monk, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh in 1893, who moved to the United States in 1920 and taught meditation there until his death in Los Angeles in 1952. He founded Self-Realization Fellowship, brought Kriya Yoga to a Western lay audience, and wrote Autobiography of a Yogi, published in 1946.
What is Kriya Yoga in simple terms?
Kriya Yoga is a meditation technique that combines regulated breathing with the mental circulation of life energy along the spine, with attention held at the point between the eyebrows. Paramahansa Yogananda taught that it calms the nervous system and speeds up spiritual growth. It is transmitted only at an initiation, after preparatory practice, so it cannot be learned from a written description.
Can you learn Kriya Yoga for free?
Not usually. Self-Realization Fellowship charges for its home-study Lessons, and the other organizations descended from Paramahansa Yogananda charge for courses or initiation retreats. What is free is everything around the technique: his books are in libraries, and the Hong-Sau concentration practice he taught as the first step is published and costs nothing to try.
Is Autobiography of a Yogi worth reading?
Autobiography of a Yogi is worth reading if you want to understand why Kriya Yoga attracted a following, and it needs no background in Indian philosophy. Read it as a devotional memoir rather than a documentary. The miracle chapters rest on Paramahansa Yogananda's own testimony and have no independent corroboration.
Did Paramahansa Yogananda marry or have children?
No. Paramahansa Yogananda took vows in the Swami Order in 1915 and remained a monk for the rest of his life. He had siblings, and his younger brother Sananda Lal Ghosh wrote a family memoir about him titled Mejda. Self-Realization Fellowship maintains monastic orders of monks and nuns on the same model.
How did Paramahansa Yogananda die?
Paramahansa Yogananda died on March 7, 1952, in Los Angeles, collapsing shortly after speaking at a banquet held for the Indian ambassador to the United States. He was fifty-nine. His followers describe the death as a conscious departure from the body rather than a medical event. He is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial-Park in Glendale, California.
What is the difference between Self-Realization Fellowship and Ananda?
Self-Realization Fellowship is the organization Paramahansa Yogananda founded and led until his death in 1952. Ananda was founded by Swami Kriyananda, a disciple expelled from Self-Realization Fellowship in the early 1960s, who went on to build residential communities and republish early editions of Yogananda's writing. The two organizations litigated against each other through the 1990s.
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