Swami Sriyukteswara Giri
Born	(1855-05-10)10 May 1855 Serampore, Bengal, Undivided India
Died	9 March 1936(1936-03-09) (aged 80) Puri, Orissa, British India
Birth name	Priyanath Karar
Guru	Lahiri Mahasaya
Philosophy	Kriya Yoga
Prominent Disciple(s)	Paramahansa Yogananda, Swami Satyananda Giri

Swami Sriyukteswar Giri (also spelled Sriyuktesvara) (Bengali: শ্রী যুক্তেশ্বর গিরী) (10 May 1855 - 9 March 1936) is the monastic name of Priyanath Karar (Bengali: প্রিয়নাথ কাঁড়ার), the guru of Swami Satyananda Giri and Paramahansa Yogananda. Sri Yukteshwar was an educator, astronomer, a Jyotisha (Vedic astrologer), a yogi, and a believer in the Bhagavad Gita and the Bible. He was a disciple of Lahiri Mahasaya of Varanasi and a member of the Giri branch of the swami order. Yogananda considered Sri Yukteswar as Jnanavatar, or "Incarnation of Wisdom".^[1]

Biography[link]

Sri Yukteswar was born Priyanath Karar in Serampore, India to Kshetranath Karar and Kadambini. Priyanath lost his father at a young age, and took on much of the responsibility for managing his family's land holdings.^[2] A bright student, he passed the entrance exams and enrolled in Srirampur Christian Missionary College, where he developed an interest in the Bible.^[3] This interest would later express itself in his book, The Holy Science, which discusses the unity behind the scientific principles underlying Yoga and the Bible. He also attended Calcutta Medical College for almost two years.^[4]

After leaving college, Priyanath married and had a daughter. His wife died a few years after their marriage,^[5] and he eventually was formally intitiated into the monastic Swami order as "Sriyuktesvar Giri" (note: thus 'Sri' is not a separate honorific, but part of his given name). "...many follow the usual procedure (for writing or saying someone's name informally) and drop the "Sri" and say only "Yukteshvar", but this is not correct. If one wants to put a "Sri" at the beginning as in the prevalent fashion, then his name would look as: "Sri Sriyukteswar Giri". ^[6]

In 1884, Priyanath met Lahiri Mahasaya, who became his Guru and initiated him into the path of Kriya Yoga.^[7] Sri Yukteswar spent a great deal of time in the next several years in the company of his guru, often visiting Lahiri Mahasaya in Benares. In 1894, while attending the Kumbha Mela in Allahabad, he met the Guru of Lahiri Mahasaya, Mahavatar Babaji,^[7] who asked Sri Yukteswar to write a book comparing Hindu scriptures and the Christian bible.^[8] Mahavatar Babaji also bestowed on Sri Yukteswar the title of 'Swami' at that meeting.^[9] Sri Yukteswar completed the requested book in 1894, naming it Kaivalya Darsanam, or The Holy Science.^[10]

A revolutionary interlude[link]

"Priyanath Karar" has been mentioned by James Campbell Ker in the Bihar and Orissa History Sheet (p. 498) of his Political Trouble in India, A Confidential Report, 1917, First Reprint 1973. Arun Chandra Guha writes that when Bankimchandra Chatterjee was a Deputy Magistrate at Chinsura, patriotic literary figures like Yogendra Vidyabhushan, Bhudev Mukherjee, Nabin Chandra Sen, Hemchandra Banerjee used to meet in his house. Under their inspiration and advice, Tincowri Chatterjee started physical culture centres at Chandernagore, Chinsura and Serampore. Professor Charu Chandra Roy organised them into revolutionary groups during the agitations against the Partition of Bengal in 1905. The famous Tantric saint Tarapada Banerjee, alias Tara Khepa, openly advocated rebellion against British rule while holding classes on the Gita and the Chandi. Preonath Karar was a member of those centres.^[11]

“A few months before the session of the Surat Congress, Suranath traveled in the guise of a Tantric priest all over Bengal (…) preaching sedition… went Calcutta and stayed there for a month at the Sandhya office… He then formed a central committee (…), Mokshada, Shyamsundar Chakravarti, Arabinda Ghose, Tara Khepa, Annada Kaviraj and others as members.” ^[12] A few days before the publication of the Yugantar, at Benares, Preonath with Hrishikesh and Suranath “convened a public meeting as well as a meeting of the pundits wherein it was settled by quotations from the Hindu Astrology and Astronomy and announced firmly that the sinful Iron Age was now over…”^[13]

Spiritual life[link]

Sri Yukteswar converted his large two-story family home in Serampore into an ashram, named "Priyadham",^[14] where he resided with students and disciples. In 1903, he also established an ashram in the seaside town of Puri, naming it "Kararashram".^[15] From these two ashrams, Sri Yukteswar taught students, and began an organization named "Sadhu Sabha".^[16]

An interest in education resulted in Sri Yukteswar developing a syllabus for schools, on the subjects of physics, physiology, geography, astronomy, and astrology^[17] He also wrote a book for Bengalis on learning basic English and Hindi called "First Book", and wrote a basic book on astrology.^[18] Later, he became interested in the education to women, which was uncommon in Bengal at that time.^[19]

Sri Yukteswar was especially skilled in Jyotiṣa (Indian astrology), and prescribed various astrological gemstones and bangles to his students.^[20] He also studied astronomy and science, as evidenced in the formulation of his Yuga theory in The Holy Science.^[10]

Sri Yukteswar and his disciple, Paramahansa Yogananda

He had only a few long-term disciples, but in 1910, the young Mukunda Lal Ghosh would become Sri Yukteswar’s most well known disciple, eventually spreading the teachings of Kriya Yoga throughout the world as Paramahansa Yogananda. Yogananda attributed Sri Yukteswar’s small number of disciples to his strict training methods, which Yogananda said “cannot be described as other than drastic”.^[21]

Regarding the role of the Guru, Sri Yukteswar said:

Look, there is no point in blindly believing that after I touch you, you will be saved, or that a chariot from heaven will be waiting for you. Because of the guru's attainment, the sanctifying touch becomes a helper in the blossoming of Knowledge, and being respectful towards having acquired this blessing, you must yourself become a sage, and proceed on the path to elevate your Soul by applying the techniques of sadhana given by the guru.^[22]

Author W.Y. Evans-Wentz described his impression of Sri Yukteswar in the preface to Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi:

"Sri Yukteswar was of gentle mien and voice, of pleasing presence, and worthy of the veneration, which his followers spontaneously accorded to him. Every person who knew him, whether of his own community or not, held him in the highest esteem. I vividly recall his tall, straight, ascetic figure, garbed in the saffron-colored garb of one who has renounced worldly quests, as he stood at the entrance of the hermitage to give me welcome. His hair was long and somewhat curly, and his face bearded. His body was muscularly firm, but slender and well-formed, and his step energetic."^[23]

Sri Yukteswar died at his Puri ashram on March 9, 1936.^[24]

The Holy Science[link]

Sri Yukteswar wrote The Holy Science in 1894.^[25] In the introduction, he wrote:

"The purpose of this book is to show as clearly as possible that there is an essential unity in all religions; that there is no difference in the truths inculcated by the various faiths; that there is but one method by which the world, both external and internal, has evolved; and that there is but one Goal admitted by all scriptures."^[25]

The work introduced many ideas that were revolutionary for the time — for instance Sri Yukteswar broke from Hindu tradition in stating that the earth is not in the age of Kali Yuga, but has advanced to Dwapara Yuga.^[25] His proof was based on a new perspective of the precession of the equinoxes. He also introduced the idea that the sun takes a ‘star for its dual’, and revolves around it in a period of 24,000 years, which accounts for the precession of the equinox.^[25] Research into this theory is being conducted by the Binary Research Institute,^[26] which produced a documentary on the topic titled The Great Year, narrated by James Earl Jones. A sign of the ubiquity of Sri Yukteswar's calculations in modern culture is that there is an iPhone Application for calculating them, just as there are calculators for currencies, lengths, areas and volumes^[27]

The theory of the Sun's binary companion expounded by Sri Yukteswar in The Holy Science has attracted the attention of David Frawley, who has written about it in several of his books. According to Frawley, the theory offers a better estimate of the age of Rama and Krishna and other important historical Indian figures than other dating methods, which estimate some of these figures to have lived millions of years ago — belying accepted human history.^[28]

Noted Disciples[link]

• Paramahansa Yogananda
• Swami Satyananda Giri
• Sri Motilal Mukherjee ("Howrah Thakur")
• Swami Bhabananda^[29]
• Swami Narayan Giri ("Prabhujee")
• Paramahamsa Hariharananda

In popular culture[link]

Giri's face can be seen on the cover of The Beatles' album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967). It appears on the upper left of the crowd behind The Beatles.

Notes[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Yukteswar Giri

• Yoganiketan - Kriya Yoga Library

This article relies on references to primary sources or sources affiliated with the subject, rather than references from independent authors and third-party publications. Please add citations from reliable sources. (May 2012)

Paramahansa Yogananda
Born	(1893-01-05)January 5, 1893 Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, India
Died	7 March 1952(1952-03-07) (aged 59) Biltmore Hotel, Los Angeles, California, U.S
Birth name	Mukunda Lal Ghosh
Guru	Swami Yukteswara Giri
Philosophy	Kriya Yoga
Quotation	You are walking on the earth as in a dream. Our world is a dream within a dream; you must realize that to find God is the only goal, the only purpose, for which you are here. For Him alone you exist. Him you must find.

Paramahansa Yogananda (January 5, 1893 – March 7, 1952), born Mukunda Lal Ghosh, was an Indian yogi and guru who introduced many westerners to the teachings of meditation and Kriya Yoga through his book, Autobiography of a Yogi.^[1]

Biography[link]

Youth[link]

Yogananda at age six

Yogananda was born in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, India to a devout family.^[2] According to his younger brother, Sananda, from his earliest years young Mukunda's awareness and experience of the spiritual was far beyond the ordinary.^[2] In his youth he sought out many of India's Hindu sages and saints, hoping to find an illuminated teacher to guide him in his spiritual quest.^[3]

Yogananda's seeking after various saints mostly ended when he met his guru, Swami Yukteswar Giri, in 1910, at the age of 17. He describes his first meeting with Yukteswar as a rekindling of a relationship that had lasted for many lifetimes:

We entered a oneness of silence; words seemed the rankest superfluities. Eloquence flowed in soundless chant from heart of master to disciple. With an antenna of irrefragable insight I sensed that my guru knew God, and would lead me to Him. The obscuration of this life disappeared in a fragile dawn of prenatal memories. Dramatic time! Past, present, and future are its cycling scenes. This was not the first sun to find me at these holy feet!^[3]

Later on Yukteswar informed Yogananda that he had been sent to him by Mahavatar Babaji for a special purpose.^[3]

After passing his Intermediate Examination in Arts from the Scottish Church College, Calcutta, in June 1915, he graduated with a degree similar to a current day "Bachelor of Arts" or B.A. (which at the time was referred to as an A.B.), from the Serampore College, a constituent college of the University of Calcutta. This allowed him to spend time at Yukteswar's ashram in Serampore. In 1915, he took formal vows into the monastic Swami Order and became 'Swami Yogananda Giri'.^[3] In 1917, Yogananda founded a school for boys in Dihika, West Bengal that combined modern educational techniques with yoga training and spiritual ideals. A year later, the school relocated to Ranchi.^[3] This school would later become Yogoda Satsanga Society of India, the Indian branch of Yogananda's American organization.

Move to America[link]

In 1920, Yogananda went to the United States aboard the ship City of Sparta, as India's delegate to an International Congress of Religious Liberals convening in Boston. That same year he founded the Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) to disseminate worldwide his teachings on India's ancient practices and philosophy of Yoga and its tradition of meditation. For the next several years, he lectured and taught on the East coast^[4] and in 1924 embarked on a cross-continental speaking tour.^[5] Thousands came to his lectures.^[3] During this time he attracted a number of celebrity followers, including soprano Amelita Galli-Curci, tenor Vladimir Rosing and Clara Clemens Gabrilowitsch, the daughter of Mark Twain. The following year, he established an international center for Self-Realization Fellowship in Los Angeles, California, which became the spiritual and administrative heart of his growing work.^[6] Yogananda was the first Hindu teacher of yoga to spend a major portion of his life in America. He lived there from 1920—1952, interrupted by an extended trip abroad in 1935–1936 which was mainly to visit his guru in India though he undertook visits to other living western saints like Therese Neumann the stigmatist of Konnesreuth and places of spiritual significance enroute.^[3]

Chapter in the book "Hinduism Invades America"[link]

In 1930, Dr. Wendell Thomas, author and former professor at the College of the City of New York published the book "Hinduism Invades America",^[7] dealing largely with Swami Vivekananda and Yogananda. He summarizes his findings below. "I came to Paramahansa Yogananda many years ago, not as a seeker, but as a writer with a sympathetic yet analytic and critical approach. I found in him a rare combination. While steadfast in the ancient principles of his profound faith, he had the gift of generous adaptability, so that he became Christian and American without ceasing to be Hindu and Indian. With his quick wit and great spirit, he was well fitted to promote reconciliation and truth among the religious seekers of the world. He brought peace and joy to multitudes.”

A whole chapter is dedicated to Yogananda's (then named) Yogoda System and (then named) Yogoda Satsanga organization (incorporated in New Jersey).

Visit to India, 1935-1936[link]

In 1935, he returned to India to visit Yukteswar and to help establish his Yogoda Satsanga work in India. During this visit, as told in his autobiography, he met with Mahatma Gandhi, the Bengali saint Anandamoyi Ma, renowned physicist Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman, and several disciples of Yukteswar's guru Lahiri Mahasaya.^[3] While in India, Yukteswar gave Yogananda the monastic title of Paramahansa. Paramahansa means "supreme swan" and is a title indicating the highest spiritual attainment.^[8] In 1936, while Yogananda was visiting Calcutta, Yukteswar died in the town of Puri.

Death[link]

After returning to America, he continued to lecture, write, and establish churches in southern California. In the days leading up to his death, he began hinting that it was time for him to leave the world^[9] On March 7, 1952, he attended a dinner for the visiting Indian Ambassador to the U.S., Binay Ranjan Sen, and his wife at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles. At the conclusion of the banquet Yogananda spoke of India and America, their contributions to world peace and human progress, and their future cooperation,^[10] expressing his hope for a "United World" that would combine the best qualities of "efficient America" and "spiritual India."^[11] According to an eyewitness - Daya Mata, a direct disciple of Yogananda, who was head of Self-Realization Fellowship from 1955–2010,^[12][13] as Yogananda ended his speech, he read from his poem My India, concluding with the words "Where Ganges, woods, Himalayan caves, and men dream God—I am hallowed; my body touched that sod".^[14] "As he uttered these words, he lifted his eyes to the Kutasha center, and his body slumped to the floor"^[9][15] Followers say that he practiced mahasamadhi.^[15] Yogananda's remains are interred at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in the Great Mausoleum (normally closed off to visitors but Yogananda's tomb is accessible) in Glendale, California.^[16]

Teachings[link]

In 1917 Paramahansa Yogananda "began his life's work with the founding of a 'how-to-live' school for boys, where modern educational methods were combined with yoga training and instruction in spiritual ideals." In 1920 "he was invited to serve as India's delegate to an International Congress of Religious Liberals convening in Boston. His address to the Congress, on 'The Science of Religion,' was enthusiastically received." For the next several years he lectured and taught across the United States. His discourses taught of the "unity of 'the original teachings of Jesus Christ and the original Yoga taught by Bhagavan Krishna.'" In 1920 he founded Self-Realization Fellowship and in 1925 established in Los Angeles, California, the international headquarters for SRF.^[17]

Yogananda wrote down his Aims and Ideals for Self-Realization Fellowship/Yogoda Satsanga Society:^[18]

• To disseminate among the nations a knowledge of definite scientific techniques for attaining direct personal experience of God.

• To teach that the purpose of life is the evolution, through self-effort, of man’s limited mortal consciousness into God Consciousness; and to this end to establish Self-Realization Fellowship temples for God-communion throughout the world, and to encourage the establishment of individual temples of God in the homes and in the hearts of men.

• To reveal the complete harmony and basic oneness of original Christianity as taught by Jesus Christ and original Yoga as taught by Bhagavan Krishna; and to show that these principles of truth are the common scientific foundation of all true religions.

• To point out the one divine highway to which all paths of true religious beliefs eventually lead: the highway of daily, scientific, devotional meditation on God.

• To liberate man from his threefold suffering: physical disease, mental inharmonies, and spiritual ignorance.

• To encourage “plain living and high thinking”; and to spread a spirit of brotherhood among all peoples by teaching the eternal basis of their unity: kinship with God.

• To demonstrate the superiority of mind over body, of soul over mind.

• To overcome evil by good, sorrow by joy, cruelty by kindness, ignorance by wisdom.

• To unite science and religion through realization of the unity of their underlying principles.

• To advocate cultural and spiritual understanding between East and West, and the exchange of their finest distinctive features.

• To serve mankind as one’s larger Self.

In his published work, The Self-Realization Fellowship Lessons, Yogananda gives "his in-depth instruction in the practice of the highest yoga science of God-realization. That ancient science is embodied in the specific principles and meditation techniques of Kriya Yoga."^[19] Yogananda taught his students the need for direct experience of truth, as opposed to blind belief. He said that “The true basis of religion is not belief, but intuitive experience. Intuition is the soul’s power of knowing God. To know what religion is really all about, one must know God.”^[20] Echoing traditional Hindu teachings, he taught that the entire universe is God's cosmic motion picture, and that individuals are merely actors in the divine play who change roles through reincarnation. He taught that mankind's deep suffering is rooted in identifying too closely with one's current role, rather than with the movie's director, or God.^[3] He taught Kriya Yoga and other meditation practices to help people achieve that understanding, which he called Self-realization:

"Self-realization is the knowing - in body, mind, and soul - that we are one with the omnipresence of God; that we do not have to pray that it come to us, that we are not merely near it at all times, but that God’s omnipresence is our omnipresence; and that we are just as much a part of Him now as we ever will be. All we have to do is improve our knowing."^[21]

Kriya Yoga[link]

The science of Kriya Yoga is the foundation of Yogananda's teachings. Kriya Yoga is "union (yoga) with the Infinite through a certain action or rite (kriya). The Sanskrit root of kriya is kri, to do, to act and react." Kriya Yoga was passed down through Yogananda's guru lineage - Mahavatar Babaji taught Kriya Yoga to Lahiri Mahasaya, who taught it to his disciple, Yukteswar Giri, Yogananda's Guru.^[3]

Yogananda gave a general description of Kriya Yoga in his Autobiography:

"The Kriya Yogi mentally directs his life energy to revolve, upward and downward, around the six spinal centers (medullary, cervical, dorsal, lumbar, sacral, and coccygeal plexuses) which correspond to the twelve astral signs of the zodiac, the symbolic Cosmic Man. One-half minute of revolution of energy around the sensitive spinal cord of man effects subtle progress in his evolution; that half-minute of Kriya equals one year of natural spiritual unfoldment."^[3]

Sri Mrinalini Mata, current President of SRF/YSS, said, "Kriya Yoga is so effective, so complete, because it brings God's love - the universal power through which God draws all souls back to reunion with Him - into operation in the devotee's life." ^[22]

Yogananda wrote in Autobiography of a Yogi that the "The actual technique should be learned from an authorized Kriyaban (Kriya Yogi) of Self-Realization Fellowship (Yogoda Satsanga Society of India.)"^[3]

Autobiography of a Yogi[link]

In 1946, Yogananda published his life story, Autobiography of a Yogi. It has since been translated into twenty-eight languages. In 1999, it was designated one of the "100 Most Important Spiritual Books of the 20th Century" by a panel of spiritual authors convened by Philip Zaleski and HarperCollins publishers.^[23] In 2006, the publisher, Self-Realization Fellowship, honored the 60th anniversary of Autobiography of a Yogi "with a series of projects designed to promote the legacy of the man thousands of disciples still refer to as 'master.'" ^[24]

Autobiography of a Yogi describes Yogananda's spiritual search for enlightenment, in addition to encounters with notable spiritual figures such as Therese Neumann, Anandamayi Ma, Mohandas Gandhi, Nobel laureate in literature Rabindranath Tagore, noted plant scientist Luther Burbank (the book is 'Dedicated to the Memory of Luther Burbank, An American Saint'), famous Indian scientist Sir Jagadish Chandra Bose and Nobel Prize-winning physicist Sir C. V. Raman. One notable chapter of this book is "The Law of Miracles", where he gives scientific explanations for seemingly miraculous feats. He writes the word 'impossible' is becoming less prominent in man's vocabulary".^[3]

Claims of bodily incorruptibility[link]

As reported in Time Magazine on August 4, 1952, Harry T. Rowe, Los Angeles Mortuary Director of the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California, where Yogananda's body was embalmed,^[25] wrote in a notarized letter^[26][3]

"The absence of any visual signs of decay in the dead body of Paramhansa Yogananda offers the most extraordinary case in our experience.... No physical disintegration was visible in his body even twenty days after death.... No indication of mold was visible on his skin, and no visible drying up took place in the bodily tissues. This state of perfect preservation of a body is, so far as we know from mortuary annals, an unparalleled one.... No odor of decay emanated from his body at any time...."

Rowe also noted the appearance of a brown spot on Yogananda's nose after twenty days. Some have pointed out that this degree of preservation of an embalmed body is common.^[27] Rowe also said in the same sentence that there was no visible mold even on March 26. Rowe continues, "on March 27th there was no reason to say that his body had suffered any visible physical disintegration at all. For these reasons we state again that the case of Paramhansa Yogananda is unique in our experience."

Legacy[link]

Paramahansa Yogananda's work is continued through the two organizations he founded - Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) & Yogoda Satsanga Society of India (YSS).^[28] Self-Realization Fellowship is headquartered in Los Angeles and "has grown to include more than 500 temples and centers around the world and has members in over 175 countries including the Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine.^[29] In India and surrounding countries, Paramahansa Yogananda's work is known as Yogoda Satsanga Society of India, which has more than 100 centers, retreats, and ashrams."^[28] Daya Mata, an important religious leader and a direct disciple of Yogananda who was personally chosen and trained by Yogananda, was head of Self-Realization Fellowship/Yogoda Satsanga Society of India from 1955–2010. Mrinalini Mata, a direct disciple of Yogananda, "is the current president and spiritual head of Self-Realization Fellowship/Yogoda Satsanga Society of India. She too was personally chosen and trained by Yogananda to help guide the work after his passing." She is assisted by a Board of Directors, which includes other direct disciples of Yogananda trained by him.^[12]

Noted disciples[link]

The members of this list were drawn from Yogananda's book "Journey to Self-Realization", unless otherwise noted, and the date and location of first discipleship to Yogananda are given.^[30]

See also[link]

• Mahavatar Babaji
• Sri Panchanon Bhattacharya
• Survey of Hindu organisations

Notes[link]