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.

Yogananda was born in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, India to a devout family. According to his younger brother, Sananda, from his earliest years young Mukunda's awareness and experience of the spiritual was far beyond the ordinary. 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.

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!

Sri Ramana Maharshi (Tamil: ரமண மஹரிஷி) (December 30, 1879 – April 14, 1950), born Venkataraman Iyer, was a Hindu spiritual master ("jnani"). He was born to a Tamil-speaking Brahmin family in Tiruchuzhi, Tamil Nadu. After experiencing at age 16 what he later described as liberation (moksha), he left home for Arunachala, a mountain considered sacred by Hindus. He lived at the mountain for the rest of his life. Although born a Brahmin, he declared himself an "Atiasrami", a Sastraic state of non-attachment to anything in life and beyond all caste restrictions. The ashram that grew around him, Sri Ramana Ashram, is situated at the foothill of Arunchala, to the west to the pilgrimage town of Tiruvannamalai.

Sri Ramana Maharshi maintained that the purest form of his teachings was the powerful silence which radiated from his presence and quieted the minds of those attuned to it. He gave verbal teachings only for the benefit of those who could not understand his silence (or, perhaps, could not understand how to attain the silent state). His verbal teachings were said to flow from his direct experience of Atman as the only existing reality. When asked for advice, he recommended self-enquiry as the fastest path to moksha. Though his primary teaching is associated with Non-dualism, Advaita Vedanta, and Jnana yoga, he recommended Bhakti to those he saw were fit for it, and gave his approval to a variety of paths and practices.

Sri Anandamayi Ma (Bengali: শ্রী আনন্দময়ী মা Sri Anondomoyi Ma; 30 April 1896 - 27 August 1982) was a spiritual personality from East Bengal. Swami Sivananda (Divine Life Society) described her as "the most perfect flower the Indian soil has produced."Precognition, healing and other miracles were attributed to her by her followers.Paramhansa Yogananda translates Anandamayi as "joy-permeated". This name was given to her by her devotees in the 1920s to describe what they saw as her habitual state of divine joy and bliss.

Anandamayi Ma was born Nirmala Sundari (নির্মলা সুন্দরী; Nirmôla Shundori, English: "Immaculate, Beautiful") on 30 April 1896 to Bipinbihari Bhattacharya and Mokshada Sundari Devi in Kheora, Brahmanbaria District, British India, in what is now Bangladesh. Her father, originally from Vidyakut in Tripura, was a Vaishnavite singer known for his devotion. He had a detached persona. They lived in poverty, and lost many children in their infancy. Nirmala attended the village school for approximately two years. Although her teachers were pleased with her ability, her family thought she was dullminded because of her indifference and constantly happy demeanor. When her mother once fell seriously ill, relatives remarked with puzzlement about the child remaining apparently unaffected.

Swami Yogananda Giri is the leading^{[citation needed]}Hindu religious figure in Italy. He was the founder of the Unione Induista Italia.

Yogananda was born in Italy and converted to Hinduism when he was a teenager^{[citation needed]}. After immigrating to India he learned Sanskrit and became learned in South Indian Agamas. He was initiated as a renunciate monk in 1982. In 1985, he established the Gitananda Ashram in Savona.