On March 7, 1952, the ideal life of an illumined seer found a perfect end. Paramahansa Yogananda closed a speech on God with the last lines of his poem ‘My India’: “Where Ganges, woods, Himalayan caves and men dream God, I am hallowed my body touched that sod.” The occasion was a banquet in honour of the Indian ambassador to US, Dr Binay Ranjan Sen, who than stood up and said about the Paramahansa, “He was born in India, he lived for India, and he died with the name of India on his lips.” The renowned yogi proclaimed the value of yoga meditation even after leaving his mortal form: his sacred body shone with the divine lustre of incorruptibility. Harry T. Rawe, Los Angeles Mortuary director, observed: “The absence of any visual signs of decay in the dead body of Paramahansa Yogananda offers the most extraordinary case in our experience.. no physical disintegration was visible in his body even twenty days after death. At the time of receiving Yogananda’s body, the mortuary personnel expected to observe through the glass lid of the casket, the usual progressive signs of bodily decay. Our astonishment increased as day followed day without bringing any visible changes in the body under observation. He looked on March 27th as fresh and as unravaged by decay as he had looked on the night of his death.” His magnum opus, Autobiography of a Yogi, is widely acclaimed as a spiritual classic. It is one of five books singled out by Time magazine in its recent cover story on ‘The science of meditation’. The article reported that meditation is increasingly being recommended by doctors, and suggested Autobiography of a Yogi for those interested in pursuing meditation seriously. Paramahansa Yogananda was born as Mukunda Lal Ghosh on January 5, 1893, at Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh into a well-to-do and devout family. Even as a child he showed early signs of being an advanced soul. As a youth, he sought out many of India’s great saints and philosophers and ultimately spent ten years with the revered sage Swami Sri Yukteswar of Serampore in West Bengal. Yoganandaji founded Yogoda Satsanga Society of India (YSS) in Ranchi in 1917 and the Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) in Los Angeles, California, USA, in 1920 to disseminate worldwide his Kriya Yoga teachings on India’s ancient science and philosophy of yoga and its time-honoured tradition of meditation. From these spiritual societies, his work continues to grow in 175 countries, six continents and more than 400 centres worldwide. In India, Paramahansa’s main ashrams are located at Ranchi, Jharkhand and Dakshineswar, Kolkata. Visiting his Ranchi ashram, Mahatma Gandhi remarked: “This institution has deeply impressed my mind.”
