OPINIÓN ARTE CULTURA FILOSOFIA Y CIENCIA

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BIOGRAFÍA MEMORIA CULTURA

2002  50th Anniversary of
Paramahansa Yogananda’s Passing

On September 19, 1920, The City of Sparta, the first post-World War I steamer from India to America, docked in the Boston harbor. Among the passengers who disembarked that day was a young monk of India’s venerable Swami Order. The monk knew no one in America; he was a complete stranger, but that would soon change. Within a decade, he would be known across the country, and in less than a century Paramahansa Yogananda would be hailed as the father of yoga in the West for his pioneering role in making known India’s ancient philosophy and science of yoga and its time-honored tradition of meditation.

Yogananda’s arrival in America from India marked the beginning of an upsurge in the West of interest in the spiritual wisdom of the East. In the fifty years since his passing on March 7, 1952, he has come to be widely revered as one of the preeminent religious figures of our time and is honored in both the East and the West for his tireless spiritual and humanitarian work. Through his life and teachings, he made an indelible impression on the spiritual landscape of the United States and the world. "Yogananda has become an image — a remarkable, deep, sweet, poetic, ecstatic man enraptured of cosmic life — who has changed the map of American religious life," writes Robert S. Ellwood, Ph.D., the former chairman of University of Southern California’s School of Religion.

Yogananda’s best-selling life story, the classic Autobiography of a Yogi, was published in 1946 and expanded by him in subsequent editions. In 1999 the book was named one of the one hundred most influential spiritual books of the twentieth century. Phyllis Tickle, a contributing editor to Publishers Weekly and authority on religion in America, notes, "Few books ... have had greater impact on popular theology than Paramahansa Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi. In A New Religious America, noted Harvard University Professor of Comparative Religions Diana Eck writes, "Yogananda put yoga as a science and philosophy on the map in America."

Harvard University

Harvard Square, Cambridge

Yogananda spoke for the first time at Harvard University on February 23, 

1923, on ‘India and Internationalism’ at a luncheon held by the Harvard 

Liberal Club. The exact place where he spoke is not on record. On 

November 11, 1928, Yogananda addressed the students on the subject 

‘India’ at the Harvard Union. His talk was received with ‘deafening applause 

and sustained cheering,’ and aroused a great deal of interest.

The fiftieth anniversary of Yogananda’s passing comes at a time when global events are spurring people throughout the world to look at life from a deeper spiritual perspective, to seek a sense of inner peace and security that will withstand changing outer circumstances, and to discover the shared values that unify humankind, while acknowledging cultural and religious diversity. The core of Yogananda’s mission addressed these very concerns, and his spiritual teachings provide answers as relevant to seekers today as when he began his mission more than eighty years ago.

Born in northern India in 1893, Yogananda was invited as a delegate to the International Congress of Religious Liberals convening in Boston in 1920. His address to the Congress on "The Science of Religion" explored the common threads that unite the world’s religions. The talk was well received and was later published in book form. That same year, Yogananda founded Self-Realization Fellowship to help disseminate his teachings on the philosophy and science of yoga and its time-honored techniques of meditation.

He stayed in the United States for the better part of three decades, introducing the principles of yoga and the art of balanced spiritual living to hundreds of thousands of people through his extensive public lecture tours, his numerous writings, and the centers he founded in the United States, Canada, and abroad.

Yogananda took every opportunity to foster interfaith understanding, brotherhood, and world peace. Just a sampling of his myriad efforts in this area include: speaking at a World Peace Meeting in Boston, 1922; speaking at a conference on interracial relations in New York, 1929; addressing the World Fellowship of Faiths at the Chicago World’s Fair, 1933; speaking at the British National Council of World Fellowship of Faiths at Whitefields Institute in England, 1936; hosting an International Peace Program in Los Angeles, 1939; and addressing an international peace conference (which he helped organize) held in San Francisco during the inaugural meetings of the United Nations, 1945. "If we had a man like Paramahansa Yogananda in the United Nations today," said Dr. Binay R. Sen, former Indian ambassador to the United States, "probably the world would be a better place than it is."

In 1937, Yogananda established the Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) ashram and retreat in Encinitas, California. Later, he dedicated this site as a world brotherhood center, a place where souls could come and express the ideals of self-realization and right living in order to help foster, by example, harmony and unity among all peoples as children of the one God. In 1950, he dedicated the SRF Lake Shrine in Pacific Palisades, California, which honors the world’s great religions and houses the Mahatma Gandhi World Peace Memorial.

Yogananda also established the SRF Prayer Council, consisting of monks and nuns of the SRF monastic community who pray, as he did, every morning and evening for world peace and for those who are in need of help and healing. The work of the Prayer Council is augmented by the SRF Worldwide Prayer Circle, an international network of SRF members and friends.

Paramahansa Yogananda passed away on March 7, 1952, in Los Angeles, following his delivery of a speech at a banquet honoring Dr. Binay R. Sen. Yogananda’s passing received widespread coverage in the press, including The New York Times,the Los Angeles Times, and Time magazine. In 1977, on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of Paramahansa Yogananda’s passing, the government of India formally recognized his outstanding contributions to the spiritual upliftment of humanity by issuing a commemorative stamp in his honor, together with a tribute that read, in part:

"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 the fifty years since Yogananda’s passing, interest in his teachings has steadily increased, and Self-Realization Fellowship continues to carry on his spiritual and humanitarian mission. Under the direction of SRF president Sri Daya Mata, one of Yogananda’s earliest and closest disciples, his worldwide organization has grown to include more than 500 temples, retreats, and meditation centers in 57 countries. The society’s publishing arm has expanded as well, and has released numerous books by Yogananda and some of his leading disciples, in addition to publishing a quarterly magazine, recordings of devotional music, and audio and video tapes of talks conducted by SRF ministers.

The society also continues Yogananda’s efforts on behalf of world peace and understanding, not only through its operation of the SRF Worldwide Prayer Circle, but also through its ongoing association with such interfaith groups as the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions, the World Council of Religious and Spiritual Leaders (the first interfaith ally to the United Nations), and the United Religions Initiative, as well as with local groups.

For more information about the life and teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda, please write Self-Realization Fellowship, 3880 San Rafael Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90065-3298; call (323) 225-2471; fax (323) 225-5088; or visit <http://www.yogananda-srf.org/>.

COMUNIDAD CULTURA VIDA FILOSOFÍA

 LA ACTITUD CORRECTA…

No te preocupes por los defectos de los demás. Emplea el polvo detergente de la sabiduría para mantener brillantes e impecables las habitaciones de tu propia mente. Estimuladas por tu ejemplo, otras personas se verán entonces inspiradas a   realizar su propio aseo   domestico.

Paramahansa Yogananda.