This black and white photograph is, according to Paramhansa Yogananda, the only one for which Lahiri Mahasaya posed. The origin of the said photo is narrated by Paramhansa Yogananda in his Autobiography: Lahiri Mahasaya’s fair features, of a universal cast, hardly suggest to what race he belonged. His intense joy of God-communion is slightly revealed in a somewhat enigmatic smile. … Read More
The Two Kites
This story from Yogananda’s childhood is excerpted from the Autobiography of a Yogi Our family moved to Lahore in the Punjab. There I acquired a picture of the Divine Mother in the form of the Goddess Kali. It sanctified a small informal shrine on the balcony of our home. An unequivocal conviction came over me that fulfillment would crown any … Read More
Sweet Compassion
Andy Anderson worked as a foreman on several of Yogananda’s construction projects. Swami Kriyananda narrates the following story. During the months while Andy supervised our work at India Center, he developed a deep love for Master. Master, in return, was touched by Andy’s devotion, and by his simple, kindly nature. As Christmas 1950 approached, Andy took pains to buy his … Read More
Yogananda and the Boston Skeptic
This is an excerpt from ‘The New Path’. One day in Boston, Massachusetts, Paramhansa Yogananda received a letter criticizing him for ‘sponsoring’ Jesus Christ in the West. ‘Don’t you know that Jesus never lived?’ the writer demanded. ‘He was a myth invented to deceive people.’ The letter was left unsigned. Yogananda prayed to be led to the writer. About a … Read More
I know Every Single Thought you think
One day, after a gathering in Beverly Hills, I had been invited to perform yoga postures at a Jewish Bar Mitzvah. Afterward, a materialistic Jewish psychiatrist cornered me and challenged my beliefs. I defended them as reasonably as I could, and then, to clinch my argument, spoke of certain miracles to which I’d been a witness. It did no good … Read More
The Hamburgers
An incident narrated by James Coller to Swami Kriyananda James Coller, another disciple, visited us at about this time from Phoenix, Arizona; Master had appointed him to be the minister of our church there. James, though deeply devoted to God and Guru, had a tendency to be a little casual about hermitage discipline. ‘I was driving from Phoenix to Encinitas … Read More
Spiritual Marriage
Master [Paramhansa Yogananda] continued his reminiscences of those years. “A student of this work in Boston told me he wanted to be a renunciate. I said to him, ‘Your path is marriage.’ “‘Oh, no!’ he vowed, ‘I’ll never marry!’ Well, a week later he met a beautiful girl and swore to me that he was deeply in love with her! … Read More
Silence is the Altar of Spirit
My first visit to Twenty-Nine Palms [Paramhansa Yogananda’s desert retreat in California] was for a weekend. We visited Master at his place. My first recollection of him on that occasion isn’t so much of the things he said, as of what he didn’t say. I didn’t know it at the time, but he placed great importance on silence. Disciples working around him … Read More
