Excerpts from the chapter His Legacy from the book
Paramhansa Yogananda
With Personal Reflections & Reminiscences
A Biography by Swami Kriyananda
Paramhansa Yogananda’s legacy is destined in many respects to be
world-transforming
What is Paramhansa Yogananda’s legacy?
1. Paramhansa Yogananda encouraged people to come together in communities. This he did repeatedly and sometimes fervently, almost from the very beginning. I myself have built eight such communities so far in which altogether about a thousand such people live.
a. Master stated still very forcefully, that this idea (communities) would solve countless social and personal problems that would arise in the future, particularly with worldwide economic depression.
b. In his “aims and ideals” he wrote that this ideal was central to his very mission on earth. That “aims and ideals” was later changed to read, “…. to spread a spirit of brotherhood. The statement had actually read “…. to help form brotherhood colonies.”
2. The ideals Paramhansa Yogananda held for child education could not be prefaced during his lifetime.
a. My guru said to me, “Our way works better for the present: mature adults, eager to come to us for training, instead of boys with varied karma going off, after graduation, in countless different directions and most of them to a worldly life.
b. Schools everywhere are causing anxiety among parents, who feel their children are being overburdened with knowledge. A serious problem is that children are taught, whether explicitly or implicitly, that life has no meaning. In fact, modern education is basically atheistic. In consequence, there are many suicides.
a. His book, The Science of Religion, makes the simple but all clarifying statement that everyone on earth is seeking only two things in life: to avoid pain, and to find happiness. On the basis of this, simple truth will be found, a clue to a new system of ethics: a new definition of success: a new approach to social upliftment.
b. Another book the Master wrote was Scientific Healing Affirmations. More and more, already, people are coming to understand the healing power of the mind. Affirmations help to focus that healing power, and to increase its effectiveness enormously.
c. He wrote Whispers from Eternity, which shows the right and best attitudes for approaching God.
d. He also wrote what was, in some ways, his most important scriptural commentary on the Bhagavad Gita, which outlined for everybody an entirely new and transforming way of life.
a. It will make businesses in general aware that success is most surely theirs who make pure service ahead of gain.
b. Governments in future will become smaller, as politicians come to see their role as being, primarily, one of service.
c. Prisons will become places not for punishment, but of supportive corrections.
d. Armies will focus more on defense than on aggression.
e. Over-all, however, basic social attitudes will change, and bring greater harmony to mankind everywhere.
The Essence of Bhagavad Gita 4:7,8: “Whenever virtue declines, and vice is in the ascendant, I incarnate myself as an avatar. Appearing from age to age in visible form, I come to destroy evil and to reestablish virtue.”Paramhansa Yogananda
Outreach programs
Nayaswamis Jyotish and Devi, Ananda Worldwide Spiritual Directors
As Spiritual Directors of Ananda, and living examples of spiritual values in action, Jyotish ji and Devi ji travel the world, sharing Paramhansa Yogananda’s teachings, and blessing people with the practical and heart-opening path of Kriya Yoga.
They are the inspiration and guiding light behind all Ananda Outreach programs.
Regional Language Programs & Swami Kriyananda’s Writings
Teacher Training & Scholarship Program
Paramhansa Yogananda Public Charitable Trust - Vrindavan
What does "Our Guru's Legacy" support?
Visions for the year 2022
