THE DEFINITIVE YOGANANDA - Yogananda, Paramhansa

. .

Biographie:
Born in 1893, Yogananda was the first yoga master of India to take up permanent residence in the West.Yogananda arrived in America in 1920 and traveled throughout the country on what he called his spiritual campaigns. Hundreds of thousands filled the largest halls in major cities to see the yoga master from India. Yogananda continued to lecture and write up to his passing in 1952.Yogananda's initial impact on Western culture was truly impressive. His lasting spiritual legacy has been even greater. His Autobiography of a Yogi, first published in 1946, helped launch a spiritual revolution in the West. Translated into more than fifty languages, it remains a best-selling spiritual classic to this day.Before embarking on his mission, Yogananda received this admonition from his teacher, Swami Sri Yukteswar: The West is high in material attainments but lacking in spiritual understanding. It is God's will that you play a role in teaching mankind the value of balancing the material with an inner, spiritual life.In addition to Autobiography of a Yogi, Yogananda's spiritual legacy includes music, poetry, and extensive commentaries on the Bhagavad Gita, the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, and the Christian Bible, showing the principles of Self-realization as the unifying truth underlying all true religions. Through his teachings and his Kriya Yoga path millions of people around the world have found a new way to connect personally with God.His mission, however, was far broader than all this. It was to help usher the whole world into Dwapara Yuga, the new Age of Energy in which we live. Someday, Swami Kriyananda wrote, I believe he will be seen as the avatar of Dwapara Yuga: the way shower for a new age....

Sommaire:
Paramhansa YoganandaBorn in India in 1893, he was trained from his early years to bring India's ancient science of Self-realization to the West.In 1920 he moved to the United States. His arrival in Boston in marked the beginning of a new wave of spiritual consciousness in America and throughout the world. Beginning the development of a worldwide work touching millions of lives. Americans were hungry for India's spiritual teachings, and for the liberating techniques of yoga.When he published his now famous Autobiography of a Yogi in 1946, it was soon after the close of the second World War, a conflict which he prayed would never be repeated. The book had tremendous influence and inspired spiritual leaders in the growing counter-culture movement which blossomed over a decade later, and has become a spiritual classic and one of the best-loved books of the 20th century, Autobiography of a Yogi.In addition, Yogananda established headquarters for a worldwide work, wrote a number of books and study courses, gave lectures to thousands in most major cities across the United States, wrote music and poetry, and trained disciples. He was invited to the White House by Calvin Coolidge, and he initiated Mahatma Gandhi into Kriya Yoga, his most advanced technique of meditation.Yogananda's message to the West highlighted the unity of all religions, and the importance of love for God combined with scientific techniques of meditation.His mission was one of world peace and brotherhood, as well as individual Self-realization, both of which he said could be achieved through the practice of transformative meditation techniques such as Kriya Yoga, which he referred to as the airplane route to God.Through his books, teachings, and practices of meditation and yoga, Yogananda helped to usher in the sweeping increase in interest in peace, consciousness, and self-transformation. For this he is often known today as the father of yoga in the West....