From: radams@cerritos.edu
Newsgroups: soc.religion.eastern
Subject: Centennial of Paramahansa Yogananda
Date: 17 Dec 92 02:01:31 GMT
Article-I.D.: ogicse.47424
Distribution: world
Organization: Cerritos College, Norwalk CA


	"My body shall pass but my work shall go on. And my spirit
	 shall live on. Even when I am taken away I shall work with
         you all for the deliverance of the world with the message
	 of God. Prepare yourselves with the flame of Spirit...
			- Paramahansa Yogananda

The coming year 1993 marks the centennial of the birth of Paramahansa
Yogananda who was born January 5, 1893 (his mahasamadhi -a master's
conscious exit from the body - was in 1952).  Sri Daya Mata, president
of Self-Realization Fellowship, was recently asked in an interview:

Q. "In the simplest and most profound sense, who was Paramahansa Yogananda?
    Or, perhaps I should say, who *is* Paramahansa Yogananda?"

A. "He was a very humble person; it wasn't his way to say much about himself. 
    But I am reminded of one incident just a short time before he left his 
    body. On that occasion he had been talking to me about the future of this 
    work, and how to carry on after he would no longer be with us physically. 
    On his way out to the porch to do his evening exercises, he paused and 
    looked at me; and then - as though he himself were in awe of some inner 
    feeling - he quietly said: ' When I have left this world, the world will 
    know what I am.'

    "I remember thinking, 'What an unusual thing to say.' Ordinarily, one 
     would have said, 'After I am gone, the world will know by my life and 
     works *who I was*.' Guruji was not speaking of that historical effect; 
     but of his realization of the Divine Consciousness that was incarnate in 
     him, which is eternal.

    "Throughout the many years I was blessed to be with him, I never saw him
     merely as a man. He manifested such divinity; that is the only way I can
     describe him...Such a God-intoxicated, loving, universal nature! It took
     a divine one like that to carry out the mission he had been given: to 
     bring to the West, and to all the world, the _science_ of communing with 
     God, which we call Kriya Yoga".

				*******

>From a book by Susunaga Weeraperuma, D. Litt.: "Yogananda is gratefully
remembered for his selfless service to humanity and especially for the
establishment of the worldwide Self-Realization Fellowship (Yogoda Satsanga
Society of India) which continues to fulfill the spiritual mission he
initiated. The Self-Realization Fellowship was founded in 1920 by Yogananda; in
1935 he incorporated it as a nonsectarian and nonprofit corporation. It is
dedicated to the dissemination of his teaching with its emphasis on Kriya Yoga,
an ancient science developed in India for the attainment of cosmic
consciousness. The work of the Self-Realization Fellowship for the spiritual
development of man ['man' used here is a non-gender term, BTW, derived from 
the sanskrit  'manas' meaning 'mind'] is in a sense the best memorial to
Yogananda."

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	Roger Adams
	radams@cerritos.edu               To those in whom love dwells,
	Cerritos College                  the whole world is one family.
	11110 Alondra Blvd                             A Hindu Proverb
        Norwalk, California 90650
	USA        		          292 Dwapara :-)
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