And the answer to your question is a very simple one. Paramahansa Yogananda was a guru who was born in the last part of the 19th century and who, under the influence of his own teachers, rapidly became an enlightened, relatively young, enlightened man.
e traveled widely through Europe and then came to the United States and brought the message of, as you put it, Kriya Yoga. The Kriya Yoga, which is not a form of physical yoga, moving the body around into various kinds of positions, as we’ve come to know it in the west.
Yoga in Sanskrit means the experience of the union of individual mind with Cosmic mind. That’s what the word yoga actually means. And there are various means to gain that. The different yogas all have an adjective in front of them.