Known also as Swami Yogananda, Paramhansa Yogananda was the first yoga master of India to take up permanent residence in the West.
Born Mukunda Lal Ghosh in Gorakhpur, India, in January 1893, Yogananda intensely longed for God from his earliest childhood. As he relates in Autobiography of a Yogi, much of his youth was spent seeking out many different saints.
He met his guru, Swami Sri Yukteswar, in Varanasi around the year 1912 and frequented Yukteswar’s hermitage in Serampore, Bengal while earning an A.B. degree from Calcutta University at Serampore College. To read more about our lineage of spiritual masters, see the Ananda Line of Gurus.
Shortly after graduation in July 1914, Sri Yukteswar initiated Mukunda into the ancient Swami order, at which time the young man assumed the monastic name Swami Yogananda (or, more properly, Yogananda of the Giri branch of the Swami order).
Before embarking on his mission to the West, Yogananda received this guidance from his teacher, Swami Sri Yukteswar.