150th Anniversary of the Revival of Kriya Yoga

Mahavatar Babaji
Mahavatar Babaji
Lahiri Mahasaya
Lahiri Mahasaya
Swami Sri Yukteswar
Swami Sri Yukteswar
Paramahansa Yogananda
Paramahansa Yogananda

“Kriya Yoga, the scientific technique of God-realization, will ultimately spread in all lands, and aid in harmonizing the nations through man’s personal, transcendental perception of the Infinite Father.”

—Mahavatar Babaji

A Spiritual Dispensation for the Modern World

The year 2011 marked the 150th anniversary of Lahiri Mahasaya’s first meeting with the deathless guru Mahavatar Babaji, near Ranikhet in the Himalayas, and his initiation into the sacred science of Kriya Yoga.

Paramahansa Yogananda, founder of Self-Realization Fellowship, first brought this celestial blessing to the attention of the world through his Autobiography of a Yogi, in which he said:

“This auspicious event did not happen to Lahiri Mahasaya alone; it was a fortunate moment for all the human race. The lost, or long-vanished, highest art of yoga was again being brought to light.”

“The Kriya Yoga that I am giving to the world through you in this nineteenth century,” Babaji told Lahiri Mahasaya, “is a revival of the same science that Krishna gave millenniums ago to Arjuna; and that was later known to Patanjali and Christ.”

“Unknown to society in general,” Paramahansa Yogananda wrote, “a great spiritual renaissance started in 1861 in a remote corner of Banaras. As the fragrance of flowers cannot be suppressed, so Lahiri Mahasaya, quietly living as an ideal householder, could not hide his innate glory. Devotee-bees from every part of India began to seek the divine nectar of the liberated master.”

“As the Ganges came from heaven to earth, in the Puranic story, offering a divine draught to the parched devotee Bhagirath, so in 1861 the celestial river of Kriya Yoga began to flow from the secret fastnesses of the Himalayas into the dusty haunts of men.”

This celestial river continues to flow today through the efforts of Paramahansa Yogananda and the organization he started at the behest of Mahavatar Babaji and Swami Sri Yukteswar. Paramahansa Yogananda personally initiated 100,000 disciples into the sacred science of Kriya Yoga, and many thousands more have since received initiation through the instrumentality of Yogoda Satsanga Society of India/Self-Realization Fellowship (YSS/SRF), which he founded to spread the message of Kriya Yoga. The mission entrusted to him by Mahavatar Babaji was to help all achieve direct personal experience of the one God underlying all religions through Kriya Yoga practice, and thus unite the global family in the spiritual bonds of oneness and divine kinship.

That blessed moment in 1861 began a spiritual revolution, to awaken in humankind a vision of the soul’s infinite potential. Today, truth-seekers from around the world are drinking the divine nectar of God-communion and God-Bliss through their faithful practice of Kriya Yoga. As Babaji had predicted long ago, Kriya Yoga is spreading in all lands, through the instrumentality of YSS/SRF.

Yogoda Satsanga Society of India/Self-Realization Fellowship celebrated this event worldwide through monastic tours, Kriya Yoga initiations, Convocation (USA), Sharad Sangam (India), and special events and activities at our many centers and temples around the world. Please contact your local center or temple for more information.

Paramahansa Yogananda concluded his Autobiography with these hopeful words of prophetic benediction: “The blessed role of Kriya Yoga in East and West has hardly more than just begun. May all men come to know that there exists a definite, scientific technique of Self-realization for the overcoming of all human misery!”

Autobiography of a Yogi Read the book that spread Kriya Yoga worldwide

Autobiography of a Yogi book cover

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