Swami Paramahansa Yogananda

About two years ago I was approached by a Caucasian individual from Pacific Palisades in California with solid credentials in teaching yoga and meditation, and he said, “Did you know my Yogiji was once a Sikh?”

Paramahansa Yogananda

I replied, “Yes I know your Yogiji was once a Sikh. But tell me why your Yogiji never told us of his past as a Sikh? Why did he hide it? Since he had not been entirely truthful about his past could we trust him?” The conversation ended.

The yogi in question was born as Mukunda Lal Ghosh on January 5, 1893, to a devout and well-to-do Bengali family. We are told that from his earliest years, those around him saw the depth of his awareness and experience of the spiritual beyond the ordinary. Beyond that in his youth he sought out many of India's sages and saints, hoping to find an illumined teacher to guide him in his spiritual quest.

In 1920, this yogi served as India's delegate to an international congress of religious leaders convening in Boston. His address to the congress, on "The Science of Religion," was enthusiastically received. That same year he founded Self-Realization Fellowship to disseminate worldwide his teachings on India's ancient science and philosophy of Yoga and its time-honored tradition of meditation.

He was in attendance in Stockton, California, during the opening ceremony of the first Gurdwara in United States along with some of his western followers.

In 1946 the Yogi published his famous book, Autobiography of a Yogi. Reading this book from cover to cover, one can’t escape the fact that he didn’t know much about Yoga.

The Yogi died on March 7, 1952.

All serious students or practitioners of yoga believe that great Rishis experimented scientifically in the distant past and, out of those experiences they brought forth the doctrines of yoga.

Of these many Rishis, the name “Patanjali” stands out. He is described as a “Rishi,” Maharishi,” and so forth. We are told that Patanjali authored the great masterpiece called Yoga-Sutra — a treatise so essential that it is the foundation to understand the “science of yoga.” Moreover, among the Darshanas (erroneously referred to as Hindu philosophies), Yoga-Sutra holds a prime place.

The truth is, historically speaking, nobody knows of Patanjali. There are doubts if he ever existed. What amazed me was how Patanjali looked like physically, at least in the eyes of Hindu iconography.

T.K.V. Desikachar in his famous book, Health, Healing & Beyond: Yoga and the Living Tradition of Krishnamacharya has posted few of the icons on Patanjali. Here I share with you two of them.

More details will be forthcoming in my book, Yoga: Conquest of the Western Mind, which I am working on these days and hope to complete in the next two to three years.


Copyright ©2005 G.B. Singh. About the author