Lahiri mahasaya autobiography
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Lahiri Mahasaya
Indian hindu yogi and guru
Shyama Charan Lahiri (30 September 1828 – 26 September 1895), best known as Lahiri Mahasaya, was an Indian yogi and guru who founded the Kriya Yoga school. He was a disciple of Mahavatar Babaji.[1] According to the book America's Alternative Religions by Timothy Miller, Lahiri Mahasaya's life was described in Paramahansa Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi as a demonstration of the spiritual attainment that could be achieved by a householder "living fully in the world".[2] A part of Lahiri Mahasaya's face is pictured on the cover of The Beatles' 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.[3]
Biography
Lahiri Mahasaya was born to Bengali Brahmin parents Gourmohan and Muktakeshi Lahiri on 30 September 1828, in village Ghurni, Dist. Nadia, West Bengal, India, according to Yogananda.[4] In 1832, a flood killed his mother and destroyed their home, after which his family moved to Varanasi, where he received education in philosophy, Sanskrit, and English. His father arra
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Lahiri Mahasaya
Shyama Charan Lahiri was the birth name of the great yoga master. His disciples lovingly added “Mahasaya,” which means “great-minded one.” Born in Bengal, India, to a pious brahmin family, Lahiri Mahasaya was the one who made the ancient science of Kriya Yoga available not just to those who had renounced the world, but to all sincere souls.
Lahiri Mahasaya was a married householder with two sons. He held a job as an accountant to support his family. A yoga master of the highest achievement, his entire life served as an example of how to live “in the world, yet not of the world.”
Unknown to society in general, a great spiritual renaissance began to flow from a remote corner of Benares [home of Lahiri Mahasaya]. Just as the fragrance of flowers cannot be suppressed, so Lahiri Mahasaya, quietly living as an ideal householder, could not hide his innate glory. Slowly, from every part of India, the devotee-bees sought the divine nectar of the liberated master.
—Paramhansa Yogananda, Autobiography of a Yogi
Lahiri Mahasaya was a disciple of Mahavatar Babaji.
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Spiritual Lineage
The teachings of Self-Realization Fellowship/Yogoda Satsanga Society of India are founded upon the original Christianity of Jesus Christ and the original Yoga of Bhagavan Krishna. The spiritual lineage of SRF/YSS consists of these two great avatars and a line of exalted masters of contemporary times: Mahavatar Babaji, Lahiri Mahasaya, Swami Sri Yukteswar, and Paramahansa Yogananda (last in the line of SRF/YSS Gurus).
Each of these Great Ones played a role in Self-Realization Fellowship's mission of bringing to the modern world the spiritual science of Kriya Yoga.
The passing of a guru's spiritual mantle to a disciple designated to carry on the lineage to which that guru belongs is termed guru-parampara. Thus, Paramahansa Yogananda's direct lineage of gurus is Mahavatar Babaji, Lahiri Mahasaya, and Swami Sri Yukteswar.
All members of Self-Realization Fellowship (monastics as well as lay members) who have taken the sacred initiation in Kriya Yoga are disciples of Paramahansa Yogananda. He is given respect and devotion as their personal guru, and his line
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