Poets

Paramahansa Yogananda (Bengali: পরমহংস যোগানন্দ, Sanskrit: परमहंस योगानं‍द), one of the greatest spiritual figures of the twentieth century, was an Indina poet and also was one of the first Spiritual Masters to bring the Yoga of the East to the aspiring West.

Youth

Yogananda was born Mukunda Lal Ghosh, in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, India to a devout Kshatriya family. According to his younger brother, Sananda, from his earliest years young Mukunda's awareness and experience of the spiritual was far beyond the ordinary. In his youth he sought out many of India's Hindu sages and saints, hoping to find an illuminated teacher to guide him in his spiritual quest.

Yogananda's seeking after various saints mostly ended when he met his guru, Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri, in 1910, at the age of 17. He describes his first meeting with Sri Yukteswar as a rekindling of a relationship that had lasted for many lifetimes:

"We entered a oneness of silence; words seemed the rankest superfluities. Eloquence flowed in soundless chant from heart of master to disciple. With an antenna of irrefragable insight I sensed that my guru knew God, and would lead me to Him. The obscuration of this life disappeared in a fragile dawn of prenatal memories. Dramatic time! Past, present, and future are its cycling scenes. This was not the first sun to find me at these holy feet!"

Later on Sri Yukteswar informed Yogananda that he had been sent to him by Mahavatar Babaji for a special purpose..