Picture of Master taken one hour before his Mahasamadhi.
Below are excerpts from The Self Realization Magazine, dated May-June 1952 from Mother Hamilton’s library. We mark the anniversary of Master’s leaving the body and celebrate his life today. When you attune your mind to his life, teachings and spirit you feel uplifted, closer to God. I have combined a few articles to give you a feeling for what was written at the time by close disciples. I will be posting these in a series, describing Master, his teachings and the last day of this incarnation of our blessed Param-Guru.
The Mahasamadhi of a World Teacher
On March 7th Pramhansa Yogananda
Left the Body for Omnipresence
By Sister Lauru
Of the Monastic Self-Realization Order
On March 7th the incarnation of Paramhansa Yogananda came to a perfect close. A life without blemish ended in mahasamadhi (a yogi’s final conscious exit from the body). Death took place a few minutes after Paramhansaji had uttered the final words in a speech at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles. Unstintingly he gave of himself to the very end, to the last breath of his life.
Born a Kshatriya (a member kings and warriors), Yoganandaji died as he had lived; a divine warrior against the chief foe of man—ignorance. He had often said: “I do not want to die in bed, but with my boots on, speaking of God and India.” The Lord fulfilled with exactitude this wish of His devotee.
Paramhansaji’s last days were literally and symbolically bound up with the visit to Los Angeles of the Ambassador from India, Mr. Binay Ranjan Sen. The great guru could not go to India, so India—in the person of her highest foreign representative—came to the guru.
The last photograph of Yoganandaji, taken a few minutes before his death, shows the Ambassador’s wife pronaming to him as he stood to go to the speaker’s stand. By that last beautiful gesture an Indian woman symbolized the respect of her nation for the man who, more than any other son of India, made the perennial wisdom of the rishis known and loved in the West.
Miracle After Death
An article, “The Miracle at Forest Lawn,” appears in this issue, accompanied by a letter from the Mortuary Director of one of America’s largest and most beautiful cemeteries. The Mortuary Director testifies to the truth that Yoganandaji’s body remained “in a phenomenal state of immutability.” For weeks after his passing his unchanged face shone with the divine luster of incorruptibility. This miracle appears to have come to light through the grace of the Heavenly Father, that men might know the goodness of Yoganandaji’s mission on earth. The beautiful phenomena attending Paramhansaji’s death have already aroused profound interest in the soul-revealing possibilities of yoga.
Yoganandaji came to America to fulfill a specific mission, that of spreading in the West a knowledge of yoga techniques by which man can enter into conscious communion with his Creator. Paramhansaji was the last in a line of four gurus[i] who were divinely inspired—directly commanded by God—to teach openly to the modern world the secret yogic science of self-realization that was the glory of ancient India.
“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.” With these words Mahavatar Babaji sent Yoganandaji, in 1920, to the West.
The young monk, trained for his high duty for ten years at the Indian hermitage of his guru, Sri Yukteswarji, labored lovingly for more than thirty years in the New World, honoring the trust of the great humanitarian masters behind him. To them and to God, Master gave all the credit for the successful execution of his mission.
“After my passing,” Paramhansaji said, “The SRF teachings will be the guru.” In this way and in many other ways he indicated that the practical interest in yoga he had initiated in the West would continue to grow after his death. Like all other men of God, Master did not emphasize the importance of his own personality but rather the importance to each human being of his own struggle to achieve the life beautiful.
“Divine Union is possible through self-effort, and is not dependent on theological beliefs nor on the arbitrary will of a Cosmic Dictator. Through use of the Kriya Yoga key, persons who cannot bring themselves to believe in the divinity of any man will behold at last the full divinity of their selves.”
During the last three years Paramhansaji withdrew more and more from public life in order to complete a tremendous task of interpreting various scriptures. Shortly before his death he had finished all the writings he had planned. He said to a disciple: “My life work is done.”
Great devotees of God, the Hindu scriptures tell us, are given forewarning of their departure from this earth. A true yogi, unlike the unenlightened man, is never rudely surprised by Death. Yoganandaji had been aware of the general plan of his life ever since his youthful years with his omniscient guru, Sri Yukteswar. Master well knew his life would not be a long one. “I shall not live to be old,” he told a disciple in 1924…