Life & Legacy
Born Mukunda Lal Ghosh in Gorakhpur, India, Paramahansa Yogananda arrived in the United States in 1920 and became one of the first Indian masters to make his home in the West. Through his Self-Realization Fellowship and his classic Autobiography of a Yogi (1946), he introduced millions to meditation and to bhakti, the path of devotion.
He saw devotional chanting as a direct way to commune with the Divine, publishing a collection called Cosmic Chants and, in a celebrated 1926 program at Carnegie Hall, leading an audience of thousands in singing "O God Beautiful." His decades of teaching helped prepare Western audiences to receive Kirtan and mantra as living spiritual practice.
Contribution to Kirtan
He was among the first to bring Indian devotional chanting to the West, leading audiences in call-and-response chant — most famously filling Carnegie Hall in 1926 — and publishing Cosmic Chants, one of the earliest collections of Indian chants adapted for Western singers. He taught chanting as a direct path to inner, "superconscious" experience decades before the 1960s kirtan wave.
Featured in Reading & Listening
Keep Exploring