Paramahansa Yogananda (परमहंस योगानन्‍द) (1893-1952) was born Mukunda Lal Ghosh in Gorakhpur, India, into a devout and prosperous Bengali family. From his earliest years, his 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 illumined teacher to guide him in his spiritual quest.

Yogananda began his life's work with the founding, in 1917, of a school for boys, where modern educational methods were combined with yoga training and instruction in spiritual ideals. In 1920, he was India's delegate to an international congress of religious leaders convening in Boston. That same year he founded Self-Realization Fellowship to disseminate worldwide his teachings on Yoga and its tradition of meditation.

For the next several years, he lectured and taught on the East coast and in 1924 embarked on a cross-continental speaking tour. The following year, he established in Los Angeles an international headquarters for Self-Realization Fellowship, which became the spiritual and administrative heart of his growing work

Yogananda's life story, Autobiography of a Yogi, was published in 1946 and enlarged in subsequent editions. It is widely regarded as a modern spiritual classic.