Everything in the future will improve if you are making a spiritual effort now.” – Swami Sri Yukteswarji
With these unforgettable words, Swami Sri Yukteswarji emphasized the importance of present spiritual effort in creating positive changes in one’s life in the future. A clarion call to put in our best efforts, for, as he succinctly observed: “Finding God will mean the funeral of all sorrows.” What a glorious promise: a life of joy and bliss, free from sorrow, in the pursuit of God!
Sri Yukteswarji was born Priya Nath Karar, on 10th May 1855 in Srirampur, West Bengal, where his father was a wealthy businessman. Under the tutelage of the great saint of Banaras, Sri Lahiri Mahasaya, he attained the highest spiritual stature of “Gyanavatar,” or embodiment of wisdom, becoming a swami in the Giri order.
It was the ever-living Mahavatar Babaji who guided the young Mukund Lal Ghosh, later to be known as Sri Sri Paramahansa Yogananda to Sri Yukteswarji for spiritual training at his ashram in Srirampur, West Bengal. Upon meeting him for the first time in the streets of Banaras, Yoganandaji immediately felt a profound connection, realizing he had, at last, discovered his guru, whose divine face he had seen innumerable times in his meditative visions.
Yoganandaji, moulded by his guru Sri Yukteswarji, rose to international prominence as a spiritual master, introducing the world to Kriya Yoga, the highest ancient Indian meditation technique. Yoganandaji’s spiritual classic, “Autobiography of a Yogi,” has impacted millions globally and has been translated into over 50 languages. He also established the Yogoda Satsanga Society of India (YSS) in 1917 at Ranchi, and the Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) in 1920 at Los Angeles to disseminate the teachings imbibed by him at the lotus feet of his guru.
Sri Yukteswarji was a strict disciplinarian telling his disciples, “I am hard on those who come for my training…that is my way. Take it or leave it. I never compromise.” But at the same time, he cared for them deeply like a mother cares for her children. In Chapter 12 of his autobiography, Yoganandaji describes how he evolved spiritually under the hawk-like supervision of his supernal guru, despite shaking many times under the weight of his disciplinary hammer: I am immeasurably grateful for the humbling blows he dealt my vanity. I sometimes felt that, metaphorically, he was discovering and uprooting every diseased tooth in my jaw.
Despite his towering spiritual stature, Sri Yukteswarji remained simple and humble, incapable of striking a pose or flaunting his inner withdrawal. Sri Yukteswarji’s profound understanding of the infinite was reflected in his habitual silence and his every word, etched with wisdom. Yoganandaji devotionally observed, “I was conscious that I was in the presence of a living manifestation of God. The weight of his divinity automatically weighed my head before him.”
Knowing him to be a peerless interpreter of the scriptures, Mahavatar Babaji requested Sri Yukteswarji to write a treatise exploring the parallels between the teachings of Christ and Bhagwan Krishna, which he expounded brilliantly in his acclaimed work, “The Holy Science,” published in 1894.
Yoganandaji often reflected that Sri Yukteswarji “could easily have been an emperor or world-shattering king warrior had his mind been centred on fame or worldly achievement. He had chosen instead to storm those inner citadels of wrath and egotism whose fall is the height of a man.” Further Info.: yssofindia.org
Writer: Renu Singh Parmar