Paramahamsa Yogananda

The ideal of love for God and service in humanity found full expression in the life of Paramahansa Yogananda. Born on January 5, 1893 at Gorakhpur, he had but one goal: God-realization, and one programme; to unite East and West by spiritual understanding, to demonstrate the underlying unity of all religions and to awaken divine yearning in all hearts.

The education of youth was always intensely interesting to Yogananda. In 1917, he founded Yogananda Satsanga Society of India and established his first school at Ranchi, which has expanded now to four colleges and seventeen schools in different States in India.

In 1920, Paramahansa Yogananda began his mission in the West. Serving as a delegate from India to the International Congress of Religions, he travelled to Boston. He spoke of the ancient spiritual teachings of India and the sacred science of Kriya (Raja) Yoga. He travelled extensively in America and millions attended his lectures on the subject of attaining direct personal experience of God. In 1925, he founded an international Math in Los Angeles in U. S. A.

But for a short visit to India in 1935 when, among others, he had fruitful discussions with Mahatma Gandhi, the Paramahansa continued his work in the West. He gave lectures on the spiritual and cultural heritage of India and conducted classes in balanced living-God can be realized in the home as well as in the ashram. He wrote several books of which his 'Autobiography of a Yogi' is recognized throughout the world as a spiritual classic.

Yogananda's exemplary life ended in Los Angeles on March 7, 1952 a few moments after he uttered the final words in a speech at a reception in honour of Ambassador of India to the United states. His deep pride in his native land echoed throughout his last talk: 'I Love India because there I first learned to love God and all things beautiful. Though the major part of his life was spent outside India, still Paramahansa Yogananda takes his place among our great saints. His work continues to grow and shine ever more brightly drawing people everywhere on the path of the Pilgrimage of the Spirit.

The Posts and Telegraphs Department feels privileged to bring out a commemorative postage stamp in honour of Paramahansa Yogananda.




Swami Sivananda 

Swami Sivananda was born on the 8th of September, 1887, to pious parents, Sri Vengu Aiyer and Smt. Parvati Ammal, in the serene and peaceful village ofPattamadai, District Tirunelveli, Tamildadu. He was imbued with the spirit of service and very compassionate heart from early boyhood. After a period of work undersenior British doctors, young Kuppuswami set up his own medical practice in the city of Johorebaru, Malaya. His daily close contact with pain, suffering, disease and deathstirred up intense feelings of dispassion and a great longing to solve the mystery of life and death. Answering an inner call in the year 1922, Dr. Kuppuswami renounced his lucrative medical proactive and turning away from the life secular he returned to India, as a spiritual seeker keenly longing for illumination and enlightenment. He reached Rishikesh on the bank of the holy river Ganga in early 1924. There he met the venerable monk, Sri Swami Viswananda Saraswati, who initiated him into the Paranmahamsa Sannyasa Order, giving him Jananopadesa and the monastic name of Swami Sivananda which has become a name familiar to millions to world over.

He founded the Divine Life Society in 1936 to bring about global spiritual awakening through the nation-wide and world-wide propagation of Yoga and Vedanta as also the spreading of Dharma by expounding the high ethical ideals and principles of India's sublime culture. There was no distinction of race, religion, nationality, caste or creed. Thus the membership was all-embracing and universal.

He took up enthusiastic preaching and teaching of the invaluable ancient science of Hatha Yoga. He authored more than three hundredbooks, covering every aspect of human culture, and the divine Life Society which he founded in 1936, stood for the reveal of bharatiya-samskrit and the universality of the spiritual essentials of all the world religions. Two years later in 1938, he started the monthly English Journal 'the Divine Life'. In 1953 April, he convened a Parliament of World religions at Rishikesh. His books have been translated in most Indian vernacular and several foreign languages. He had created a band of dedicated Sannyasins to carry forward his good work before he attained Mahasamdhi on 14th of July, 1963.