Gurus & Saints of India
Swami Yukteswar (1855 - 1936)
Swami Yukteswar, the great sage was the guru of Yogananda,
and the disciple of Lahiri Mahasaya. His penetrating mind and the depths of
his spiritual perceptions earned him the title of “gyanavatar” (incarnation
of wisdom).
Sri Yukteswar was born in Serampore in May 1855. After finishing college he
was blessed by meeting his guru, and he made frequent pilgrimages to
Lahiri’s home in Varanasi. During one of these visits he encountered his
guru’s guru, the great Babaji — who at one point requested that Yukteswar
pen a comparison of Hindu scriptures with the Bible. Yukteswar complied, and
his work was published as “The Holy Science”.
Included in this slim but enlightening volume is a theory revolutionary to
most of India. Sri Yukteswar maintained that the world has emerged from the
lowest matter-bound age of Kali Yuga and, in a rising cycle of time, had
entered the higher energy-oriented age of Dwapara Yuga.
Yukteswar trained Yogananda for his mission to the West. He had a number of
spiritual students, mostly youths, who studied with him in his ashrams in
Serampore and Puri. The “gyanavatar” also had a heart open to the public at
large: during spiritual festivals, he regularly hosted banquets that fed
many people.
The great master left his body in 1936, but later physically appeared to his
disciple Yogananda — a powerful event described in the chapter of
Yogananda’s autobiography titled “The Resurrection of Sri Yukteswar.”
Returning from death, the guru shared many profound spiritual truths, and
information about the various subtle astral planes.