Paramahansa Yogananda entered Mahasamadhi (the definitive abandonment of the physical body, performed voluntarily and consciously by a yogi), on March 7, 1952, in Los Angeles, California, after concluding his speech at a banquet offered in honor of HE Binay R. Sen, Ambassador of India to the United States of North America.
The great universal teacher demonstrated, both in life and death, the value of yoga (set of scientific techniques used to achieve communion with God). Weeks after his death, his unchanging face shone with the divine glow of incorruptibility.
In the preface to the book "Autobiography of a Yogi" written by Paramahansa Yogananda, JM Cuarón writes under the title A GREAT MASTER AND A GREAT BOOK:
In the midst of a world wounded by dissensions, controversies, intellectualism, simple practical scholarship, political factions and the almost general abandonment of the life of the spirit, this great Master, genuine type of the human redeemer and direct product of the most pure Vedic tradition, is presented to us as the finished product of a discipline and an inexhaustible evangelical love. Paramahansa Yogananda, whose sovereign figure has no peer in the world of the West, is not, as the reader accustomed to reading Yoga works, a man more or less perfected by a technique.
Leave India, to finally land in North America:
Among the great and small Masters who have sought, with greater or lesser fortune, the integral culture of man through the techniques of exploration that come to us from ancient times, none more authorized than him to show us the path of definitive illumination. It is a fully realized man, in the fullest sense of the term, who brings us the inextinguishable torch of the Vedas. His amazing Autobiography of a Yogi is not just the revelation of a personal achievement in the search for contact with God; It is also - and above all - an invitation and a voice of encouragement for those who, through complex readings, thought their chances of obtaining more than pain and disappointment in their earthly existence were exhausted.
Truly sacred are the historical paintings and scenes in which this great and noble figure moves; sacred are the prodigious mentors who took him by the hand to lead him to the supreme light of suprasensory knowledge, and simple, warm and comforting the multiple and anecdotal incidents of his career towards God. For this reason, his autobiography has the unique excelsitude and rarity of an exemplary incompatible with the discussion: only looking for among the prophets of the ancient world the venerable and perhaps extinct traces of knowledge, as we were shown by the supreme masters of Judea, of India from Kapila and Shankara or from the Western world in its first hours in its early hours of living Christianity, we could find adequate parallels, with the advantage that Paramahansa Yogananda has managed to unite, to the true technical knowledge of the processes of yoga, to wisdom pure and perfect and selfless action, that immortal love that defines the devotee and projects it beyond the human narrowness of thought and selfishness.
In a nutshell, this great Master, a direct disciple of the ancient Order of the Swamis of India, brings together in his vast spiritual capacity the means and ends of supreme knowledge.
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We honor here an excerpt from Chapter 14 entitled: AN EXPERIENCE OF COSMIC AWARENESS.
… .. Then Sri Yukteswar hit me in the chest lightly, a little above the heart.
My body was completely immobilized, as if it had taken root, the breath came out of my lungs as if a heavy magnet were taking it from me. The soul and body immediately cut off their physical bonds and flowed into my body like a torrent of light emerging from each of my pores. My flesh was as dead and yet, in my intense lucidity, I realized that I had never been as alive as before.
My sense of identity was no longer confined only to one body, but encompassed all the surrounding atoms. The people of the distant streets seemed to move on my own distant periphery. The roots of the plants and of the trees arose under a faint transparency of the soil, and I could realize the inner circulation of their savias.
The whole neighborhood appeared naked before me. My vision had transformed into a vast and spherical, omniperceptive gaze. Through my head and the back of my neck I saw men walking past Rai Ghat's driveway, and I noticed a white cow slowly approaching. When he arrived in front of the entrance of the hermitage, I could see her with physical eyes; and when he turned around behind the brick wall, he still saw her clearly.
All objects within the field of my vision trembled and vibrated as if they were movie films. My body, that of my Master, the patio with its pillars, the furniture, the floor, the trees, the sunlight, dissolved in a sea of light, just as the sugar crystals in a glass of water are diluted by be agitated This unifying light alternated before my inner vision with form materializations; metamorphosis that revealed the operation of the cause-and-effect law in creation.
A sea of joy burst into the endless shores of my soul. Then I understood that the spirit of God is inexhaustible Happiness. Your body is a fabric of endless light. A feeling of increasing glory sprouted from me and began to envelop peoples and continents, the entire earth, solar and stellar systems, dim nebulae, and floating universes. The whole cosmos, saturated with light as a city seen in the distance at night, shone in the infinity of my being. The precise global contours of their masses vanished somewhat at the farthest ends, where I could see the soft radiation never diminished. It was indescribably subtle; while the figures of the planets perished formed of a denser light.
The divine dispersion of light rays came from an Eternal Source, glowing in galaxies, transfigured into ineffable auras. Again and again I saw the creative rays condense into constellations and then dissolve into sheets of transparent flames. By means of a rhythmic reversal, sextillions of worlds were transformed into diaphanous brightness; and the fire became a firmament.
I recognized the center of the empire as a point of intuitive perception in my heart. The splendor radiated from my inner core to each part of the universal structure. The happy Amrita, the nectar of immortality, ran through me with a dramatic fluidity.
I heard the creative voice of God resonate like OM, the vibration of the Cosmic Engine.
Suddenly, the breath returned to my lungs. With almost unbearable disappointment, I realized that my infinite immensity was lost. Once again I was confined to the humiliating limitation of a body box, not so comfortable for the Spirit. As a prodigal son, I had fled my macro-cosmic home, imprisoning myself in narrow microcosms.
My guru was still in front of me, and my first attempt was to throw myself at his holy feet in an act of gratitude for that experience in cosmic consciousness, which was so long and passionately so He searched. But he stopped me standing and said quietly:
You should not get drunk with ecstasy. There is much work for you in the world yet. Come, let's sweep the floor of the balcony; Then we will walk through the Ganges.
I brought a broom; I inferred that my Master was teaching me the secret of living a balanced life. The soul must embrace the cosmic chasms while the body fulfills its daily obligations. When we were ready for our walk later, I was still in a trance, in an ineffable abduction. He saw our bodies as two astral images, moving on a path along the river whose essence looked like pure light.
It is the Spirit of God who actively sustains every form and strength of the Universe; however, he is transcendental and rests apart in the beatific and unbelievable emptiness beyond the vibratory worlds of phenomena, the Master told me . ..
Paramahansa Yogananda- A Premavatar or Embodiment of love .
