Lahiri Mahasaya was born on September 30, 1828, in the village of Ghurni in Bengal, India.
At the age of thirty-three, while walking one day in the Himalayan foothills near in Northern India, he met his guru, Mahavatar Babaji. It was a Divine reunion of two who had been together in many past lives. Through an awakening touch of blessing, Lahiri Mahasaya became engulfed in a spiritual aura of Divine realization that was never to leave him.
Mahavatar Babaji initiated him in the science of Kriya Yoga and instructed him to bestow the sacred technique on all sincere seekers. Kriya Yoga is described by its practitioners as the ancient Yoga system revived in modern times by Mahavatar Babaji through his disciple Lahiri Mahasaya.
Lahiri Mahasaya returned to his home in Banaras to fulfill this mission. Banares is an ancient city on the bank of the Ganges River in Northern India.
As the first to teach the lost ancient Yoga system (Kriya Yoga) in contemporary times, he is known as a key figure in the renaissance of yoga that began in modern India in the latter part of the 19th century and continues to this day.
Paramahansa Yogananda quoted Lahiri Mahasaya in his book Autobiography of a Yogi: “He who has attained a state of calmness wherein his eyelids do not blink, has achieved Sambhabi (Shambhavi) Mudra.”
Shambhavi Mudra is called as 'the eyebrow center gazing gesture'. The point between the eyebrows about 30 degrees up and in, just above the ethmoid bone between the eyebrows, is one of the highly regarded and practices gesture in Yogic and Tantric texts. It is very powerful gesture used in meditation. It is used to bring the mind into a state of balance and experience higher states of consciousness.
Shambhavi Mudra, meaning “Shiva-Mudra” is one of the most important (and often kept as a secret) mudra of Yoga. Shiva Mudra involves steady gazing at the point between the eyebrows, attempting to become completely absorbed in the inner ‘sign’.
Mudra means seal and bliss, and Shambhavi Mudra is perhaps the most esoteric seal of all, known to saints of all religions who are typically shown looking skyward. It is a closure (seal) to the outward world, so as to become absorbed within.
Yogananda clearly described that secret “sign” in his book, which one sees in Shambhavi Mudra.
As Lahiri Mahasaya exemplified the highest ideals of Yoga, union of the little self with God, he is reverenced as a Yogavatar, or incarnation of Yoga. It is often wondered if Lahiri Mahasaya is real, as this picture below is one of the only known pictures of him as all other pictures never did capture his image as the films were always left with only blank space where his image should have been.
Lahiri Mahasaya was real, who worked as an accountant, was married and fathered seven (7) children.
Paramahansa Yogananda’s parents attest to his physical existence who were disciples of Lahiri Mahasaya, and when Yogananda was but a baby, his mother took him to the home of her guru Lahiri Mahasaya.
Blessing the infant, Lahiri Mahasaya said, “Little mother, thy son will be a yogi. As a spiritual engine, he will carry many souls to God’s kingdom.”
Lahiri Mahasaya established no organization during his lifetime, but made a prediction: “About fifty years after my passing, an account of my life will be written because of a deep interest in Yoga that will arise in the West. The message of Yoga will encircle the globe. It will aid in establishing the brotherhood of man: a unity based on humanity’s direct perception of the one Father.”
Lahiri Mahasaya entered Mahasamadhi in Banaras, September 26, 1895. Mahasamadhi is the act of consciously and intentionally leaving one's body at the moment of death. According to this belief, a realized and enlightened (Jivanmukta), yogi (male) or yogini (female) who has attained the state of Nirvikalpa Samādhi (absorption without self-consciousness), can consciously exit from their body and attain enlightenment, often while in a deep, conscious meditative state.
Fifty years later, in the West, Lahiri Mahasaya’s prediction was fulfilled when an increasing interest in yoga was inspired by Paramahansa Yogananda’s account of Lahiri Mahasaya’s Life in Autobiography of a Yogi.
