Early Life – Yogiraj Sri Shyama Charan Lahiri Mahasaya

Early Life – Yogiraj Sri Shyama Charan Lahiri Mahasaya – Lahiri Mahasaya was born 30, September 1828 in the small village of Ghurni in the West Bengal region of India. In his childhood, he was known as Shyama Charan, and frequently he was found to be seated under the tree in the lotus posture or under a heap of sands dune in the meditative posture.

Lahiri Mahasaya was known to be very learned. He mastered different languages while he was schooled. Some of them include Sanskrit, Bengali, French, and English. When he grew up he studied the Hindu Holy Scripture the Veda and got a thorough grasp of its teachings.

Lahiri Mahasaya was very generous with both family members and friends. He lived near his neighbors, so they got to know him fairly well too. The man even became beloved by all those in his neighborhood for working a lot for others – which only helped make him more popular!.

Shyama Charan Lahiri was a householder &  wedded with beautiful women, her name was Kashi Moni, and had 2 most beautiful sons, Tincouri and Ducouri, and lived with a family and 2 kids and worked as an accountant under the British Indian government for the Military Engineering Department.  Lahiri Mahasaya lived in a very small house in the oldest part of Varanasi with his family rather than living in a temple or monastery.  He gained a very notable position among 19th-century spiritual Hindu masters in the world.

Mahavatar Babaji and Kriya Yoga

Shyama Charan Lahiri Mahasaya was an Indian Guru of Kriya and a direct disciple of Mahavatar Babaji. He is also very famous as Yogi Raj and Kashi Baba (the Yoga of the city Kashi ) among the Kriya Yoga teachers & practitioners.

He brought to life the ancient discipline of the breathing ( Pranayama) of Kriya Yoga when he received the first teachings on Kriya Yoga from Mahavatar Babaji in 1861 in Kukuchina on the Dronagiri mountain near Dwarahat town of Kausani district, Uttrakhand state. Later Lahiri Mahasaya gave his first teachings on Kriya Yoga to the  Yukteswar Giri of Kolkota.

In the Indian context, The root of the  Mahasaya word is derived from the ancient language of India called Sanskrit, it stands for the large-minded, a spiritual title is widely used by the Hindus in their social system, especially in the holy town of Varanasi, people use frequently the word Mahasaya to give someone respect.

Kriya Yoga – Science of Breathing

At the beginning of Satya Yuga, Yogiraj Sri Shyama Charan Lahiri Mahasaya restored the remarkable discipline of perceiving the Soul or the Self – which is called the Kriya yoga.

The most blessed path to be one with the divine soul within, which is already transcended in all of us. Through the Kriya yoga science,  Yogiraj Sri Shyama Charan Lahiri Mahasaya granted upon mankind – the realization of Prana – Pranayama’, truly as elaborated in the Bhagavad Gita [Chapter 4, Sloka 29]. Prana stands for Life energy is the most primitive presence of the Universe.

 Lahiri Mahasya & Yogananda Paramhansa

Lahiri Mahasaya gained fame as a Kriya Yoga teacher in the West through Paramahansa Yogananda, a direct follower of Sri Yukteswar Giri, and through his Autobiography of a Yogi. Yogananda Paramhansa explained that  Mahavatar Babaji chooses Lahiri Mahasaya to reintroduce the most valuable science of breathing “ the  Kriya Yoga “  to this world.