“If we had a man like Paramahansa Yogananda in the United Nations today probably the world would be a better place than it is.”
– Dr. Binay R. Sen, former Ambassador of India to the U.S.
Throughout his 32 years of public ministry in the West, Paramahansa Yogananda devoted himself to fostering greater harmony and cooperation among all religions, races, and nationalities; and to helping people realize and express more fully in their lives the beauty, nobility, and divinity of the human spirit.
Sri Yogananda took every opportunity to foster interfaith understanding, brotherhood, and world peace – through the many interfaith conferences that he organized or participated in; the founding of the Self-Realization Fellowship Worldwide Prayer Circle, an international network of those who regularly pray for the physical, mental, and spiritual well-being of others, and for world peace and harmony; and the establishment of spiritual sanctuaries open to people of all religious backgrounds, including the SRF Lake Shrine with its Mahatma Gandhi World Peace Memorial.
Among his greatest contributions to the world was his instruction in the science of God-realization, including techniques of meditation for developing a direct, personal experience of God. He said, “I believe that if every citizen in the world is taught to commune with God (not merely to know Him intellectually), then peace can reign; not before. When by persistence in meditation you realize God through communion with Him, your heart is prepared to embrace all humanity.”
