To My Master Yogiguru Bhagavan Shrimat Brahmachari Anilanandaji Maharaj.
Master Mine!
It is not for me to probe the depth of the Infinite Bliss that is Shri Shri Lahiri Mahashaya. Yet, you bid me write, and I must obey. Let Thy words be uttered through this frail mortal frame. Let the dust of Thy Lotus Feet be my Guide. Aum!
The need for a complete biography in English of Yogiraj Shri Shri Shyamacharan Lahiri Mahashaya has been very strongly felt. There are chapters on Shri Shri Lahiri Mahashaya in the English Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramhansa Yogananda, his spiritual grandson. But all the other biographies of this Great Saint are written in Bengali or Hindi.
The present volume is an outcome of a Gracious Command of my beloved Gurudeva Yogiguru Shrimat Brahmachari Anilanandaji Maharaj. How else could I dare to go into the mystery of an astounding spiritual personality like Shri Shri Lahiri Mahashaya?
A householder was seated in his own drawing room at Benares, in the lotus posture, surrounded by his disciples. His complexion was fair and his body well-built. His dreamy eyes were half-closed, fixed as they were on something not of this earth. The aura of his tranquility pervaded the atmosphere. He was explaining the Bhagavad-Gita.
The householder was the greatest Yogi of the 19th century, whose cosmic consciousness was entirely free from the limitations of space and time. He was Yogiraj Shri Shri Shyamacharan Lahiri Mahashaya. Indeed, the role silently played by Shri Shri Lahiri Mahashaya in changing the world-consciousness into a unity through the path of Yoga can never be exaggerated.
