100 Biography of a Yogithis helpfulness is indeterminable and one can only assume that Satyananda is
referring to some aspect of Niyogi’s participation in the syncretic ideolog y of
Sen’s organization.
During this same time, Yogananda became exceedingly impressed by an
encounter with a certain young Swami Dayananda.^23 Yogananda impulsively
followed his new acquaintance to Benares in the company of another friend in
- Dayananda had made arrangements for both to be housed at the Bharat
Dharma Mahamandal, though Yogananda quickly became disillusioned with the
service- driven life of the ashram, which did not leave him much time for medita-
tion. However, it was on this short- lived escape that Yogananda first encountered
his future guru, Sri Yukteswar, who had actually been charged by Yogananda’s
concerned family with finding the would- be renunciant. Although Yogananda
had been studying with Swami Kebalananda, another disciple of Lahiri Mahasaya
also known as Shastri Mahasaya, he quickly decided that Sri Yukteswar was to
be his true guru. Yogananda received initiation into the higher kriyās from Sri
Yukteswar in that same year.
Becoming the International Yogi
Despite his voracious appetite for spiritual knowledge, Yogananda had a natural
aversion to traditional education. At his family’s urging, he enrolled at Sabour
Agricultural College, which he quickly left, taking away only a large cabbage. He
briefly entertained the idea of medical school, which never progressed beyond
a stack of acquired and soon discarded reference materials. Finally, he enrolled
at the Scottish Church College in Calcutta in 1910 at the insistence of both his
family and Sri Yukteswar, who told him in no uncertain terms, “Someday you
will go to the West. Its people will be more receptive to India’s ancient wisdom if
the strange Hindu teacher has a university degree.”^24 It is unclear how much the
“B.A.,” which Yogananda dutifully appended to his name on the covers of his
first several publications, really served to increase his credibility but he attained
it nonetheless.
Yogananda’s matriculation at the Scottish Church College did have one life-
changing result. During his first year, he made the acquaintance of one Basu
Kumar Bagchi, a man who under his future name of Swami Dhirananda would
play an important if ultimately somewhat tragic role in Yogananda’s life. Bagchi,
who shared Yogananda’s yogic interests, soon confided that he could not find a
place at home that was private enough for proper meditation. Thenceforth, at
Yogananda’s insistence, Bagchi took up secret residence in his friend’s attic medi-
tation room. Eventually his presence inevitably became known to the Ghosh
household, and he was duly integrated into the family.