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Carnegie Hall event to mark 100 years of Yogananda chants
The program commemorates his 1926 lecture series that helped introduce yoga and meditation practices in the West.
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Malvika Choudhary - Sat, 21, Mar 2026
- 11:03 EDT
- 11
The Divine Art of Music / YouTube/ Self-Realization Fellowship
Carnegie Hall will host a special event on April 18, marking 100 years since Paramahansa Yogananda introduced devotional chanting to Western audiences at the venue.
The program, titled “The Divine Art of Music,” is organized by the Self-Realization Fellowship, a Los Angeles-based international spiritual organization founded by Yogananda.
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The event at Zankel Hall will open with a talk by Brother Devananda, a monk of the organization, followed by group chanting and brief meditation led by the Self-Realization Fellowship’s monastic kirtan ensemble.
“Music that is saturated with soul force is the real universal music, understandable by all hearts,” Yogananda wrote in the prelude to Cosmic Chants, a collection of devotional songs that forms the basis of the program.
Selections include “O God Beautiful,” attributed to Sikh Guru Nanak, Swami Shankara’s “No Birth, No Death,” the Sanskrit “Hymn to Brahma,” and compositions by Rabindranath Tagore.
The program also reflects on Yogananda’s 1926 appearance at Carnegie Hall, where he invited audiences to join in chanting “O God Beautiful.” He later recalled that thousands continued chanting for more than an hour, with participants reporting spiritual and emotional experiences.
Yogananda, who arrived in the United States from India in 1920, founded the Self-Realization Fellowship to promote Kriya Yoga, a meditation practice rooted in Indian spiritual traditions. His work helped introduce yoga and meditation to Western audiences in the early 20th century.
His Carnegie Hall appearances also brought kirtan—group devotional chanting—to Western audiences at a time when it was largely unknown outside South Asia. The practice later gained wider recognition in the United States, particularly during the 1960s.
The organization now operates more than 600 temples, centers, and retreats worldwide. In India, its affiliated Yogoda Satsanga Society of India runs over 200 centers.
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