A Sacred Meeting Place: Tulsi Bose Shrine
Sep 12, 2025One of the many blessed offerings in our upcoming pilgrimage to India will be the opportunity to visit the Tulsi Bose Shrine in Kolkata, five minutes away from Paramhansa Yogananda’s childhood home on 4 Garpar Road. It is a very sacred place, not just because of the holy relics kept here, but because this is where all of Master’s work started.
Tulsi Bose was a devoted disciple and childhood friend of Paramhansa Yogananda, and his home quickly became a sanctuary for Master’s early work in India. As the stories tell, Master, as young boy was unable to find time for solitude and meditation in his own home, so he prayed deeply to Divine Mother for “One good devoted friend with a quiet home.” Soon Divine Mother led him to Tulsi Bose and they developed a lifelong friendship In God.
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The home now a shrine, safekeeps many sacred relics including Babaji’s trident, Sri Yukteswar’s conch, and beds that belonged to Master and Sri Yukteswar. In this sacred place, one may tune into the many prayers, meditations, and blessings of divine communion that shaped the very beginnings of Masters mission. This place offers us a unique opportunity to attune our consciousness with the living current of our Master’s blessed light, carried forward by the love and loyalty of divine friendship with the Bose family. Sincerely, |
Master regularly stayed to pray and meditate for long hours with Tulsi. A couple of years later, Master expressed that he wanted a place where he could teach meditation classes and Hari Narayan Bose (Tulsi’s father), purchased the land behind the home to build a space for Master to fully dedicate to teaching classes. Swami Kebalananda the sanskrit scholar taught here, and Sri Yukteswar also visited the Bose home to see Master’s very first school. Later on, other great saints such as Anandamoi Ma would even come here to have dinner with the family.
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