Autobiography of a Yogi
About This Book
Paramahansa Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi is one of the most significant spiritual books of the twentieth century and one of the few texts that has genuinely changed the course of Western spiritual seeking — the life story of the Indian master who brought the Kriya Yoga technique to America in 1920 and spent the rest of his life demonstrating, with extraordinary personal vitality and humour, that the ancient yogic path of self-realisation was fully accessible to Western practitioners. The book is filled with accounts of encounters with extraordinary beings — his own guru Sri Yukteswar, whose capacity for the most direct and penetrating transmission Yogananda describes with loving precision; the deathless master Babaji; Swami Pranabananda, who could be in two places simultaneously; Therese Neumann, the German Catholic mystic who had received the stigmata; and dozens of others — that are presented not as theological claims but as the honest account of what Yogananda actually encountered.
The book works on multiple levels simultaneously: as a captivating narrative of an extraordinary life; as a comprehensive introduction to the philosophy of Kriya Yoga and Vedantic self-realisation; as an account of the meeting between East and West at a profound spiritual level; and, for many readers, as the first genuine encounter with the possibility that the mystical states described in the scriptures of all traditions are not historical artefacts but living possibilities available to human beings in every age.
What You'll Learn
• Follow the arc of Yogananda's life: from his childhood spiritual experiences through his training under Sri Yukteswar to his decades of teaching in America, understanding the specific stages of his development and the qualities — devotion, discipline, self-honesty, and the capacity for divine joy — that characterised each stage
• Understand Kriya Yoga as Yogananda presents it: the specific meditation technique that Babaji transmitted through the lineage of masters, what it does to the practitioner's energy system and consciousness, and why Yogananda regarded it as a royal road to self-realisation that accelerates evolution in ways that other practices cannot match
• Grasp the philosophy of self-realisation: the Vedantic understanding that the true nature of every human being is the infinite Atman identical with Brahman, the mechanics of how maya (the creative power of illusion) conceals this nature, and the specific process of Kriya Yoga practice through which the veil of maya is progressively lifted
• Recognise the book's account of extraordinary capacities: the demonstration of levitation, bilocation, materialisation, prophecy, and healing by the masters Yogananda encountered — understanding these not as magical performances but as the natural by-products of consciousness that has moved beyond the ordinary limitations of its identification with the physical
• Appreciate the meeting of traditions that the book documents: how Yogananda's encounters with Christian mystics, particularly Therese Neumann, and his reading of the Gospels through the lens of Vedantic understanding illuminated the underlying unity of Christian and Hindu mystical experience — one of the first serious cross-traditional comparisons available to Western readers
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