Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Autobiography of a Yogi
    Unavailable
    Autobiography of a Yogi
    Unavailable
    Autobiography of a Yogi
    Ebook789 pages9 hours

    Autobiography of a Yogi

    By Paramhansa Yogananda

    4/5

    ()

    Unavailable in your country

    Unavailable in your country

    Listen to the audiobook instead

    About this ebook

    "Except ye see signs and wonders, 
    ye will not believe."-John 4:48. 
     
    The value of Yogananda's Autobiography is greatly enhanced by the fact that it is one of the few books in English about the wise men of India which has been written, not by a journalist or foreigner, but by one of their own race and training--in short, a book about yogis by a yogi.  
     
    As an eyewitness recountal of the extraordinary lives and powers of modern Hindu saints, the book has importance both timely and timeless. To its illustrious author, whom I have had the pleasure of knowing both in India and America, may every reader render due appreciation and gratitude. His unusual life-document is certainly one of the most revealing of the depths of the Hindu mind and heart, and of the spiritual wealth of India, ever to be published in the West. 
     
    It has been my privilege to have met one of the sages whose life- history is herein narrated-Sri Yukteswar Giri. A likeness of the venerable saint appeared as part of the frontispiece of my Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines. 
     
    It was at Puri, in Orissa, on the Bay of Bengal, that I encountered Sri Yukteswar. He was then the head of a quiet ashrama near the seashore there, and was chiefly occupied in the spiritual training of a group of youthful disciples. He expressed keen interest in the welfare of the people of the United States and of all the Americas, and of England, too, and questioned me concerning the distant activities, particularly those in California, of his chief disciple, Paramhansa Yogananda, whom he dearly loved, and whom he had sent, in 1920, as his emissary to the West. 
     
    Sri Yukteswar was of gentle mien and voice, of pleasing presence, and worthy of the veneration which his followers spontaneously accorded to him. Every person who knew him, whether of his own community or not, held him in the highest esteem. I vividly recall his tall, straight, ascetic figure, garbed in the saffron-colored garb of one who has renounced worldly quests, as he stood at the entrance of the hermitage to give me welcome. His hair was long and somewhat curly, and his face bearded. His body was muscularly firm, but slender and well-formed, and his step energetic.  
     
    He had chosen as his place of earthly abode the holy city of Puri, whither multitudes of pious Hindus, representative of every province of India, come daily on pilgrimage to the famed Temple of Jagannath, "Lord of the World." It was at Puri that Sri Yukteswar closed his mortal eyes, in 1936, to the scenes of this transitory state of being and passed on, knowing that his incarnation had been carried to a triumphant completion. I am glad, indeed, to be able to record this testimony to the high character and holiness of Sri Yukteswar. Content to remain afar from the multitude, he gave himself unreservedly and in tranquillity to that ideal life which Paramhansa Yogananda, his disciple, has now described for the ages. 
     
    W. Y. EVANS-WENTZ

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCheapest Books
    Release dateMay 1, 2018
    ISBN9786052259726
    Author

    Paramhansa Yogananda

    Born in 1893, Paramhansa Yogananda was the first yoga master of India to take up permanent residence in the West. He arrived in America in 1920 and traveled throughout the country on what he called his “spiritual campaigns.” Hundreds of thousands filled the largest halls in major cities to see the yoga master from India. Yogananda continued to lecture and write up to his passing in 1952. Yogananda’s initial impact on Western culture was truly impressive. His lasting spiritual legacy has been even greater. His Autobiography of a Yogi, first published in 1946, helped launch a spiritual revolution in the West. Translated into more than fifty languages, it remains a best-selling spiritual classic to this day. Before embarking on his mission, Yogananda received this admonition from his teacher, Swami Sri Yukteswar: “The West is high in material attainments but lacking in spiritual understanding. It is God’s will that you play a role in teaching mankind the value of balancing the material with an inner, spiritual life.” In addition to Autobiography of a Yogi, Yogananda’s spiritual legacy includes music, poetry, and extensive commentaries on the Bhagavad Gita, the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, and the Christian Bible, showing the principles of Self-realization as the unifying truth underlying all true religions. Through his teachings and his Kriya Yoga path millions of people around the world have found a new way to connect personally with God. His mission, however, was far broader than all this. It was to help usher the whole world into Dwapara Yuga, the new Age of Energy in which we live. “Someday,” Swami Kriyananda wrote, “I believe he will be seen as the avatar of Dwapara Yuga: the way shower for a new age.”

    Read more from Paramhansa Yogananda

    Related to Autobiography of a Yogi

    Related ebooks

    Hinduism For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Motherhood Is More Than a Metaphor

      Jun 1, 2021

      Motherhood Is More Than a Metaphor
      12 min read

    • Article

      Hear Our Voices

      Aug 13, 2019

      Women in Buddhism have a complicated history. It is a history of great heroines such as Mahaprajapati Gotami, who led the first women’s march in recorded history to campaign for women’s ordination. It is the history of a profound philosophy that posi

      23 min read

    • Article

      Book Briefs

      May 8, 2018

      Without tsewa, is there any other source of happiness?” This is the question posed by Dzigar Kongtrul Rinpoche in TRAINING IN TENDERNESS (Shambhala 2018). Always circling back to this Tibetan word meaning love, tenderness, or warmth, Kongtrul pushes

      4 min read

    • Article

      Epic Faith

      Jul 25, 2019

      Epic Faith
      4 min read

    • Article

      In Search Of The Story

      Jan 22, 2018

      In Search Of The Story
      5 min read

    • Article

      Up-to-date Dharma

      Jul 19, 2022

      Up-to-date Dharma
      4 min read

    • Article

      Unsung Women: Buddhist Women’s Poetry and the Revival of the Female Teaching Lineage

      Aug 28, 2018

      One of the holiest forms of practice in Zen is the chanting of names of one’s Buddhist ancestors and teachers. In Japan, China, and Korea, prayers reciting one’s teaching lineage are a common part of the rituals, soaring back in Japanese, Korean or c

      5 min read

    • Article

      Faith For Troubled Times

      May 18, 2021

      Faith For Troubled Times
      4 min read

    • Article

      Path Of Fierce Questioning

      Nov 17, 2020

      Path Of Fierce Questioning
      5 min read

    • Article

      Women Who Show Us The Way

      Mar 23, 2021

      Women Who Show Us The Way
      6 min read

    • Article

      Ayu Khandro

      Jan 21, 2020

      Ayu Khandro
      2 min read

    • Article

      The Original Philosophy of Flow

      Jun 3, 2020

      We have stopped. A pandemic encircles the world. Many of us are either partially or entirely isolated, keeping our distances. The planes are mostly grounded, the non-essential stores are closed. The hospitals are filled with people who are sick and d

      3 min read

    • Article

      Joyful Wandering

      Jan 18, 2022

      Joyful Wandering
      4 min read

    • Article

      Women of Wisdom

      Jul 18, 2023

      Women of Wisdom
      9 min read

    • Article

      How To Build A Better World

      Jan 23, 2024

      IN BECOMING GANDHI: My Experiment Living the Mahatma’s 6 Moral Truths in Immoral Times (Sounds True), author Perry Garfinkel sets out to live like Gandhi for three years. Garfinkel, a freelance journalist, worldwide traveler, and self-proclaimed “bon

      4 min read

    • Article

      Book Briefs

      Feb 6, 2018

      Should Vajrayana practitioners eat meat? Tibetans have long wrestled with this question, as Geoffrey Barstow elucidates in FOOD OF SINFUL DEMONS: MEAT, VEGETARIANISM, AND THE LIMITS OF BUDDHISM IN TIBET (Columbia 2017). In their discussions of ethica

      4 min read

    • Article

      Tenku Ruff

      Sep 24, 2019

      Tenku Ruff
      2 min read

    • Article

      The How Of Happiness

      Nov 22, 2022

      The How Of Happiness
      4 min read

    • Article

      My Two Religions

      Jan 18, 2022

      My Two Religions
      4 min read

    • Article

      Dr. Anouk Aimée Shambrook

      Sep 19, 2023

      I’M A BLACK BUDDHIST teacher in a troubled America. I was raised in a conservative white town in Southern California. My Haitian mother and Irish father raised my siblings and me Catholic. They also introduced us to Buddhist philosophy. Maman would l

      2 min read

    • Article

      Book Briefs

      May 7, 2019

      N 1940 IN NEPAL, Chittadhar Hrdaya was arrested for publishing poems in the Newari language, an act regarded as subversive by Nepal’s ruling Rana dynasty. During his subsequent five-year imprisonment, he wrote The Epic of the Buddha: His Life and Tea

      4 min read

    • Article

      Buddhadharma ON BOOKS

      Dec 5, 2023

      THE FRENCH-BORN writer and photographer Matthieu Ricard earned a PhD in molecular genetics in 1972, and then walked away from his career to become a Buddhist monk in the Tibetan tradition. Today, Ricard is perhaps best known for his collaborations wi

      4 min read

    • Article

      Upasika Kee Nanayon

      Jan 21, 2020

      BORN IN 1901 to a shopkeeping family in Rajburi, a town west of Bangkok, Upasika Kee Nanayon knew from an early age that she never wanted to get married. When she was six, the sight of her mother in the throes of childbirth filled her with so much dr

      2 min read

    • Article

      Books In Brief

      Mar 19, 2024

      DR. KAMILAH MAJIED’S Joyfully Just: Black Wisdom and Buddhist Insights for Liberated Living (Sounds True) invites us to exercise playful curiosity. The book’s expansive embrace of contemplative practices supports wellness and justice for people from

      4 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Autobiography of a Yogi

    4/5

    441 ratings19 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      Somethings are hard to understand. Good for one time read.
    • 3/5
      First, I´ll admit that I didn´t manage to read this 2-volume book to the end. And life is too short to complete long books that one finds boring.While I have full respect for Yogananda, I just didn´t find this book interesting, though it was extremely well-written (at least in Danish translation). The author tells us at length of his encounters with various yogis in his youth, who were highly developed, and could bi-locate (be in two places at once), etc etc, and of various other experiences. He also pontificates about India´s scientific prowess.At the back of each volume there are interesting photos of the author and his family, and various gurus of his acquaintance, including his own guru, Sri Yukteswar, etc,If you are extremely interested in yogis, India, or want to know all details of Yogananda´s life, you may find this book fascinating. Otherwise, you may find it as boring as I did. I cannot really recommend it, though I cannot exclude the possibility that parts of the book I didn´t get round to contain fascinating bits of information.
    • 5/5
      One of the all time bests. The human pursuit of ultimate reality is vivid and lively in the narrative. A perfect combination of an ardent seeker, a wise master and am intense pursuit is the best a human can ever hope in this life of ours. Paramahansa Yogananda had them all. His life from a young boy to one of the greatest yogis of modern times is beautifully presented to us. Love this book.
    • 4/5
      I liked the book because it is well written and quite absorbing. It, however, shows many miracles and supernatural events which I find it difficult to believe. Yet This is a unique book because it displays a truth which is beyond commonsense. You never know if that dimension may really exist.
    • 2/5
      The text is mainly a collection of miracles the the author claims have happened in his, his guru's, or his guru's guru's life. "Miracle" here means something of the type: divine healing, teleportation, a person not appearing on a photo taken, materialisation of food and other things, telepathy, predicting the future, non-eating for extended periods of time, transfer of diseases, or resurrection. The text also contains more mundane episodes from the authors life and even a few glimpses of his teaching. However, the real meat of his teaching (called "Kriya Yoga") is only made available to those who are willing to enter the institution founded by the author; this is often not a good sign.Regardless of whether one believes all the stories of miracles or not, the whole text is very sensationalistic. Also, I found the exaggerated reverence of the author for his guru often very annoying. At other times it just seems odd when, for example, on p. 123, ch. 12, the author says that his guru is snoring and then glorifies it by saying that snoring is a sign of complete relaxation.Both the author and his guru seem to be wealthy, because they were born into rich families. At times I had the feeling that the author is a bit dismissive of people who were less fortunate, e.g., p. 213, ch. 20, where the author ask his uncle "could you possibly spare me your servant".Needless to say, the book is very esoteric, which culminates in the end were the author describes life after death and his worldview (highlight, p. 459-460, ch. 43, "[...] on different astral planets [...] war take[s] place with lifetronic bombs or mental mantric vibratory rays.").The good things that I can say about the book are that1.) it is entertaining,2.) it provides a view into a different culture, and3.) the scientific approach is in principle approved of, e.g., p. 369, ch. 35, were it is said that Kriya Yoga is like mathematics: "Burn to ashes all books on mathematics; the logically minded will always rediscover such truths." Maybe the real miracle of the book is how the author was able to reconcile the scientific principle and the esoteric parts of his teaching in his own mind.
    • 1/5
      After painfully wading through fifty odd pages of what I consider to be lies or, at best, delusions of a (typical Bengali :P) megalomaniac, I decided to put this book down. I don't know what else I was expecting from a book of this genre. It was a mistake to pick it up in the first place.

      I absolutely fail to understand how learned, intelligent people can like this book so much. People apparating in and out of thin air! Someone willing himself out of photographs! Are you fucking kidding me! Am I supposed to take these things on face value? Does Mukunda Ghosh mean us to take these miracles literally at all? If so, shouldn't I be seeking wisdom from someone less delusional? If not, are these stories supposed to have some hidden lessons? (I am yet to decipher any) Is the world as it is not beautiful and spiritually rich enough for him? Even if we leave the miracles out of the discussion for a moment, which is pretty difficult considering that they appear in the book at the rate of at least one per page, what IS the message that is hidden in this treasure of a book?

      Before you berate me for being close-minded, I do understand that there is a wonderful world outside of science. I appreciate beauty and art and wonder. I would even appreciate spirituality, but I have to hear about it from a person who can be honest about it to himself and to me.
    • 5/5
      A fascinating look into the life of a yogi. Although his style of writing is sometimes cumbersome, the experiences he shared in this book leave me wanting to further explore my own spirituality. A must read for anyone searching for deeper meaning.
    • 4/5
      This is a remarkable book by the man who brought Eastern Mysticism to the US - remarkable story of one gentle man's impact
    • 5/5
      If reading this book, buy the "blue cover" one which is the first edition available from Amazon.The orange cover one (by SRF) has too many additions and deletions which dilutes and distorts Paramhansa Yogananda's power, including changing his first name by adding an "a" and making it Paramahansa.The magnitute, majesty and magnetism of this Avatar is truely a blessing for the sincere seeker of the Divine.Many esoteric or yogic interpretation of the sayings of Jesus are amazing in their revelation of the same teachings of original Christianism and original Hinduism.Read and start on your own spiritual journey.
    • 5/5
      This is one of my all-time favorite reads. It gave me answers to spiritual encounters I have had that no one before was able to help me find. It is written with a fresh innocence that gave me 'permission' to search outside of my cultural box to find an ancient world filled with beauty and the love of God.
    • 4/5
      I first read this book in 1971. It opened a whole other dimension of spirituality that I found fascinating.To read this book today, more than 39 years later, was an interesting exercise.. If you want miraculous tales of siddhis, read this book. If you want a most tedious account of the afterlife, this is also your book. Yet in spite of my skepticism, this book is a fascinating entry into monastic Hinduism. It gives a good account of the relationship between guru and student and introduces the reader to several Indian saints.
    • 5/5
      One of the must read books to know about life.
    • 1/5
      This is not Yoga!!Yoga is an intellectual search for the truth. It doesnt depend on such fanciful fables and claims.And Yogananda really goes way out with his claims!! It starts with him remembering himself as a fetus when he knew all languages and finally selected the one he was hearing as his mother tongue and his first memories right after he was born when he saw his mother. The claims keep getting wilder and wilder, beginning with minor miracles like controlling his kite as a child, to fantastical claims like Yogis who never eat, become invisible, fly through the air and do just about anything that Superman does, and much more! There's a photograph of Yogananda standing alone with a caption, "Yogananda standing with his master, who did not care to be photographed, so he made himself invisible." It requires a very strong gullibility to accept this. If anyone wants to become invisible or fly, they should go, not to a Yoga teacher, but to David Copperfield.I am amazed that people in the West still seem to like this book. Many reviewers write about how they have learned about a 'different culture' and a 'different way of thinking' from this book, as if in India we are quite used to seeing our Yogis flying through the air and so on.It would be quite natural for anyone who first comes into contact with Yoga through this book to develop a strong cynicism about Hinduism and its practises, including Yoga. But this is not Yoga at all. To learn about Yoga, I would recommend reading Swami Vivekananda and Ramkrishna Paramahansa, these were great teachers who also achieved relevatory experiences through Yoga but certainly never made any such absurd claims. Yoga is not the magic and superstitious fable that this book makes it out to be.
    • 5/5
      ...taken bit by bit, this can be clarifying and life-changing. I am finding this book easy to read and full of things that cause me to think deeply.
    • 2/5
      In her memoir of her father, Margaret Salinger notes that had it not been for Autobiography of a Yogi, she would never have been born. Her father, J.D. Salinger, had already begun his reclusive lifestyle. He wanted to divorce himself from the duties of domesticity and family life in order to achieve a higher spiritual consciousness. However, Paramhansa Yogananda 's book revealed to him that -in his understanding - salvation can also come to those who live a family life yet still practice his science of Kriya Yoga. Autobiography of a Yogi details the stories of Hindu asetics, manifesting themselves in any space and any time they so choose; yogis healing the sick of infirmities and taking the burdens upon themselves; the ordinary man and his insistence on logic as the only tool possible for understanding the world around him, and being overcome by events which pass understanding. What is also fascinating about this book is that it details the wonder-workers of other faiths: a Muslim able to manifest any physical thing at will; a Catholic nun who does not eat and lives solely on the light of Christ, suffering the stigmata frequently in her German country hermitage; a Unitarian Universalist botanist who found God in the plants around him. In that way, this was a fun read.Yet, these varieties of religious experience are endemic of late 19th-century religious pluralism and its holdovers like Yogananda. While it was interesting to see these different quests for God, one thing that kept coming up throughout the text were these individuals who, through extensive intellectual or physical rigor, were coming closer to God. They were working really hard to reach God. Yet, the Christian gospel says that God will reach out to us, no matter how hard we work or how well we do. Because He is that good.
    • 1/5
      What tripe. I put this down a couple of years ago, I couldn't finish it. Who is this written for? An eight year old? Written in a tedious, simplistic, and pendantic style like childrens Bible stories or perhaps fables for the feeble minded. What am I missing here? I've read the Yoga Sutras of Pantanjali, I've read spiritual biographies. This has lots of good reviews, maybe I should try again.
    • 5/5
      This is a book that has changed so many minds and lives throughout this planet. [It's said to be one of the most translated and the best selling spiritual autobiography.] One view: it's a travelogue. Through the observations of this affable outsider narrator we see america, the early 20th century, and some towering personalities in spiritual perspective. Yogananda sees through a mystic's POV, and when it comes time to show us his world, then comes the astonishment. For me, most fascinating was when, through a visitation from his recently departed guru, he reveals "geographic and cultural" details of the Astral realm (the immediate afterworld, if you prefer), and beyond that. Considering the esoteric info revealed, this is a remarkably accessible spiritual autobiography.
    • 5/5
      According to Crystal Clarity, the publisher of this edition, the revisions made in the Self-Realisation Fellowship editions since Yogananda's death in 1952 placed progressively more emphasis on the organisation than on the spirit of his work.
    • 5/5
      Brilliant! Have read many times over.