Lessons from the Book 📚 An autobiography of a yogi

Overview

If a swami clad in ochre robes told you to forsake your family and study yoga to achieve eternal enlightenment, would you do it?

In Autobiography of a Yogi (1946), Indian monk and guru Paramahansa Yogananda describes the spiritual path that led him to leave India for the United States to spread the practice of kriya yoga in the early twentieth century. Kriya yoga centers primarily on meditation, with the goal of using the breath to achieve unity between mind, body, and spirit.

Yogananda knew from the time he was a child that he wanted to follow a sacred path. He believed he was destined to spread Hindu principles for achieving spiritual unity throughout Western countries, where Eastern philosophy was not yet well known. Yogananda’s autobiography provides a look at the early influences that shaped his future practice as a guru, as well as first-hand descriptions of the miracles he either witnessed or performed throughout his quest to become a swami, or Hindu religious leader.

Born in 1893 in Gorakhpur, India, Yogananda was originally known as Mukunda Lal Ghosh. From his earliest moments, Yogananda showed profound proclivity for spiritual pursuits. He claimed to remember a previous life as a yogi living in the Himalayas, an experience apparently common to yogis who remain either partially or fully aware of their previous incarnations. He also gravitated instantly to a picture his devout Hindu parents kept of their guru, Lahiri Mahasaya, who had died shortly before Yogananda was born. When Yogananda turned eight years old, he unexpectedly came down with Asiatic cholera, a disease which could have killed him. His mother implored him to bow mentally to the picture of Mahasaya that the family owned because he was too weak to physically do so; once he did, he was surrounded by a blinding light and healed of his sickness.

Three years later, Yogananda awoke to see his mother in the room where he and his father were sleeping; her appearance should have been impossible, since she was attending a wedding in another town. The apparition told Yogananda that his mother was dying, and he would need to take the next train with his father if they wanted to see her before she passed. Unfortunately, Yogananda was not able to say goodbye to his mother, but he did receive a message from the Divine Mother, a major Hindu goddess who is often represented as the goddess Shiva. The Divine Mother assured him that he would be provided for.

From that moment on, Yogananda began to feel drawn to the Himalayas. He tried to run away to explore that region and find a guru, but as he was still a child, his older brother was easily able to track him down. After another attempt to run away, his brother took him aside and gave him a letter and package Yogananda’s mother left behind for him before she died. The package contained an amulet with Sanskrit writing, and the letter explained that the amulet had been entrusted to her by a divine being. The spirit implored Yogananda’s mother to leave instructions with her eldest son, saying that the amulet should be given to Yogananda when he was ready to seek out his relationship with God.

As Yogananda continued to grow in his faith, he started seeking out more and more spiritual gurus who could provide him with wisdom and insight. He also started seeing visions of a particular yogi’s face; he knew this yogi would one day turn out to be his guru. At 17, he finally met this guru, Yukteswar Giri, and found out that Giri lived in a town not far from his own hometown. Giri told Yogananda that he should return home to his family, and that he would see his new protégé in 28 days. While Yogananda did not want to return home, he did eventually fulfill his guru’s prophecy and go back to his family, who were then living in Calcutta. At the behest of Giri, he also sought after higher education, though he did not put much effort into his studies, believing his religious practices to be more important.

Despite his lack of consistent studying, Yogananda managed to graduate with a bachelor’s degree from Serampore College, a feat he credited largely to divine intervention. He also was able to convince his guru to name him a swami, meaning that he had finally attained enough spiritual enlightenment to teach others. The ritual was performed by Giri. Once he gained the swami title, he stopped using his birth name and called himself Yogananda, which means bliss through divine union. A few years after graduating, Yogananda started a yoga school for boys in Ranchi, India. In addition to teaching yoga, those schools also conducted classes outdoors, so that students could be more at one with nature.

Finally, Yogananda got the opportunity to share his ideas on the benefits of yoga in the United States. He was invited to serve as a representative from India for an International Congress of Religious Liberals in America. The event, which was held in Boston, gave him the opportunity to come to the United States and stay in the country for a couple of decades. While there, he started several monastic communities dedicated to kriya yoga. His efforts to spread yoga to Western countries eventually netted him the title Paramahansa, indicating that he had achieved full spiritual enlightenment. By bringing yoga to other countries, Yogananda was able to spread peace and help countless people find better harmony between their physical, mental, and spiritual needs.

This report uses the 2018 Digital Fire version of Yogananda’s autobiography.

Character Analysis

Paramahansa Yogananda 

Well before he could be considered an adult, Paramahansa Yogananda yearned for spiritual enlightenment. After all, his parents’ guru, Lahiri Mahasaya, predicted before he died that Yogananda’s and Mahasaya’s spiritual journeys shared the same course; his mother had been visited with subsequent miracles that further reinforced Yogananda’s idea that he could one day become a member of a Hindu holy order.

Yogananda’s thirst for eternal peace and spiritual purity was so great that he often ended up sounding judgmental, or even haughty toward friends and fellow Hindus who sought out divine revelation by following a different path than he did. For example, he seemed to reserve extreme scorn for any saint who practiced arts that did not seem to have a practical function. On meeting a guru who could manifest perfumes at will, Yogananda proclaimed the man’s miracles a waste of divinely provided talent. Skills and creations which did not immediately serve Yogananda’s personal needs were usually dismissed as superfluous.

Throughout the text, but especially in his younger years, Yogananda tended to react with stubbornness when confronted with a challenging request from a spiritual leader. Despite repeatedly being shown proof of his mentors’ skills, he often recalled feeling incredulous when his respected guru would issue some grim warning that he might soon become sick or experience a tragedy. When the predicted calamity came to pass, Yogananda would be in awe of his guru’s abilities and the power of his deities. Yogananda’s eventual decision to trust his guru’s decisions and predictions demonstrates that he found value in listening to mentors with more experience about a given subject, even when the advice seemed unorthodox.

Yukteswar Giri 

For religious seekers in India, the relationship between student and guru supersedes more mundane human connections. After all, as Yogananda points out, few romantic couples show the eternal devotion some gurus are said to have shown for their primary disciples through multiple lifetimes. It’s unclear if Giri and Yogananda believed that they had been involved with each other before as teacher and student during previous lives, but their relationship was not exactly harmonious from the start. In fact, Yogananda seemed to question the validity of his guru from the beginning, even after dreaming for years of his future master’s face. Giri dealt with Yogananda’s tendency to challenge his wisdom largely by remaining stern and dealing out swift corrections to poor behavior.

Giri is often depicted as a strict and largely silent figure who only approaches his students to rebuke them for poor behavior or to issue tests; however, it’s clear that the master doesn’t expect his remarks and criticism to be an indictment of the students’ future potential to improve. In large part, kriya yoga involves learning how to quiet the ego, an activity that can’t be done without the guru passing on sacred rituals to the student. By pointing out Yogananda’s weaknesses, like his lack of patience, Giri is able to strengthen his student in the same way Giri’s guru strengthened him. Though tough, Giri is still depicted as peaceful and loving. During one of the last conversations between Yogananda and Giri, the guru reassures Yogananda that despite all the hard parts of their relationship, Giri still loves Yogananda as he might love a son. His decision to be often straight-faced and serious was not a sign of his disapproval, but rather a tactic he used to help his mentees grow.

Relationships

Yogananda and the Divine Mother 

Although Yogananda’s mind is generally turned toward Brahma, one of the primary gods in Hindu religion, he often makes intercessions to the Divine Mother, who is usually symbolized in his mind by the goddess Kali. For Yogananda, who lost his mother at an early age, meditating on the Divine Mother and occasionally receiving messages or direct visitations from her is a way to reconnect with his own mother, who was one of the few in his family to support a spiritual path.

In his autobiography, Yogananda explains that most gurus tend to veer toward a style that mirrors the Divine Father, by being stern and strict with disciples, or one that reflects the traits of the Divine Mother, who is forgiving and patient with students. While Yogananda’s primary guru, Giri, seems to represent more of the patriarchal energy, a number of the other saints and holy figures remind Yogananda more of his connection with his goddess. Yogananda seems to find both forces helpful in his quest to reach spiritual enlightenment.

Yogananda and His Family 

Religious piety was not unusual in Yogananda’s family. His parents had become disciples of Lahiri Mahasaya after his father had a religious experience involving the guru when he was a younger man. Still, that experience apparently did nothing to soften the father’s heart toward the idea of his son becoming a swami. Despite the way Yogananda’s mother predicted from an early age that he would eventually follow a spiritual path, Yogananda’s father and eldest brother tried multiple times to dissuade him from his dream. For many of Yogananda’s relatives and peers, his decision to shirk nearly all of his scholastic work in favor of spiritual pursuits seemed like a youthful mix-up in priorities, one they hoped Yogananda would grow out of.

After undertaking his spiritual journey, Yogananda only depicts visitations to family members when those memories either involve an emotional event, such as a death, or when the memory underscores an instant in which kriya yoga saved a skeptic’s life. For instance, Yogananda describes how he managed to convert his brother-in-law to become a disciple of his Hindu path by demonstrating that prayer alone can manifest material needs. During this encounter, Yogananda visited a holy site with his brother-in-law and sister. Visitors to the shrine generally had to send word by early morning if they intended to eat there. Yogananda told his brother-in-law to have faith that they would be fed; after he prayed for a while, a monk approached and offered them lunch unprompted, proof that his prediction had come true. For Yogananda, the primary focus is always on God and the gurus. Family members, while spoken of fondly, are treated more like test cases for spiritual conversion than full-fledged characters.

Themes

Fate 

When Yogananda fretted over how he would pass the tests that would determine whether he graduated from Serampore College, his guru showed little concern. “It is more possible for the sun and moon to interchange their positions in space than it is for you to fail in getting your degree,” the guru said. [1] This would not be the last time Yogananda’s guru would argue that his protégé’s success was already assured.

In Yogananda’s spiritual discipline, unerring belief in God was often enough to make a miracle manifest. There was no point in questioning whether or not Yogananda would get the degree he needed to convince Americans of his legitimacy, because his parents’ guru, Yukteswar, had already seen through divine revelation that one day Yogananda would go to the United States. Through his parents, Yukteswar was trying to teach Yogananda that his destiny was sealed: his future as the guru who would bring yoga to the West was already in motion, and there was no point fretting about fate. Yogananda’s expression to Giri of doubts about his ability to pass his university classes was akin to doubting the path that Yukteswar had foretold for him. Such disbelief would amount essentially to heresy, since Yukteswar and Giri were both regarded as holy men able to speak for Brahma.

Miracles 

Yogananda makes incredible claims about the good that practicing kriya yoga can do for the human body. However, his evidence for those claims is literally unbelievable for most readers. He provides examples of multiple so-called saints and gurus throughout the book, including a Catholic woman who supposedly survives off a single consecrated communion wafer, and a yogi who looks like he’s 25 but is actually centuries old. For Yogananda, these testimonials, coupled with the numerous, wondrous experiences he relates in the book, are proof enough that devout belief and spiritual purity can lead a person to possess God-like powers.

The majority of the miracles described in Autobiography of a Yogi involve a guru physically manifesting in front of people when he should be dozens or hundreds of miles away. However, a number of supposed healings are also performed in the book, sometimes with the assistance of bangles that supposedly attune to astrological energy. Yogananda seems to know that such tales will spark skepticism among some readers, and he attempts to explain the process by which these miracles are worked using scientific language. For example, he argues that everything is energy, and since that holds true, then spiritually attuned people can manipulate that energy to create whatever they want. However, his assertions are still made from the purview of a religious leader, not a scientist.

Transcendence 

As a young teenager first starting on his spiritual path, Yogananda sometimes dreamed of wrestling tigers and performing other marvelous feats he had heard about other gurus performing. However, once he started training to become a monk, Yogananda’s priorities shifted. He no longer wanted the small accolade of being able to best tigers in a wrestling competition. Instead, he wanted to have the kind of divine revelations that he knew many gurus were capable of experiencing. Transcending his current mindset, and eventually his current form, was chief among Yogananda’s goals.

Most of the time, Yogananda’s efforts to transcend mortal concerns involved managing discomfort or unpleasant sensations during relatively mundane activities. For example, he attempted not to complain while enduring long fasts, and he had to learn how to meditate without paying any attention to the mosquitos and other bugs biting him. These moments of discomfort helped Yogananda learn to focus on God, rather than his own needs. These more subtle efforts at learning transcendence were lessons for Yogananda, who throughout much of his youth expected revelations to come from a trip to the Himalayas, rather than from a knowledgeable guru. He realizes that transcendence isn’t about completely abandoning the regular world; it’s about learning how to balance an enlightened mind with attention to present responsibilities and concerns.

Important People

Paramahansa Yogananda (1893-1952), born Mukunda Lal Gosh, was a revered Indian swami, yogi, and spiritual guru. He is credited with introducing many people in the United States to yoga and to Hindu beliefs in the early twentieth century.

Yukteswar Giri (1855-1936) was a swami and Yogananda’s guru. He was also a fellow disciple of Lahiri Mahasaya (1828-1895), a guru credited with reviving the practice of kriya yoga.

Author’s Style

It’s undeniable that Paramahansa Yogananda left a tremendous influence on the way that yoga is practiced in the United States. The guru’s story and work have been inspirational to a number of notable figures; former Apple CEO Steve Jobs even asked that each attendant at his memorial be given a copy of Yogananda’s autobiography, with the hope that the book would help those mourners find spiritual enlightenment. [2] However, while Yogananda’s method of introducing Hindu religion and kriya yoga may have been effective in the past, his autobiography is a difficult text to understand. He uses spiritual terms and titles specific to Yogananda’s monastic order; those terms are rarely given understandable definitions. Readers who are familiar with the Hindu religion or who are well-versed in yogic terms may find the text an easier read.

Yogananda did not provide many details on how he managed to spread kriya yoga as a spiritual and physical discipline throughout the United States. His future work in the United States is described vividly in the text; he even sees a vision of a facility he would later run in California. However, the actual process of spreading his beliefs is scanty in detail. Yogananda may have decided not to focus on his trips to the United States because he wanted instead to recount the winding spiritual path that most gurus take as young adults. Throughout his autobiography, Yogananda frequently depicts himself as a stubborn and impatient young boy, prone to mistakes and pride. The stories shared by Yogananda’s gurus and the fellow seekers he meets reinforce the idea that enlightenment is an individual journey undertaken by those who, in their youth, engaged in a number of vices.

Although it is labeled as an autobiography, a number of the claims made in Yogananda’s account are obviously worthy of skepticism. For one thing, a sizable amount of the book is made up of stories which Yogananda heard through secondary or tertiary sources. With complete faith, he recounts stories of swamis who can raise the dead, cure illness, turn invisible, and project their bodies across hundreds or thousands of miles, even when he did not witness these supposed miracles himself. For those who do not share Yogananda’s zeal, his more mystical claims are more likely to undercut credibility than to lend it. Still, Yogananda is quick to dismiss potential doubters; he argues that his revelations are best suited for those with an open heart.

Autobiography of a Yogi has 48 chapters, an introduction, and a preface. A number of photos depicting Yogananda throughout his life, as well as his relatives and spiritual mentors, are also included in the text.

References

Yogananda, Paramahansa. The Autobiography of a Yogi . New Delhi: Digital Fire, 2018. Chapter 17.

Wadhwa, Hitendra. “Steve Jobs’s Secret to Greatness: Yogananda.” Inc ., June 21, 2015. Accessed April 18, 2020. https://www.inc.com/hitendra-wadhwa/steve-jobs-self-realization-yogananda.html

Quotes

1) that prayer 🤲🙏alone can manifest material needs 

2) it is more possible for the sun 🌞 and moon 🌝 to interchange their positions in space 🚀 than it is for you to fail in getting your degree 🎓