Autobiography of a YOGI

WITH A PREFACE BY
W. Y. Evans-Wentz, M. A. , D. Litt. , D. Sc.

Copyright, 1946, by
Paramhansa Yogananda

Contents

Preface, By W. Y. EVANS-WENTZ
List of Illustrations

Chapter

1. My Parents and Early Life
2. Mother’s Death and the Amulet
3. The Saint with Two Bodies (Swami Pranabananda)
4. My Interrupted Flight Toward the Himalaya
5. A “Perfume Saint” Performs his Wonders
6. The Tiger Swami
7. The Levitating Saint (Nagendra Nath Bhaduri)
8. India’s Great Scientist and Inventor, Jagadis Chandra Bose
9. The Blissful Devotee and his Cosmic Romance (Master Mahasaya)
10. I Meet my Master, Sri Yukteswar
11. Two Penniless Boys in Brindaban
12. Years in my Master’s Hermitage
13. The Sleepless Saint (Ram Gopal Muzumdar)
14. An Experience in Cosmic Consciousness
15. The Cauliflower Robbery
16. Outwitting the Stars
17. Sasi and the Three Sapphires
18. A Mohammedan Wonder-Worker (Afzal Khan)
19. My Guru Appears Simultaneously in Calcutta and Serampore
20. We Do Not Visit Kashmir
21. We Visit Kashmir
22. The Heart of a Stone Image
23. My University Degree
24. I Become a Monk of the Swami Order
25. Brother Ananta and Sister Nalini
26. The Science of Kriya Yoga
27. Founding of a Yoga School at Ranchi
28. Kashi, Reborn and Rediscovered
29. Rabindranath Tagore and I Compare Schools
30. The Law of Miracles
31. An Interview with the Sacred Mother (Kashi Moni Lahiri)
32. Rama is Raised from the Dead
33. Babaji, the Yogi-Christ of Modern India
34. Materializing a Palace in the Himalayas
35. The Christlike Life of Lahiri Mahasaya
36. Babaji’s Interest in the West
37. I Go to America
38. Luther Burbank — An American Saint
39. Therese Neumann, the Catholic Stigmatist of Bavaria
40. I Return to India
41. An Idyl in South India
42. Last Days with my Guru
43. The Resurrection of Sri Yukteswar
44. With Mahatma Gandhi at Wardha
45. The Bengali “Joy-Permeated Mother” (Ananda Moyi Ma)
46. The Woman Yogi who Never Eats (Giri Bala)
47. I Return to the West
48. At Encinitas in California

ILLUSTRATIONS

1. Frontispiece
2. Map of India
3. My Father, Bhagabati Charan Ghosh
4. My Mother
5. Swami Pranabananda, “The Saint With Two Bodies”
6. My Elder Brother, Ananta
7. Festival Gathering in the Courtyard of my Guru’s Hermitage in Serampore
8. Nagendra Nath Bhaduri, “The Levitating Saint”
9. Myself at Age 6
10. Jagadis Chandra Bose, Famous Scientist
11. Two Brothers of Therese Neumann, at Konnersreuth
12. Master Mahasaya, the Blissful Devotee
13. Jitendra Mazumdar, my Companion on the “Penniless Test” at Brindaban
14. Ananda Moyi Ma, the “Joy-Permeated Mother”
15. Himalayan Cave Occupied by Babaji
16. Sri Yukteswar, My Master
17. Self-Realization Fellowship, Los Angeles Headquarters
18. Self-Realization Church of All Religions, Hollywood
19. My Guru’s Seaside Hermitage at Puri
20. Self-Realization Church of All Religions, San Diego
21. My Sisters — Roma, Nalini, and Uma
22. My Sister Uma
23. The Lord in His Aspect as Shiva
24. Yogoda Math, Hermitage at Dakshineswar
25. Ranchi School, Main Building
26. Kashi, Reborn and Rediscovered
27. Bishnu, Motilal Mukherji, my Father, Mr. Wright, T.N.Bose, Swami Satyananda
28. Group of Delegates to the International Congress of Religious Liberals, Boston, 1920
29. A Guru and Disciple in an Ancient Hermitage
30. Babaji, the Yogi-Christ of Modern India
31. Lahiri Mahasaya
32. A Yoga Class in Washington, D.C.
33. Luther Burbank
34. Therese Neumann of Konnersreuth, Bavaria
35. The Taj Mahal at Agra
36. Shankari Mai Jiew, Only Living Disciple of the great Trailanga Swami
37. Krishnananda with his Tame Lioness
38. Group on the Dining Patio of my Guru’s Serampore Hermitage
39. Miss Bletch, Mr. Wright, and myself — in Egypt
40. Rabindranath Tagore
41. Swami Keshabananda, at his Hermitage in Brindaban
42. Krishna, Ancient Prophet of India
43. Mahatma Gandhi, at Wardha
44. Giri Bala, the Woman Yogi Who Never Eats
45. Mr. E.E.Dickinson
46. My Guru and Myself
47. Ranchi Students
48. Encinitas
49. Conference in San Francisco
50. Swami Premananda
51. My Father

PREFACE

By W. Y. EVANS-WENTZ, M. A. , D. Litt. , D. Sc.
Jesus College, Oxford; Author of
The Tibetan Book of the Dead,
Tibet’s Great Yogi Milarepa,
Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines, etc.

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. ^1-1 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

I am deeply indebted to Miss L. V. Pratt for her long editorial labors over the manuscript of this book. My thanks are due also to Miss Ruth Zahn for preparation of the index, to Mr. C. Richard Wright for permission to use extracts from his Indian travel diary, and to Dr. W. Y. Evans-Wentz for suggestions and encouragement.

PARAMHANSA YOGANANDA
October 28, 1945
Encinitas, California