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Title: Autobiography of a YOGI

Author: Paramhansa Yogananda

Release Date: February, 2005 [EBook #7452] [This file was first posted on May 5, 2003]

Edition: 10

Language: English

Character set encoding: US-ASCII

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A YOGI ***

 

About the online edition.

 

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[Frontispiece: PARAMHANSA YOGANANDA—see py.jpg]

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A YOGI By Paramhansa Yogananda

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

“EXCEPT YE SEE SIGNS AND WONDERS, YE WILL NOT BELIEVE.”-John 4:48.

DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF LUTHER BURBANK An American Saint

 

[Illustration: Map of India—see map.gif]

 

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

Frontispiece Map of India My Father, Bhagabati Charan Ghosh My Mother Swami Pranabananda, “The Saint With Two Bodies” My Elder Brother, Ananta Festival Gathering in the Courtyard of my Guru’s Hermitage in Serampore Nagendra Nath Bhaduri, “The Levitating Saint” Myself at Age 6 Jagadis Chandra Bose, Famous Scientist Two Brothers of Therese Neumann, at Konnersreuth Master Mahasaya, the Blissful Devotee Jitendra Mazumdar, my Companion on the “Penniless Test” at Brindaban Ananda Moyi Ma, the “Joy-Permeated Mother” Himalayan Cave Occupied by Babaji Sri Yukteswar, My Master Self-Realization Fellowship, Los Angeles Headquarters Self-Realization Church of All Religions, Hollywood My Guru’s Seaside Hermitage at Puri Self-Realization Church of All Religions, San Diego My Sisters—Roma, Nalini, and Uma My Sister Uma The Lord in His Aspect as Shiva Yogoda Math, Hermitage at Dakshineswar Ranchi School, Main Building Kashi, Reborn and Rediscovered Bishnu, Motilal Mukherji, my Father, Mr. Wright, T.N. Bose, Swami Satyananda Group of Delegates to the International Congress of Religious Liberals, Boston, 1920 A Guru and Disciple in an Ancient Hermitage Babaji, the Yogi-Christ of Modern India Lahiri Mahasaya A Yoga Class in Washington, D.C. Luther Burbank Therese Neumann of Konnersreuth, Bavaria The Taj Mahal at Agra Shankari Mai Jiew, Only Living Disciple of the great Trailanga Swami Krishnananda with his Tame Lioness Group on the Dining Patio of my Guru’s Serampore Hermitage Miss Bletch, Mr. Wright, and myself—in Egypt Rabindranath Tagore Swami Keshabananda, at his Hermitage in Brindaban Krishna, Ancient Prophet of India Mahatma Gandhi, at Wardha Giri Bala, the Woman Yogi Who Never Eats Mr. E. E. Dickinson My Guru and Myself Ranchi Students Encinitas Conference in San Francisco Swami Premananda 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 AUTOBIOGRAPHYis 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. {FN1-1} 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

{FN1-1} Oxford University Press, 1935.

 

AUTHOR’S ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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

 

CHAPTER: 1

MY PARENTS AND EARLY LIFE

The characteristic features of Indian culture have long been a search for ultimate verities and the concomitant disciple-guru {FN1-2} relationship. My own path led me to a Christlike sage whose beautiful life was chiseled for the ages. He was one of the great masters who are India’s sole remaining wealth. Emerging in every generation, they have bulwarked their land against the fate of Babylon and Egypt.

I find my earliest memories covering the anachronistic features of a previous incarnation. Clear recollections came to me of a distant life, a yogi {FN1-3} amidst the Himalayan snows. These glimpses of the past, by some dimensionless link, also afforded me a glimpse of the future.

The helpless humiliations of infancy are not banished from my mind. I was resentfully conscious of not being able to walk or express myself freely. Prayerful surges arose within me as I realized my bodily impotence. My strong emotional life took silent form as words in many languages. Among the inward confusion of tongues, my ear gradually accustomed itself to the circumambient Bengali syllables of my people. The beguiling scope of an infant’s mind! adultly considered limited to toys and toes.

Psychological ferment and my unresponsive body brought me to many obstinate crying-spells. I recall the general family bewilderment at my distress. Happier memories, too, crowd in on me: my mother’s caresses, and my first attempts at lisping phrase and toddling step. These early triumphs, usually forgotten quickly, are yet a natural basis of self-confidence.

My far-reaching memories are not unique. Many yogis are known to have retained their self-consciousness without interruption by the dramatic transition to and from “life” and “death.” If man be solely a body, its loss indeed places the final period to identity. But if prophets down the millenniums spake with truth, man is essentially of incorporeal nature. The persistent core of human egoity is only temporarily allied with sense perception.

Although odd, clear memories of infancy are not extremely rare. During travels in numerous lands, I have listened to early recollections from the lips of veracious men and women.

I was born in the last decade of the nineteenth century, and passed my first eight years at Gorakhpur. This was my birthplace in the United Provinces of northeastern India. We were eight children: four boys and four girls. I, Mukunda Lal Ghosh {FN1-4}, was the second son and the fourth