Autobiography of a Yogi

Paramanhansa Yogananda

This book has become a spiritual classic. I have read it quite a few times and each time I reread it, I find something new. It is written on many levels, so as you grow and change on your path, you will be drawn to different passages in the book. This book will change your life, because it will change your consciousness. Everyone I have ever met who has read the Autobiography has said they were deeply affected and changed to some degree. Some people are changed on a deep level and some on a more superficial level. But if you read this book, you will be moved and changed.

This is the biography of Paramanhansa Yogananda who as a small boy always had a deep spiritual yearning and love for God. The book is filled with many stories of his meetings with miraculous yogis, spiritual adventures and insights. He finally meets his guru, Sri Yukteswar, enters his ashram and begins his monastic life. The experience of cosmic consciousness his guru bestows upon him is absolutely spellbinding. His descriptions of his encounters with India's illumined masters are uplifting and spiritually profound. Particularly mesmerizing is the description of his paramguru's (Sri Yukteswar's guru, Lahiri Mahasaya), spiritual awakening by the deathless Master Babaji in the Himalayas. Sprinkled throughout the book is Yogananda's deep love of meditation, his respect and observance of yogic principles and his love for mankind.

Yogananda emphasizes the unity between East and West, bringing yogic philosophy and meditation to the United States. He comes to the States, speaks to numerous standing only audiences across the country and establishes his organization, Self Realization Fellowship, in Los Angeles, California. Yogananda entered mahasamadi, a yogi's conscious final exit from the physical body, in March 1952.

Review by Margie Zalk.