I first read this book around 1977. Then again in 2018. And once again in 2025. On this last re-reading, I was surprised by how the book seemed so fresh, as if I were encountering it for the first time. This perception might merely be related to declining memory retention, but what does persist and is re-encountered, is a sense of the book’s atmosphere. This is constructed from the author’s manifest sincerity, his ability to patiently instruct Western readers in Indian yogic tradition, and from a gentle humour that infuses the text. There is a clear account of his early life, of his acceptance by a Master into a yogic tradition, and of his teaching role in the West. Most of all, the book emanates an unapologetic sense of the miraculous, that there is an energy, wisdom and purpose beyond our mundane world-view. This book challenges the maya and illusion in which we conventionally live, and explains why in India, there is an alternative, as old as the hills.
He was born in January 1983 as Mukunda Lal Ghosh, of the Kshatriya caste, Yogananda being his given name upon entering the ancient monastic Swami Order in 1914. Immediately in the first chapter we have a couple of miracles. There is the story of Abinash Babu, who worked in the same office of the Bengal-Nagpur railway as his father, Bhagabati, who was Abinash’s superior. Abinash asked for leave to visit his guru, Lahiri Mahasaya, in Benares. His father ridiculed this idea, but when the two of them met up going in the same direction in the fields, there was a dichotomy in their thoughts. His father sought to console the employee, and counselled worldly success, but Abinash was simply repeating the name of his guru internally. Suddenly the form of the guru appeared on the path, and admonished the father: ” … you are too hard on your employee!” The vision of the guru vanished into thin air, but Bhagabati had got the message, and resolved not only to grant leave to Abinash, but also to take his wife and go with him to the guru in Benares. On meeting the guru the following day, Lahiri Mahasaya repeated the exact words to Bhagabati: “You are too hard on your employee!”
This immediate introduction to the occasional deployment by gurus of incontrovertible forms of communication sets the tone for many such interventions. For example, in the same chapter there is an account of the time when as a young boy Mukunda was stricken with Asiatic cholera, and close to death. By this time, the parents were established devotees. His mother instructed him to look at a picture of Lahiri Mahasaya on the wall, with the admonition ‘bow to him mentally’. A blinding light, also witnessed by his mother, enveloped the whole room, and his nausea and other symptoms disappeared. Furthermore, in this chapter, we have an example of the inscrutability and playfulness of the guru. He resisted being photographed. This is a common trait in some gurus: they do not want disciples to rely on a photo, which ultimately is a dead image. When, against his wishes, a photo was taken of the guru with a group of disciples, on development it was found that the image of the guru was absent. Then a renowned photographer thought he would be crafty and took a series of twelve photos of Lahiri Mahasaya in meditation. On each one the background screen was visible, but there was no image of the master. Finally the guru posed for the distraught photographer and the image was clear. Yogananda thinks it the only one to exist, and it is reproduced in the book.
Warming to his theme, subsequent chapters have such titles as: The Saint with two bodies (Swami Pranabananda), A “Perfume Saint”, The Tiger Swami, The Levitating Saint. As Yogananda says, “My inquisitiveness about saints was well known among my friends; they delighted in setting me on a fresh track.” He was, at a young age, already inevitably in search of this own guru. But in describing the very real perfumes produced by the Perfume Saint, he declares: “Performances of miracles as shown by the “Perfume Saint” are spectacular but spiritually useless. Having little purpose beyond entertainment, they are digressions from a serious search for God.”
He also relates that the Tiger Swami developed a phenomenally rippled body, and a fearsome will power and sense of psychological dominance. He was indeed able to overcome with bare hands the fiercest of tigers in a caged environment. But his ultimate triumphant encounter, described in detail in the book, resulted in a weakened state after blood poisoning set in, and convinced him to accept the advice of a guru to “subdue the beasts of ignorance roaming in the jungles of the human mind” instead of live tigers. But Yogananda is kinder in his comments about the bi-locating saint and the levitating saint, whom he believes were not practising this kind of siddhi with the aim of impressing others, but that these powers were offshoots of intense and persistent meditational devotion over the years.
One of the endearing characteristics displayed by Yogananda is his reluctance to spend much time on his studies in school or later in university. He relates that he spent far more time at the Calcutta bathing ghats next to the cremation grounds, which he describes as “especially gruesome at night … considered highly attractive by the yogi. He who would find the Deathless Essence must not be dismayed by a few unadorned skulls.” He was not burning the midnight oil over his books, but next to the burning ghats. This led to a crisis of panic before the Hindu High School final exams, especially as he had promised his father that his devotional practices would not interfere with graduating from secondary school.
His dilemma was solved in a way that we might whimsically mention was also ‘miraculous’. First of all, he meets a classmate who as the ideal scholar provides him with a quick guide to the kind of questions that will come and the pitfalls to avoid. He gets coaching in all the subjects from the classmate, all that is, except Sanskrit. But the following morning in taking a short cut through a weed-strewn vacant lot, what should he see lying there but some loose printed sheets: “A triumphant pounce; in my hand were Sanskrit verses!” The next step is to get some intense instruction from a pundit, and whatever transpired it helped him pass the Sanskrit exam. A further irony awaits in the future, as when he at last meets his guru, Sri Yukteswar, the guru requires him to enrol in a university, because seeing the future, he could discern that Yogananda would be more accepted in the USA with a university degree in tow. Needless to say, the revision crisis repeats itself during his university studies, but is also resolved in another ‘miraculous’ way.
His early life displayed that he was the odd one out in his loving family, and even though the parents had been devotees of a spiritual master who had passed away, he was urgently set on finding a guru, and living a life of devotion. All his anecdotes about visiting swamis and miracle workers were the prelude to leaving home and entering an ashram in Benares. However, this does not bring peace and realisation, but instead conflict and dissent, as his fellow devotees chastise him for wanting to meditate more than carry out chores in the ashram. He meets test after test, but these problems and challenges lead up to the perfect moment for encountering the true master, who is equally overjoyed in meeting the chela.
Looking again at this remarkable and enduring document, has explained why Steve Jobs made it his task to read the book once a year. It is simply packed with more implications and indirect teachings, all hidden in plain sight, than one can possibly grasp on a single reading. Adding to its special character, the style is a little arch, a little florid, a little ornamented, perhaps redolent of the late 19th century, and whether you want to characterise it as an expression of ‘Indian English’ or not, the tone is self-deprecating, free from vanity and imbued with puckish humour. In addition, the copious and always fascinating footnotes, constitute themselves a primer in the Indian spiritual traditions. Everything in this book, while charting a life of devotion and service to the spiritual ideal, is also there as a teaching example to be cherished.