A comprehensive overview of Paramahansa Yogananda’s enduring spiritual classic.
2021 marks the 75th anniversary of Paramahansa Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi, one of the world’s most acclaimed spiritual classics.
Welcome to the page dedicated to the life story of Paramahansa Yogananda. This book has touched the hearts and minds of millions around the globe. For over seven decades, this book has introduced countless readers to India’s ancient science of Yoga and to the scientific methods for attaining God-realization that are India’s unique and lasting contribution to world civilization.
Hailed as a masterpiece from its first appearance in print in 1946, the Autobiography has continuously been on spiritual bestseller lists and read by spiritual aspirants of various paths. The book was honoured in 1999 as one of “100 Best Spiritual Books of the Century.”
Due to continued and expanding interest, the book has been translated and published in 15 major Indian subcontinental languages and more than fifty languages worldwide.
Available in hardbound, paperback, audio and ebook formats.
Download eBook
This ebook is in the industry-standard EPUB format and can be read on most devices with an appropriate e-reading app.
Buy English Audiobook CD
Read by Sir Ben Kingsley, Academy Award winner for the movie “Gandhi”
Book preview
Most inspiring passage
Stories of Close Disciples
The writing of Autobiography of a Yogi was a project that took many years of Paramahansaji’s time to complete. When I came to Mt. Washington in 1931, he had already begun work on it. Once when I was in his study attending to some secretarial duties for him I was privileged to see one of the first chapters he wrote — it was about “The Tiger Swami.” Gurudeva asked me to save it because it would be going into a book.
Midst “Oh’s” and “Ah’s” we could scarcely express our joy to behold at last the long-awaited account of his life among the great saints and sages of India — with which he had so often enthralled us during precious hours in his company. He opened to a few pages, saving for last the illustration of Mahavatar Babaji. Almost breathlessly we offered our reverence and absorbed the blessing we felt to be among the first to glimpse the likeness of our Param-Paramguru.
Guruji did most of the writing of that book in his study at the Hermitage. I remember there were times when he might dictate all night long, and other occasions when it would continue for the entire day or even longer. I was not involved with the secretarial duties like Daya Ma and Ananda Ma, who would sometimes take down his words in shorthand and at other times use the typewriter. My responsibility was mostly cooking their meals so that they could work uninterruptedly!
Translated into 53 world languages
The making of Autobiography of a Yogi
The writing of the work had been prophesied long ago. One of the seminal figures in the renaissance of yoga in modern times, the revered nineteenth-century master Sri Sri Lahiri Mahasaya, had foretold: “About fifty years after my passing, an account of my life will be written because of a deep interest in yoga that will arise in the West. The message of yoga will encircle the globe. It will aid in establishing the brotherhood of man: a unity based on humanity’s direct perception of the One Father.”
Many years later, Lahiri Mahasaya’s exalted disciple Swami Sri Sri Yukteswar related this prophecy to Sri Sri Yogananda.
A profound assurance
In the book’s final chapter, Paramahansa Yogananda writes:
“God is Love; His plan for creation can be rooted only in love. Does not that simple thought, rather than erudite reasonings, offer solace to the human heart? Every saint who has penetrated to the core of Reality has testified that a divine universal plan exists and that it is beautiful and full of joy.”
It is our hope that you will find your own soul opening to a deeper faith in the transcendent Truth of India’s sages. And that faith sustains you through trials, and in the pursuit of true happiness and fulfilment.
