Autobiography of a Yogi

In these early chapters, Yogananda introduces some of the themes he will develop in the autobiography, beginning with The Coming Together of East and West. In the opening paragraph, he writes that his path led him to a “Christlike sage” who was “one of the great masters who are India’s truest wealth” (3). By comparing his guru Sri Yukteswar to Christ, Yogananda builds a bridge between his Indian spirituality and the predominantly Christian perspective of his 1920s American audience. Yogananda writes admiringly of Christ at many points throughout the book, the implication being that his Kriya Yoga is not incompatible with Christianity.

In the next paragraph, however, he offers a glimpse of how his narrative may challenge the beliefs of Western readers. He states that his earliest memories as a child were “the anachronistic features of a previous incarnation. Clear recollections came to me of a distant life in which I had been a yogi amid the Himalayan snows” (3). Religious thought in India has, from ancient times, accepted the notion of reincarnation or rebirth. After the death of the body, the soul or consciousness that inhabited that body is reborn in another one. This process goes on for many lifetimes until the individual becomes enlightened, which means being at one with the infinite consciousness or God. Reincarnation is a common belief in religions around the world, and some of the early Christian fathers, such as Origen, accepted it, but it was declared a heresy in the sixth century.

Another aspect of Yogananda’s spiritual practice that may be unfamiliar to Western readers is the relationship between disciple and guru or master. His parents, for example, choose Lahiri Mahasaya as their master, and even in his boyhood, Mukunda yearns to find a spiritual master. The master adopts the disciple, teaches him techniques of meditation and other spiritual disciplines, and demands absolute obedience. The disciple devotes himself entirely to the master. The desire to find a master continues to motivate Mukunda until he finds the right man. The master-disciple relationship is fundamental to the book as a whole. It is how spiritual knowledge is passed down from one generation to the next. The disciple often becomes in his turn the master who then acquires disciples of his own.

These first chapters also introduce the prevalence of supernormal phenomena including Visions, Miracles, Foreknowledge, and Healing. The ability of a swami to self-heal after injury is also shown in the incident the policeman describes in Chapter 4. Foreknowledge of future events is also mentioned more than once (for example, Mukunda’s knowledge of his mother’s impending death) and will become a recurring motif.

Other miraculous events include the manifestation of the amulet and the saint who has the power to be in two places at once. These are presented as examples of the supernormal powers that a yogi may develop, and their frequent presence in the text serves both a rhetorical and a thematic purpose. Rhetorically, they serve as evidence of the power of Yogananda’s spiritual practice. In the story of Yogananda’s life, supernormal phenomena are frequently offered as proof of a prior claim. For example, the silver amulet that manifests in his mother’s hand is explicitly characterized as proof of her son’s divine destiny. When the young Mukunda recovers from Asiatic cholera—often a fatal illness at that time—by gazing at Lahiri Mahasaya’s photograph, he regards it as proof of the Guru’s holiness. The presence of so many similar instances in the text suggests that he expects some members of his audience to accept similar evidentiary claims. Each specific miracle arises out of a prior tradition in Indian theology. The materialization of objects, for instance, is one of the supernormal powers mentioned in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, an important spiritual text that Yogananda mentions frequently.

Thematically, these supernormal phenomena are instrumental in Realizing the Nature of the Self. They are never treated as simple demonstrations of the guru’s power—and indeed, the one guru who does appear to perform something like an empty parlor trick comes in for heavy scorn in Chapter 5. They derive instead from the Yogi’s having risen above the illusory duality of self and world. Having reached enlightenment, the Yogi inhabits the cosmic self, for which time and distance are no barrier. This is how Swami Pranabananda, for example, is able to be in two places at once. The phenomenon, known as bilocation, has a long history both within and beyond India. Over the centuries, various claims have been made in various traditions, including Christianity, about saints or other spiritual personages who supposedly have been observed to be in two places at once. Yogananda’s worldview, as shown in the Autobiography, has always included miracles and supernormal powers. They are part of the atmosphere in which he lives and breathes.