Autobiography of a Yogi (Self-Realization Fellowship)

by Paramahansa Yogananda

“The experience of meeting Paramahansa Yogananda is etched in my memory as one of the unforgettable events of my life….As I looked into his face, my eyes were almost dazzled by a radiance — a light of spirituality that literally shone from him. His infinite gentleness, his gracious kindliness, enveloped me like warm sunshine….I could see that his understanding and insight extended to the most mundane of problems, even though he was a man of Spirit.

The wheel was chosen as a symbol of the eternal law of righteousness; and, incidentally, as an honor to the memory of the world’s most illustrious monarch. “His reign of forty years is without a parallel in history,” writes the English historian, H. G. Rawlinson.

“Asoka, the third king of the Maurya line, was one...of the great philosopher-kings of history,” the scholar P. Masson-Oursel observed. “No one has combined energy and benevolence, justice and charity, as he did. He was the living embodiment of his own time, and he comes before us as quite a modern figure. In the course of a long reign he achieved what seems to us to be a mere aspiration of the visionary: enjoying the greatest possible material power, he organized peace. Far beyond his own vast dominions he realized what has been the dream of some religions — universal order, an order embracing mankind.”

taciturn

“God is simple. Everything else is complex. Do not seek absolute values in the relative world of nature.”

“Only the shallow man loses responsiveness to the woes of others’ lives, as he sinks into narrow suffering of his own.”

The different sensory stimuli to which man reacts — tactual, visual, gustatory, auditory, and olfactory — are produced by vibratory variations in electrons and protons. The vibrations in turn are regulated by prana, “lifetrons,” subtle life forces or finer-than-atomic energies intelligently charged with the five distinctive sensory idea-substances.

India’s unwritten law for the truth seeker is patience; a master may purposely make a test of one’s eagerness to meet him.

vouchsafed

“People in general are more fond of Jala Yoga (union with food) than of Dhyana Yoga (union with God).”

“What rishis perceived as essential for human salvation need not be diluted for the West. Alike in soul though diverse in outer experience, neither West nor East will flourish if some form of disciplinary yoga be not practiced.”

Mirabai composed many ecstatic songs, which are still treasured in India. I translate one of them here: If by bathing daily God could be realized Sooner would I be a whale in the deep; If by eating roots and fruits He could be known Gladly would I choose the form of a goat; If the counting of rosaries uncovered Him I would say my prayers on mammoth beads; If bowing before stone images unveiled Him A flinty mountain I would humbly worship; If by drinking milk the Lord could be imbibed Many calves and children would know Him; If abandoning one’s wife could summon God Would not thousands be eunuchs? Mirabai knows that to find the Divine One The only indispensable is Love.

The saint’s face held a mild rebuke. “I have left a few paltry rupees, a few petty pleasures, for a cosmic empire of endless bliss. How then have I denied myself anything? I know the joy of sharing the treasure. Is that a sacrifice? The shortsighted worldly folk are verily the real renunciants! They relinquish an unparalleled divine possession for a poor handful of earthly toys!”

adamantine.

“Swamiji, I am puzzled about following your instruction. Suppose I never ask for food, and nobody gives me any. I should starve to death.” “Die, then!” This alarming counsel split the air. “Die if you must, Mukunda! Never believe that you live by the power of food and not by the power of God! He who has created every form of nourishment, He who has bestowed appetite, will inevitably see that His devotee is maintained. Do not imagine that rice sustains you nor that money or men support you. Could they aid if the Lord withdraws your life breath? They are His instruments merely. Is it by any skill of yours that food digests in your stomach? Use the sword of your discrimination, Mukunda! Cut through the chains of agency and perceive the Single Cause!”

“Someday you will go to the West. Its people will be more receptive to India’s ancient wisdom if the strange Hindu teacher has a university degree.”

“Guruji, I would like to hear some stories of your childhood.” “I will tell you a few — each one with a moral!” Sri Yukteswar’s eyes twinkled with his warning. “My mother once tried to frighten me with an appalling story of a ghost in a dark chamber. I went there immediately, and expressed my disappointment at having missed the ghost. Mother never told me another horror tale. Moral: Look fear in the face and it will cease to trouble you.

“Another early memory is my wish for an ugly dog belonging to a neighbor. I kept my household in turmoil for weeks to get that dog. My ears were deaf to offers of pets with more prepossessing appearance. Moral: Attachment is blinding; it lends an imaginary halo of attractiveness to the object of desire.

“A third story concerns the plasticity of the youthful mind. I heard my mother remark occasionally: ‘A man who accepts a job under anyone is a slave.’ That impression became so indelibly fixed that even after my marriage I refused all positions. I met expenses by investing my family endowment in land. Moral: Good and positive suggestions shou...

he was economical; his modest funds went far. “Be comfortable within your purse,” he often said. “Extravagance will bring you discomfort.”

man’s body is precious. It has the highest evolutionary value because of unique brain and spinal centers. These enable the advanced devotee fully to grasp and express the loftiest aspects of divinity. No lower form is so equipped. It is true that a man incurs the debt of a minor sin if he is forced to kill an animal or any other living thing. But the holy shastras teach that wanton loss of a human body is a serious transgression against the karmic law.”

Thought is a force, even as electricity or gravitation. The human mind is a spark of the almighty consciousness of God. I could show you that whatever your powerful mind believes very intensely would instantly come to pass.’

A saying from the Hindu scriptures is: “In shallow men the fish of little thoughts cause much commotion. In oceanic minds the whales of inspiration make hardly a ruffle.”

The adage: “He is a fool that cannot conceal his wisdom,” could never be applied to my profound and quiet master.

“Forget the past,” Sri Yukteswar would console him. “The vanished lives of all men are dark with many shames. Human conduct is ever unreliable until man is anchored in the Divine. Everything in future will improve if you are making a spiritual effort now.”

“Good manners without sincerity are like a beautiful dead lady,” he remarked on suitable occasion. “Straightforwardness without civility is like a surgeon’s knife, effective but unpleasant. Candor with courtesy is helpful and admirable.”

I am immeasurably grateful for the humbling blows he dealt my vanity. I sometimes felt that, metaphorically, he was discovering and uprooting every diseased tooth in my jaw. The hard core of egotism is difficult to dislodge except rudely. With its departure, the Divine finds at last an unobstructed channel. In vain It seeks to percolate through flinty hearts of selfishness.

A teacher could not spread India’s message in the West without an ample fund of accommodative patience and forbearance.” (I refuse to say how often, in America, I have remembered Master’s words!)

Intelligence is rightly guided only after the mind has acknowledged the inescapability of spiritual law.”

“Just as hunger, not greed, has a legitimate purpose, so the sexual instinct has been implanted by Nature solely for the propagation of the species, not for the kindling of insatiable longings,” he said. “Destroy wrong desires now; otherwise they will remain with you after the astral body has been separated from its physical casing. Even when the flesh is weak, the mind should be constantly resistant. If temptation assails you with cruel force, overcome it by impersonal analysis and indomitable will. Every natural passion can be mastered.

supercilious

discerning placement of a comma does not atone for a spiritual coma.

Amazing it was to find that a master with such a fiery will could be so calm within. He fitted the Vedic definition of a man of God: “Softer than the flower, where kindness is concerned; stronger than the thunder, where principles are at stake.”

vouchsafed

“The devotee inclines to think his path to God is the only way,” he said. “Yoga, through which divinity is found within, is doubtless the highest road, as Lahiri Mahasaya has told us. But, discovering the Lord within, we soon perceive Him without. Holy shrines in Tarakeswar and elsewhere are rightly venerated as nuclear centers of spiritual power.”

“Young yogi, I see you are running away from your master. He has everything you need; you should return to him.” He added, “Mountains cannot be your guru” — the same thought that Sri Yukteswar had expressed two days earlier. “Masters are under no cosmic compulsion to live on mountains only.” My companion glanced at me quizzically. “The Himalayas in India and Tibet have no monopoly on saints. What one does not trouble to find within will not be discovered by transporting the body hither and yon. As soon as the devotee is willing to go even to the ends of the earth for spiritual enlightenment, his guru appears nearby.”

“Are you able to have a little room where you can close the door and be alone?” “Yes.” I reflected that this saint descended from the general to the particular with disconcerting speed. “That is your cave.” The yogi bestowed on me a gaze of illumination which I have never forgotten. “That is your sacred mountain. That is where you will find the kingdom of God.”

The city dweller finds the keen edge of hospitality blunted by a superabundance of strange faces.

“Well, don’t you see, my dear boy, that God is Eternity Itself? To assume that one may fully know Him by forty-five years of meditation is rather a preposterous expectation. Babaji assures us, however, that even a little meditation saves us from the dire fear of death and of after-death states. Do not fix your spiritual ideal on small mountains, but hitch it to the star of unqualified divine attainment.

Wrath springs only from thwarted desires. I do not expect anything from others, so their actions cannot be in opposition to wishes of mine. I would not use you for my own ends; I am happy only in your own true happiness.”

An oceanic joy broke upon calm endless shores of my soul. The Spirit of God, I realized, is exhaustless Bliss; His body is countless tissues of light.

I cognized the center of the empyrean as a point of intuitive perception in my heart. Irradiating splendor issued from my nucleus to every part of the universal structure. Blissful amrita, nectar of immortality, pulsated through me with a quicksilverlike fluidity. The creative voice of God I heard resounding as Aum,2 the vibration of the Cosmic Motor.

Master, I knew, was teaching me the secret of balanced living. The soul must stretch over the cosmogonic abysses, while the body performs its daily duties.

“How quickly we weary of earthly pleasures! Desire for material things is endless; man is never satisfied completely, and pursues one goal after another. The ‘something else’ he seeks is the Lord, who alone can grant lasting joy. “Outward longings drive us from the Eden within; they offer false pleasures that only impersonate soul happiness. The lost paradise is quickly regained through divine meditation. As God is unanticipatory Ever-Newness, we never tire of Him. Can we be surfeited with bliss, delightfully varied throughout eternity?”

Intuition is soul guidance, appearing naturally in man during those instants when his mind is calm.

All thoughts vibrate eternally in the cosmos. By deep concentration a master is able to detect the thoughts of any man, living or dead. Thoughts are universally and not individually rooted; a truth cannot be created, but only perceived. Any erroneous thought of man is a result of an imperfection, large or small, in his discernment. The goal of yoga science is to calm the mind, that without distortion it may hear the infallible counsel of the Inner Voice.

Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, the Eternal Trinity, were the first musicians. Shiva in His aspect of Nataraja, the Cosmic Dancer, is scripturally represented as having worked out the infinite modes of rhythm in the processes of universal creation, preservation, and destruction, while Brahma and Vishnu accentuated the time beat: Brahma clanging the cymbals and Vishnu sounding the mridanga or holy drum.

Because nature is an objectification of Aum, the Primal Sound or Vibratory Word, man can obtain control over all natural manifestations through the use of certain mantras or chants.

India has long recognized the human voice as the most perfect instrument of sound. Hindu music therefore largely confines itself to the voice range of three octaves. For the same reason, melody (relation of successive notes) is stressed, rather than harmony (relation of simultaneous notes).

Great religious music of East and West bestows joy on man because it causes a temporary vibratory awakening of one of his occult spinal centers.8 In those blissful moments a dim memory comes to him of his divine origin.