Autobiography of a Yogi (Self-Realization Fellowship)

by Paramahansa Yogananda

“All parts of creation are linked together and interchange their influences. The balanced rhythm of the universe is rooted in reciprocity,” my guru continued. “Man, in his human aspect, has to combat two sets of forces — first, the tumults within his being, caused by the admixture of earth, water, fire, air, and ethereal elements; second, the outer disintegrating powers of nature. So long as man struggles with his mortality, he is affected by the myriad mutations of heaven and earth.

“Astrology is the study of man’s response to planetary stimuli. The stars have no conscious benevolence or animosity; they merely send forth positive and negative radiations. Of themselves, these do not help or harm humanity, but offer a lawful channel for the outward operation of cause-effect equilibriums that each man has set into motion in the past.

“A child is born on that day and at that hour when the celestial rays are in mathematical harmony with his individual karma. His horoscope is a challenging portrait, revealing his unalterable past and its probable future results. But the natal chart can be...

As entries in a scenic beauty contest, I offer for first prize either the gorgeous view of Xochimilco in Mexico, where skies, mountains, and poplars are reflected, amid playful fish, in myriad lanes of water; or the lakes of Kashmir, guarded like beautiful maidens by the stern surveillance of the Himalayas. These two places stand out in my memory as the loveliest spots on earth.

Jesus signified himself as a ransom for the sins of many. With his divine powers,4 Christ could never have been subjected to death by crucifixion if he had not willingly cooperated with the subtle cosmic law of cause and effect. He thus took on himself the consequences of others’ karma, especially that of his disciples. In this manner they were highly purified and made fit to receive the omnipresent consciousness or Holy Ghost that later descended upon them.5 Only a Self-realized master can transfer his life force or convey into his own body the diseases of others. An ordinary man cannot employ this yogic method of cure; nor is it desirable that he should do so, because an unsound physical instrument is a hindrance to deep meditation. The Hindu scriptures teach that an imperative duty of man is to keep his body in good condition; otherwise his mind is unable to remain fixed in devotional concentration.

Numerous bewildered seekers in the West erroneously think that an eloquent speaker or writer on metaphysics must be a master. Proof that one is a master, however, is supplied only by the ability to enter at will the breathless state (sabikalpa samadhi) and by the attainment of immutable bliss (nirbikalpa samadhi).

“Yogananda,”4 I replied after a moment’s thought. The name means “bliss (ananda) through divine union (yoga).”

The ideal of selfless service to all mankind and of renunciation of personal ties and ambitions leads most swamis to engage actively in humanitarian and educational work in India or occasionally in foreign lands. Discarding prejudices of caste, creed, class, color, sex, and race, a swami follows the precepts of human brotherhood. His goal is absolute unity with Spirit. Imbuing his waking and sleeping consciousness with the thought, “I am He,” he roams contentedly, in the world but not of it. Thus only may he justify his title of swami: one who seeks to achieve union with the Swa or Self.

Anyone who practices a scientific technique for divine realization is a yogi.

A swami may conceivably follow only the path of dry reasoning, of cold renunciation; but a yogi engages himself in a definite, step-by-step procedure by which the body and mind are disciplined and the soul gradually liberated. Taking nothing for granted on emotional grounds or by faith, a yogi practices a thoroughly tested series of exercises that were first mapped out by the ancient rishis. In every age of India, yoga has produced men who became truly free, true Yogi-Christs.

Yoga is a method for restraining the natural turbulence of thoughts, which otherwise impartially prevents all men, of all lands, from glimpsing their true nature of Spirit. Like the healing light of the sun, yoga is beneficial equally to men of the East and to men of the West. The thoughts of most persons are restless and capricious; a manifest need exists for yoga: the science of mind control.

The ancient rishi Patanjali6 defines yoga as “neutralization of the alternating waves in consciousness.”7 His short and masterly work, Yoga Sutras, forms one of the six systems of Hindu philosophy. In contradistinction to Western philosophies, all six Hindu systems8 embody not only theoretical teachings but practical ones also. After pursuing every conceivable ontological inquiry, the Hindu systems formulate six definite disciplines aimed at the permanent removal of suffering and the attainment of timeless bliss.

The later Upanishads uphold the Yoga Sutras, among the six systems, as containing the most efficacious methods for achieving direct perception of truth. Through the practical techniques of yoga, man leaves behind forever the barren realms ...

The Yoga system of Patanjali is known as the Eightfold Path.9 The first steps are (1) yama (moral conduct), and (2) niyama (religious observances). Yama is fulfilled by noninjury to others, truthfulness, nonstealing, continence, and noncovetousness. The niyama prescripts are purity of body and mind, contentment in all circ...

The next steps are (3) asana (right posture); the spinal column must be held straight, and the body firm in a comfortable position for meditation; (4) pranayama (control of prana, subtle life currents); and (5) pr...

The last steps are forms of yoga proper: (6) dharana (concentration), holding the mind to one thought; (7) dhyana (meditation); and (8) samadhi (superconscious experience). This Eightfold Path of Yoga leads to the final goal of Kaivalya (Absoluteness), in wh...

The Bhagavad Gita, however, has pointed out that the methods of yoga are all-embracing. Its techniques are not meant only for certain types and temperaments, such as those few persons who incline toward the monastic life; yoga requires no formal allegiance. Because the yogic science satisfies a universal need, it has a natural universal appeal.

There are a number of great men, living today in American or European or other non-Hindu bodies, who, though they may never have heard the words yogi and swami, are yet true exemplars of those terms. Through their disinterested service to mankind, or through their mastery over passions and thoughts, or through their singlehearted love of God, or through their great powers of concentration, they are, in a sense, yogis; they have set themselves the goal of yoga — self-control. These men could rise to even greater heights if they were taught the definite science of yoga, which makes possible a more conscious direction of one’s mind and life.

Yoga is, as I can readily believe, the perfect and appropriate method of fusing body and mind together so that they form a unity which is scarcely to be questioned. This unity creates a psychological disposition which makes possible intuitions that transcend consciousness.”

The science of Kriya Yoga, mentioned so often in these pages, became widely known in modern India through the instrumentality of Lahiri Mahasaya, my guru’s guru. The Sanskrit root of kriya is kri, to do, to act and react; the same root is found in the word karma, the natural principle of cause and effect. Kriya Yoga is thus “union (yoga) with the Infinite through a certain action or rite (kriya).” A yogi who faithfully practices the technique is gradually freed from karma or the lawful chain of cause-effect equilibriums.

Kriya Yoga is mentioned twice by the ancient sage Patanjali, foremost exponent of yoga, who wrote: “Kriya Yoga consists of body discipline, mental control, and meditating on Aum.”7 Patanjali speaks of God as the actual Cosmic Sound of Aum that is heard in meditation.8 Aum is the Creative Word, the whir of the Vibratory Motor, the witness9 of Divine Presence. Even the beginner in yoga may soon hear the wondrous sound of Aum. Through this blissful spiritual encouragement, he becomes convinced that he is in communion with supernal realms.

The restless monkey breathes at the rate of 32 times a minute, in contrast to man’s average of 18 times. The elephant, tortoise, snake, and other creatures noted for their longevity have a respiratory rate that is less than man’s. The giant tortoise, for instance, which may attain the age of three hundred years, breathes only 4 times a minute.

Gross man seldom or never realizes that his body is a kingdom, governed by Emperor Soul on the throne of the cranium, with subsidiary regents in the six spinal centers or spheres of consciousness. This theocracy extends over a throng of obedient subjects: twenty-seven thousand billion cells (endowed with sure if seemingly automatic intelligence by which they perform all duties of bodily growths, transformations, and dissolutions) and fifty million substratal thoughts, emotions, and variations of alternating phases in man’s consciousness in an average life of sixty years.

Any apparent insurrection in the human body or mind against Emperor Soul, manifesting as disease or irrationality, is due to no disloyalty among the humble subjects, but stems from past or present misuse by man of his individuality or free will — given to him simultaneously with a soul, and revocable never.

Identifying himself with a shallow ego, man takes for granted that it is he who thinks, wills, feels, digests meals, and keeps himself alive, never admitting through reflection (only a little would suffice) that in his ordinary life he is naught but a puppet of past actions (karma) and of Nature or environment. Each man’s intellectual reactions, fee...

Lofty above such influences, however, is his regal soul. Spurning the transitory truths and freedoms, the Kriya Yogi passes beyond all disillusionment into his unfettered Being. The world’s scriptures declare man to be not a corruptible body but a living soul;...

The true yogi, withholding his thoughts, will, and feelings from false identification with bodily desires, uniting his mind with superconscious forces in the spinal shrines, thus lives in the world as God hath planned; he is impelled neither by impulses from the past nor by fresh motivations of human witlessness. Receiving fulfillment of his Supreme Desire, he is safe in the final haven of inexhaustibly blissful Spirit.

“How you will miss the companionship of a wife in your old age!” he had said. “Do you not agree that the family man, engaged in useful work to maintain his wife and children, thus plays a rewarding role in God’s eyes?” “Sir,” I had protested in alarm, “you know that my desire in this life is only for the Cosmic Beloved.” Master had laughed so merrily that I understood his words had been uttered merely to test me. “Remember,” he had said slowly, “that he who rejects the usual worldly duties can justify himself only by assuming some kind of responsibility for a much larger family.”

The Vedic scriptures declare that the physical world operates under one fundamental law of maya, the principle of relativity and duality. God, the Sole Life, is Absolute Unity; to appear as the separate and diverse manifestations of a creation He wears a false or unreal veil. That illusory dualistic veil is maya. Many great scientific discoveries of modern times have confirmed this simple pronouncement of the ancient rishis. Newton’s Law of Motion is a law of maya: “To every action there is always an equal and contrary reaction; the mutual actions of any two bodies are always equal and oppositely directed.” Action and reaction are thus exactly equal. “To have a single force is impossible. There must be, and always is, a pair of forces equal and opposite.”

In the gigantic conceptions of Einstein, the velocity of light —186,300 miles per second — dominates the whole Theory of Relativity. He proves mathematically that the velocity of light is, so far as man’s finite mind is concerned, the only constant of a universe in flux. On the sole “absolute” of light velocity depend all human standards of time and space. Not abstractly eternal as hitherto considered, time and space are relative and finite factors. They derive their conditional measurement-validities only in reference to the yardstick of light velocity.

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With wise discernment the guru guided his followers into the paths of Bhakti (devotion), Karma (action), Jnana (wisdom), or Raja (royal or complete) Yoga, according to each man’s natural tendencies.

As a householder-yogi, Lahiri Mahasaya brought a practical message suited to the needs of today’s world. The excellent economic and religious conditions of ancient India no longer obtain. The great master therefore did not encourage the old ideal of a yogi as a wandering ascetic with a begging bowl. He stressed, rather, the advantages to a yogi of earning his own living, of not being dependent on a hard-pressed society for support, and of practicing yoga in the privacy of his home. To this counsel Lahiri Mahasaya added the heartening force of his own example. He was a modern, “streamlined” model of a yogi. His way of life, as planned by Babaji, was intended to be a guide for aspiring yogis in all parts of the world.

Child,’ the master said, though apparently I was nearly twice his own age, ‘for the faults of the many, judge not the whole. Everything on earth is of mixed character, like a mingling of sand and sugar. Be like the wise ant that seizes only the sugar, and leaves the sand untouched. Though many sadhus here still wander in delusion, yet the mela is blessed by a few men of God-realization.’

You, Swamiji, have a part to play in the coming harmonious exchange between Orient and Occident.

The rock edicts found in northern Mysore date from the third century B.C. They illuminate the memory of King Asoka,4 whose vast empire included India, Afghanistan, and Baluchistan. Inscribed in various dialects, Asoka’s “sermons in stone” bear witness to the widespread literacy of his day. Rock Edict XIII denounces wars: “Consider nothing as true conquest save that of religion.” Rock Edict X declares that a king’s true glory depends on the moral progress he aids his people in attaining. Rock Edict XI defines “the true gift” to be, not goods, but Good — the spreading of truth. On Rock Edict VI the beloved emperor invites his subjects to confer with him on public business “at any hour of the day or night,” adding that by faithful discharge of his kingly duties he was thus “obtaining his own release from the debt he owed his fellowmen.”

party reached the Kumbha Mela on January 23, 1936. The surging crowd of nearly two million persons was an impressive sight, even an overwhelming one. The peculiar genius of the Indian people is the reverence innate in even the lowliest peasant for the worth of the Spirit and for the monks and sadhus who have forsaken worldly ties to seek a diviner anchorage. Impostors and hypocrites there are indeed; but India respects all for the sake of the few who illumine the land with supernal blessings. Westerners who were viewing the vast spectacle had a unique opportunity to feel the pulse of the nation, the spiritual ardor to which India owes her quenchless vitality under the blows of time.

At these quiet words, I was overpowered by a yearning for the simplicity of his life. I remembered America, and all the responsibilities that lay on my shoulders. “No, Yogananda,” I thought sadly for a moment, “in this life roaming by the Ganges is not for you.”

India is really poorer today by the passing of such a great man. May all fortunate enough to have come near him inculcate in themselves the true spirit of India’s culture and sadhana which was personified in him.

“A man identifies himself about sixteen hours daily with his physical vehicle. Then he sleeps; if he dreams, he remains in his astral body, effortlessly creating any object even as do the astral beings. If man’s sleep be deep and dreamless, for several hours he is able to transfer his consciousness, or sense of I-ness, to the causal body; such sleep is revivifying. A dreamer is contacting his astral and not his causal body; his sleep is not fully refreshing.”

The protection of cows is a passion with Gandhi. “The cow to me means the entire sub-human world, extending man’s sympathies beyond his own species,” the Mahatma has explained. “Man through the cow is enjoined to realize his identity with all that lives. Why the ancient rishis selected the cow for apotheosis is obvious to me. The cow in India was the best comparison; she was the giver of plenty. Not only did she give milk, but she also made agriculture possible. The cow is a poem of pity; one reads pity in the gentle animal. She is the second mother to millions of mankind. Protection of the cow means protection of the whole dumb creation of God. The appeal of the lower order of creation is all the more forceful because it is speechless.”

Two other daily yajnas are Pitri and Nri. Pitri Yajna is an offering of oblations to ancestors: a symbol of man’s acknowledgment of his debt to past generations, whose store of wisdom illumines humanity today. Nri Yajna is an offering of food to strangers or the poor: a symbol of the present responsibilities of man, his duties to contemporaries.

“Mahatmaji,” I said as I squatted beside him on the uncushioned mat, “please tell me your definition of ahimsa.” “The avoidance of harm to any living creature in thought or deed.” “Beautiful ideal! But the world will always ask: May one not kill a cobra to protect a child, or one’s self?” “I could not kill a cobra without violating two of my vows — fearlessness, and non-killing. I would rather try inwardly to calm the snake by vibrations of love. I cannot possibly lower my standards to suit my circumstances.” With his charming candor, he added, “I must confess that I could not serenely carry on this conversation were I faced by a cobra!”

“Yes, diet is important in the Satyagraha movement — as everywhere else,” he said with a chuckle. “Because I advocate complete continence for satyagrahis, I am always trying to find out the best diet for the celibate. One must conquer the palate before he can control the procreative instinct. Semi-starvation or unbalanced diets are not the answer. After overcoming the inward greed for food, a satyagrahi must continue to follow a rational vegetarian diet with all necessary vitamins, minerals, calories, and so forth. By inward and outward wisdom in regard to eating, the satyagrahi’s sexual fluid is easily turned into vital energy for the whole body.”

Hinduism is not an exclusive religion. In it there is room for the worship of all the prophets of the world.13 It is not a missionary religion in the ordinary sense of the term. It has no doubt absorbed many tribes in its fold, but this absorption has been of an evolutionary, imperceptible character. Hinduism tells each man to worship God according to his own faith or dharma,14 and so lives at peace with all religions.

I have found that life persists in the midst of destruction. Therefore there must be a higher law than that of destruction. Only under that law would well-ordered society be intelligible and life worth living. If that is the law of life we must work it out in daily existence. Wherever there are wars, wherever we are confronted with an opponent, conquer by love. I have found that the certain law of love has answered in my own life as the law of destruction has never done. In India we have had an ocular demonstration of the operation of this law on the widest scale possible. I don’t claim that nonviolence has penetrated the 360,000,000 people in India, but I do claim it has penetrated deeper than any other doctrine in an incredibly short time. It takes a fairly strenuous course of training to attain a mental state of nonviolence. It is a disciplined life, like the life of a soldier. The perfect state is reached only when the mind, body, and speech are in proper coordination. Every problem would lend itself to solution if we determined to make the law of truth and nonviolence the law of life.

I call myself a nationalist, but my nationalism is as broad as the universe. It includes in its sweep all the nations of the earth.17 My nationalism includes the well-being of the whole world. I do not want my India to rise on the ashes of other nations. I do not want India to exploit a single human being. I want India to be strong in order that she can infect the other nations also with her strength. Not so with a single nation in Europe today; they do not give strength to the others. President Wilson mentioned his beautiful fourteen points, but said: “After all, if this endeavor of ours to arrive at peace fails, we have our armaments to fall back upon.” I want to reverse that position, and I say: “Our armaments have failed already. Let us now be in search of something new; let us try the force of love and God which is truth.” When we have got that, we shall want nothing else.

“If we may make new discoveries and inventions in the phenomenal world, must we declare our bankruptcy in the spiritual domain? Is it impossible to multiply the exceptions so as to make them the rule? Must man always be brute first and man after, if at all?”

Man has forgotten this stark simplicity, now befogged by a million issues. Refusing a monotheistic love to the Creator, nations try to disguise their infidelity by punctilious respect before the outward shrines of charity. These humanitarian gestures are virtuous, because for a moment they divert man’s attention from himself; but they do not free him from his prime responsibility in life, referred to by Jesus as the “first commandment.” The uplifting obligation to love God is assumed with man’s earliest breath of an air freely bestowed by his only Benefactor.

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