Autobiography of a Yogi (Self-Realization Fellowship)

by Paramahansa Yogananda

“He hath made of one blood all nations of men.”5 “World brotherhood” is a large term, but man must enlarge his sympathies, considering himself in the light of a world citizen. He who truly understands that “it is my America, my India, my Philippines, my Europe, my Africa” and so on, will never lack scope for a useful and happy life.

In the Atomic Age, yoga should be taught by a method of instruction such as the Self-Realization Fellowship Lessons,5 or the liberating science will again be restricted to a chosen few. It would indeed be a priceless boon if each student could keep by his side a guru perfected in divine wisdom; but the world is composed of many “sinners” and few saints. How then may the multitudes be helped by yoga, if not through study in their homes of instructions written by true yogis?

“Have you been happy in America? What about the falsehoods circulated by misguided people who are anxious to prevent the spread of yoga? What about the disillusionments, the heartaches, the center leaders who could not lead, the students who could not be taught?” “Blessed is the man whom the Lord doth test!” I answered. “He has remembered, now and then, to put a burden on me.” I thought, then, of all the faithful ones, of the love and devotion and understanding that illumines the heart of America.

In the course of world travel I have sadly observed much suffering:7 in the Orient, suffering chiefly on the material plane; in the Occident, misery chiefly on the mental or the spiritual plane. All nations feel the painful effects of unbalanced civilizations. India and many other Eastern lands can greatly benefit from emulation of the practical grasp of affairs, the material efficiency, of Western nations like America. The Occidental peoples, on the other hand, require a deeper understanding of the spiritual basis of life, and particularly of scientific techniques that India anciently developed for man’s conscious communion with God.

chimerical

Beyond all doubt it is pleasing to the Lord when His earth-children struggle to attain a world civilization free from poverty, disease, and soul ignorance. Man’s forgetfulness of his divine resources (the result of his misuse of free will9) is the root cause of all other forms of suffering.

To become the friend of God, man must overcome the devils or evils of his own karma or actions that ever urge him to spineless acquiescence in the mayic delusions of the world. A knowledge of the iron law of karma encourages the earnest seeker to find the way of final escape from its bonds. Because the karmic slavery of human beings is rooted in the desires of maya-darkened minds, it is with mind-control17 that the yogi concerns himself. The various cloaks of karmic ignorance are laid away, and man views himself in his native essence.

The life currents, operating in the human body as the fivefold prana or subtle life energies, are an expression of the Aum vibration of the omnipresent soul.

A human being falsely identifies himself with his physical form because the life currents from the soul are breath-conveyed into the flesh with such intense power that man mistakes the effect for a cause, and idolatrously imagines the body to have life of its own.

When the breath-link between soul and body is severed by evolutionary karma, the abrupt transition called “death” ensues; the physical cells revert to their natural powerlessness. For the Kriya Yogi, however, the breath-link is severed at will by scientific wisdom, not by the rude intrusion of karmic necessity. Through actual experience, the yogi is already aware of his essential incorporeity, and does not require the somewhat pointed hint given by Death that man is badly advised to place his reliance on a physical body.

The threefold nature of God as He demonstrates Himself in the phenomenal worlds is symbolized in Hindu scriptures as Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver, and Shiva the Destroyer-Renovator. Their triune activities are ceaselessly displayed throughout vibratory creation. As the Absolute is beyond the conceptual powers of man, the devout Hindu worships It in the august embodiments of the Trinity.