Autobiography of a Yogi was written in 1946 by Paramhansa Yogananda, an Indian spiritual teacher who had by then been teaching in the West for over twenty years. To this day it has remained one of the foremost accounts of Indian spirituality available to Westerners, and has inspired millions of people in their quest for the higher goals of life.
The first nine chapters are given over to Yogananda's youth. He was born into a wealthy family that still cherished spirituality above all else - both his parents were disciples of the great Master Lahiri Mahashoy. He describes many childhood meditative experience and his yearnings to find a teacher who could guide him towards the ultimate goal of God-realization. The family lived in Calcutta, which was a hotbed of Indian spirituality, and the author describes time spent in the company of great saints such as Mahendranath Gupta, the famous author of The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, and Swami Kebalananda, a close disciple of Lahiri Mahashoy.
As much as he appreciated these great souls, his quest for a teacher remained unsatisfied until he met Sri Yukteshwar at the age of 17. Sri Yukteshwar was also a disciple of Lahiri Mahashoy, and he took a particular interest in showing that the ideals of Christianity and Indian spirituality were one and the same - we can see this influence in the many Bible references that are referred to in 'Autobiography of a Yogi' in support of his statements. In the book, Paramhansa Yogananda gives a very moving account of the master-disciple relationship which on one hand causes readers such as myself who have a spiritual Master to value their teacher more, and on the other hand must have surely made quite a few readers year to find their own spiritual teacher. I know of many fellow students of my teacher Sri Chinmoy for whom reading this book was their first glimpse of Indian spirituality, and it awakened in them a thirst for more which led to them becoming students of my teacher.
The book has more than its fair share of Indian miracle stories, and one chapter is given over to an explanation of such phenomena. The sheer range of stories might be overwhelming for some people posessing a more rational frame of mind, but the stories are balanced with tales of love, humility and service which put the reader back on common ground. One common motif in the book is Yogananda's interest in science and his portrayal of the practise of yoga and meditation as a science to be practised. In the spirit of meditation teachers stretching back thousand of years, he invites people to 'scientifically' test the meditation and yoga against the light of their own personal experience. An interesting feature of the book is his couching of ancient Sanskrit terms in modern scientific language - for example, he coins the term 'lifetrons' in place of the ancient Sanskrit prana.
The author describes in the book his meetings with the many distinguished spiritual teachers, political and religious leaders, scientist and dignitaries over the course of his lifetime, and sometimes it seems less that the book is less an autobiography than an account of India's spiritual heritage. There are lengthy chapters on the lives of Sri Yukteshwar, Lahiri Mahashoy and Lahiri Mahashoy's guru, Babaji. In addition the authors details with famous people such as Mahatma Gandhi and the Nobel-prizewinning singer Rabindranath Tagore are described in some detail. Paramhansa Yogananda refurned to India and met many of its foremost saints, including Sri Ramana Maharshi and Sri Anandamayi Ma - the chapter detailing his meetings with the latter are amongst the foremost accounts of the life of this great woman saint. His travels in the West are not ignored - he describes his friendship with the great botanist Luther Burbank and his meeting with the Catholic saint Therese Neumann.
This book is like a miniature India, vast and sprawling with variety, and is a definite must have on any spiritual seeker's bookshelf.