Autobiography of a Yogi is the spiritual life-story Paramahansa Yogananda wrote in English in California in the early 1940s, first published in 1946 by Philosophical Library in New York. It narrates his upbringing in Bengal, his training under Sri Yukteswar in Serampore, the lineage running back through Lahiri Mahasaya to the figure he calls Mahavatar Babaji, and the Kriya Yoga technique he was sent to introduce to the West. The book mixes memoir with hagiography, miracle accounts (bilocation, materialisations, the incorrupt body of Yukteswar) and instructional asides on yoga philosophy.
It is one of the small handful of Western-published Indian spiritual texts to achieve canonical status — continuously in print since 1946, translated into 50+ languages, and distributed at Steve Jobs’s memorial service per his instruction. Devotional readers treat it as a saint’s life; secular readers and academic Indologists have questioned the historicity of the miracle narratives and the more mythological lineage claims. Its influence on the 1960s–70s Western yoga revival — and on the Self-Realization Fellowship Yogananda founded — is hard to overstate.
First lines
I find my earliest memories covering the anachronistic features of a previous incarnation. Clear recollections came to me of a distant life, a yogi amidst the Himalayan snows. These glimpses of the past, by some dimensionless link, also afforded me a glimpse of the future.
Contents
My Parents and Early Life
My Mother's Death and the Mystic Amulet
The Saint With Two Bodies
My Interrupted Flight Toward the Himalayas
A "Perfume Saint" Displays His Wonders
The Tiger Swami
The Levitating Saint
India's Great Scientist, J. C. Bose
The Blissful Devotee and His Cosmic Romance
I Meet My Master, Sri Yukteswar
Two Penniless Boys in Brindaban
Years in My Master's Hermitage
The Sleepless Saint
An Experience in Cosmic Consciousness
The Cauliflower Robbery
Outwitting the Stars
Sasi and the Three Sapphires
A Mohammedan Wonder-Worker
My Master, in Calcutta, Appears in Serampore
We Do Not Visit Kashmir
We Visit Kashmir
The Heart of a Stone Image
I Receive My University Degree
I Become a Monk of the Swami Order
Brother Ananta and Sister Nalini
The Science of Kriya Yoga
Founding a Yoga School in Ranchi
Kashi, Reborn and Rediscovered
Rabindranath Tagore and I Compare Schools
The Law of Miracles
An Interview with the Sacred Mother
Rama Is Resurrected
Babaji, the Yogi-Christ of Modern India
Materializing a Palace in the Himalayas
The Christlike Life of Lahiri Mahasaya
Babaji's Interest in the West
I Go to America
Luther Burbank—A Saint Amidst the Roses
Therese Neumann, the Catholic Stigmatist
I Return to India
An Idyl in South India
Last Days with My Guru
The Resurrection of Sri Yukteswar
With Mahatma Gandhi at Wardha
The Bengali "Joy-Permeated" Mother
The Woman Yogi Who Never Eats
I Return to the West
At Encinitas in California
Reception
One of the small handful of Western-published Indian spiritual texts to achieve canonical status — distributed at Steve Jobs’s memorial service per his instruction, in continuous print since 1946, translated into 50+ languages. Devotional readers consider it a saint’s life; secular readers and academic Indologists have questioned the historicity of the miracle narratives and the more mythological lineage claims. Influence on the 1960s–70s Western yoga revival is hard to overstate.
Frequently asked
What is Autobiography of a Yogi about?
It is Paramahansa Yogananda’s spiritual life-story, written in English in California in the 1940s, narrating his Bengali upbringing, training under Sri Yukteswar, the Kriya Yoga lineage running back through Lahiri Mahasaya to Mahavatar Babaji, and the technique he was sent to introduce to the West.
Why is the book significant outside yoga circles?
It has been in continuous print since 1946 and translated into 50+ languages, and was distributed at Steve Jobs’s memorial service per his standing instruction. Its influence on the 1960s–70s Western yoga revival, and on the Self-Realization Fellowship Yogananda founded in 1920, is foundational.
How do scholars treat the miracle narratives?
Devotional readers treat the book as a saint’s life. Secular readers and academic Indologists have questioned the historicity of the bilocation, materialisation and incorrupt-body accounts and the more mythological lineage claims, while still recognising the book’s documentary value for early-twentieth-century Indian yoga lineages.