Autobiography of a Yogi

Written by Paramahansa Yogananda, this memoir traces his life from boyhood in India to the decades he spent teaching in America. He recounts his years searching for an enlightened master, a long apprenticeship in the hermitage of a respected yoga teacher, and his meetings with notable figures of East and West, among them Gandhi, Tagore, the botanist Luther Burbank and the German mystic Therese Neumann. Alongside the story runs an introduction to yoga and meditation and an attempt to explain the principles he believes lie behind everyday events and so-called miracles. Passages reconsidering Bible stories such as Eden also appear. Readers curious about the spiritual life, or about the man behind these teachings, will find both a personal account and a guide to ancient practices.