Autobiography of a Yogi - With Pictures - Hardcover

by Paramhansa Yogananda (Author)

Autobiography of a Yogi is one of the most widely read spiritual memoirs of the twentieth century, a first-person account of Paramhansa Yogananda's search for God-realization, his training under Sri Yukteswar, and his mission to bring India's yogic tradition to Western readers. Moving from childhood visions and encounters with saints to disciplined spiritual practice, travel, teaching, and the founding of his work in America, Yogananda presents a life shaped by devotion, meditation, guru-disciple transmission, and the conviction that direct spiritual experience lies at the heart of true religion.

First published in 1946, the book introduced generations of readers to yoga as a path of inward realization rather than merely physical exercise. Its pages include portraits of Indian saints, teachers, householders, mystics, scientists, and seekers, along with Yogananda's reflections on Kriya Yoga, meditation, karma, reincarnation, miracles, consciousness, and the relationship between Eastern and Western religious thought. This illustrated edition preserves the book's distinctive autobiographical voice while adding the visual context of its pictures, making it especially useful for readers approaching Yogananda's life, teachings, and spiritual world for the first time.

This SMK edition is suited to readers of spiritual autobiography, Hindu spirituality, yoga philosophy, meditation, comparative religion, mysticism, Indian religious history, and classic body-mind-spirit literature. It remains a landmark work for anyone studying the modern transmission of yoga and meditation to the West, and a central text in the popular history of Eastern spirituality in English.