Chandra Sekhar Channapragada: Autobiography of a Yogi

Autobiography of a Yogi

By Paramhansa Yogananda

Autobiography of a Yogi (An Extraordinary and one of the top read books in the history). This Book is completed in writing by Him in 1945

Some of us would have read this book already. The special aspects of this book – the high level of Spiritual English language, narration, the coverage of many Rishis/Saints/Gurus – their life stories and miracles, very methodological explanation of physical body and after death etc…

Key points from the Book

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1.    Guru Parampara or lineage of Paramahamsa is as follows:
1. Mahavatar Babaji – Yogavatar Lahiri Mahasayaji – Jnaanaavatar Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri - Paramahansa Yogananda.
2.    Spiritual pension – is the award by our Heavenly Father, for whom we have conscientiously executed our earthly duties in life.
3.    Wisdom is better sought from a man of realization than from an inert Himalayan Mountain. Mountains cannot be your guru. Now-a-days it is difficult for a family person to go to Himalayas and be a saint, rather one can lead a saint-like family life through Kriya-Yoga.
4.    Ahimsa is not just to avoid killing living things, but is the removal of desire and thought to harm someone/something itself.
5.    Science will soon discover a few of the hidden laws. When the wonders of radio burst some years later on an astounded world, - Age-old concepts of time and space were annihilated;
6.    Yoga cannot know a barrier of East and West. So long as man possesses a mind with its restless thoughts, so long will there be a universal need for yoga or control.
7.    A Swami, formally a monk by virtue of his connection with the ancient order, is not always a Yogi. Anyone who practices a scientific technique of God-contact is a yogi; he may be either married or unmarried, either a worldly man or one of formal religious ties. A swami may conceivably follow only the path of dry reasoning, of cold renunciation; but a yogi engages himself in a definite, step-by-step procedure by which the body and mind are disciplined, and the soul liberated. Taking nothing for granted on emotional grounds, or by faith, a yogi practices a thoroughly tested series of exercises which were first mapped out by the early rishis.
8.    Aum - In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God
9.    One thousand Kriya practiced in eight hours gives the yogi, in one day, the equivalent of one thousand years of natural evolution: 365,000 years of evolution in one year. In three years, a Kriya Yogi can thus accomplish by intelligent self-effort the same result which nature brings to pass in a million years.
10. The sleeping man becomes a yogi; each night he unconsciously performs the yogic rite of releasing himself from bodily identification, and of merging the life force with healing currents in the main brain region and the six sub-dynamos of his spinal centers.
11. Yogoda Sat-sanga Movement - Yogoda: Yoga - Union, Harmony, Equilibrium; da, that which imparts. Sat-Sanga: sat, truth; sanga, fellowship. In the West, to avoid the use of a Sanskrit name, the Yogoda Sat-Sanga movement has been called the Self Realization Fellowship.
12. Swalpamasya dharmasya, trayata mahato bhoyat — Even a little bit of the practice of this Kriyayoga religion will save you from dire fears and colossal sufferings.
13. Though ensconced in the seat of the Supreme One, Lahiri Mahasaya showed reverence to all men, irrespective of their differing merits. When his devotees saluted him, he bowed in turn to them. With a childlike humility, the master often touched the feet of others, but seldom allowed them to pay him similar honour, even though such obeisance toward the guru is an ancient Oriental custom
14. A Moslem should perform his Namaj worship four times daily, four times daily a Hindu should sit in meditation. A Christian should go down on his knees four times daily, praying to God and then reading the Bible.
15. With wise discernment the Guru guides his followers into the paths of Bhakti (devotion), Karma (action), Jnana (wisdom), or Raja (royal or complete) Yogas
16. He who has attained a state of calmness wherein his eyelids do not blink, has achieved Sambhavi Mudra
17. A number of seals recently excavated from archaeological sites of the Indus valley, datable in the third millennium B.C., show figures seated in meditative postures now used in the system of Yoga, and warrant the inference that even at that time some of the rudiments of Yoga were already known. We may not unreasonably draw the conclusion that systematic introspection with the aid of studied methods has been practiced in India for five thousand years. India has developed certain valuable religious attitudes of mind and ethical notions which are unique, at least in the wideness of their application to life. One of these has been a tolerance in questions of intellectual belief— doctrine—that is amazing to the West, where for many centuries heresy-hunting was common, and bloody wars between nations over sectarian rivalries were frequent.
18. We must bear in mind that what was mystical a thousand years ago is no longer so, and what is mysterious now may become lawfully intelligible a hundred years hence. It is the Infinite, the Ocean of Power, that is at the back of all manifestations.
19. *Literally, “Eternal Religion,” the name given to the body of Vedic teachings. Sanatan Dharma has come to be called Hinduism since the time of the Greeks who designated the people on the banks of the river Indus as Indoos, or Hindus. The word Hindu, properly speaking, refers only to followers of Sanatan Dharma or Hinduism. The term Indian applies equally to Hindus and Mohammedans and other inhabitants of the soil of India (and also through the confusing geographical error of Columbus, to the American Mongoloid aboriginals). The ancient name for India is Aryavarta, literally, “Abode of the Aryans.” The Sanskrit root of Arya is “Worthy, Holy, Noble.” The later ethnological misuse of Aryan to signify not spiritual, but physical, characteristics, led the great Orientalist, Max Muller, to say quaintly: “To me an ethnologist who speaks of an Aryan race, Aryan blood, Aryan eyes and hair, is as great a sinner as a linguist who speaks of a dolichocephalic dictionary or a brachycephalic grammar.”
20. The undeveloped man must undergo countless Earthly and Astral and Causal incarnations in order to emerge from his three bodies. A master who achieves this final freedom may elect to return to earth as a prophet to bring other human beings back to God, or he may choose to reside in the astral cosmos
21. 5 Yagnas one has to do - Brahma Yagna (Study and Teaching), Deva Yagna (Offerings to Deities), Pitru Yagna (Respect for Ancestors), Bhuta Yagna (Service to living beings), and Nri Yagna (Service to humanity)
22. “A beggar cannot renounce wealth, “If a man laments: ‘My business has failed; my wife has left me; I will renounce all and enter a monastery,’ to what worldly sacrifice is he referring? He did not renounce wealth and love; they renounced him!”
23. The unique feature of Hinduism among the world religions is that it derives not from a single great founder but from the impersonal Vedic scriptures. Hinduism thus gives scope for worshipful incorporation into its fold of prophets of all ages and all lands. The Vedic scriptures regulate not only devotional practices but all-important social customs, in an effort to bring man’s every action into harmony with divine law.
24. Epics shall someday be written on the Indian satyagrahis who withstood hate with love, violence with nonviolence, who allowed themselves to be mercilessly slaughtered rather than retaliate. The result on certain historic occasions was that the armed opponents threw down their guns and fled, shamed, shaken to their depths by the sight of men who valued the life of another above their own.
25. I call myself a Nationalist, but my nationalism is as broad as the universe. It includes in its sweep all the nations of the earth. My nationalism includes the well-being of the whole world. I do not want my India to rise on the ashes of other nations. I do not want India to exploit a single human being. I want India to be strong in order that SHE can infect the other nations also with her strength. Not so with a single nation in Europe today; they do not give strength to the others.
26. Self-Realization Fellowship ashrams – 1) First one at Encinitas, A small town on Coast Highway 101, Encinitas is 100 miles south of Los Angeles, and 25 miles north of San Diego, 2) Washington 3) Newyork 4) Boston 5) Hollywood 6) Sandiego…
27. Paramahamsa plan to found the first “World Colony,” as he called it, in Encinitas, California. Often exhort his audiences to gather together in “World Brotherhood Colonies.” This “colony” concept was central to his mission. Spiritual communities, he said, would inspire millions throughout the world to live in peace, and would eventually serve as models for international harmony. His dream was that the earth’s nations would live together in friendliness in this, our common planetary home.
28. The World is My Homeland; it is my America, my India, my Philippines, my England, my Africa,’ will never lack in scope for a useful and happy life. His natural local pride will know limitless expansion; he will be in touch with creative universal currents.
29. “Pursue lives of service to God and of divine meditation. That is the way to inner peace and harmony. What more can you want from life? Pool your resources. Keep all your essential activities in one place: job, home, place of worship, and schools for teaching children ‘how-to-live’ principles. This way of life will give you everything you need: peace of mind, inner freedom, and, above all—happiness!
30. The first Ananda Sangha community established in August, 1968, dedicating it to the spirit, teachings, and ideals of Paramhansa Yogananda.
31. These communities are located in the American states of California, Oregon, and Washington; in Italy, near Assisi; and in Gurgaon and Pune, in India;

List of Saints/Rishis/Yogis/Yoginis referred in this book (In addition to Paramahamsa Yogananda) are as follows:

1.    Mahaavatar Babaji
2.    Yogavatar Lahiri Mahasaya Ji
3.    Jnaanaavatar Swami Sri Yukteswar
4.    Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa
5.    Swami Pranabananda - Saint with Two Bodies
6.    Shri Vishuddhanand Paramahansa – (aka Bhola Nath) - Gandha Baba (Perfume Baba / Saint)
7.    Sohong -Swami / Soham Swami (Shyama Kanta Bandopadhyay) - The Tiger Swami.
8.    The Levitating Saint (Nagendra Nath Bhaduri)
9.    Swami Trailanga – (Friend of Lahiri Mahasaya) – who lived for 300 years
10. India’s Great Scientist and Inventor, Jagadis Chandra Bose
11. The Sleepless Saint (Ram Gopal Muzumdar)
12. Fakir Afzal Khan - A Mohammedan Wonder-Worker
13. Rabindranath Tagore
14. Sacred Mother - Kashi Moni Lahiri
15. Luther Burbank— A Saint Amidst the Roses
16. Therese Neumann, the Catholic Stigmatist of Bavaria
17. The Maharaja, H.H. Sri Krishnaraja Wadiyar IV
18. C V Raman – Noble Prize-winning scientist.
19. Travancore Maharaj
20. Mhatma Gandhi
21. Miss Madeleine Slade (Disciple of Mahatma Gandhi)
22. Miss Margaret Woodrow Wilson (Daughter of US President – Mr. Woodrow Wilson)
23. Sri Aurobindo
24. The Bengali - Joy-Permeated Mother (Ananda Moyi Ma)
25. The Woman Yogi who Never Eats (Giri Bala)
26. Sister Gyanamata
27. Swami Vivekananda
28. Swami Premananda
29. Swami Kriyananda