Rating: 
Summary: Seduction to Hybris
Review: What Mr. Yogananda basicly says is that he is God, and that through the powers of yoga he is almighty. Well, he better is, otherwise he is not more than a mere psychopath.Also, what he tells us about yoga is quite one-sided. For instance, he seems to be rather asexual. He doesn't say anything about tantra or Shiva yoga, a form of yoga the famous orientalist and hindu Alain Daniélou preferred ("Yoga. Method of Reintegration" or "Shiva and Dionysus"). What is striking is that the demonic aspects of yoga are completly left out. But you do open yourself up to demons if you practise yoga, as the brahman R.R. Maharaj ("Escape into the Light") has shown. Yoganandas approach seems to be specifically tailored for an scientifically oriented western audience. The spiritual dangers of yoga are totally surpessed. During my research on Indian culture I came across the classic "Christ of the Indian Road" by E. Stanley Jones. This is the book I liked best. I found it extremly sound.
Rating: 
Summary: AT LAST! SOMEONE WITH WISDOM & AUTHENTICITY
Review: The AUTOBIOGRAPY OF A YOGI is a revelation from one who is where the truth is. At first I found so much of this book just too amazing and revealing of the greatness of Eatern & western Yogis. Is it true?
Since reading this spiritual classic I have actually met some of the persons who lived with and knew the author, the great prophet Paramahansa Yogananda. From these first-hand reports, and from the personal experience I have heard and read about by many others who knew Him, as well as the high level of His own character and the many blessings He still gives to millions of others. Modern history gives a great deal of evidence to all the claims in this wonderful book. Because of this, there is no doubt that the words written
in the Autobiography of a Yogi are more reliable than any
other spiritual document I've ever read. Whatever your question about religion, spirituality, higher Yoga or the mystical levels of seeking, one would be hard-pressed to go away from this feast of truth unsatisfied. It helps us to better understand what is truly essential and balanced in our spiritual search. What will get us there. It is giving my life more fulfillment and clear direction. Yogananda's A/Y is the greatest book I've ever read and investigated.
Rating:
Summary: Archipel Gulag
Review: Imagine, something really bad happens to you, and someone tells you, this happens because of some crimes of your former life. You do not know what those crimes are. You do not know who you were in your former life. You do not even believe in such a thing as a former life. You get no chance to defend yourself against the crimes you supposedly have committed. There is no trial, there is no carefully selected jury. All there is, is a verdict, your pain, and this person who is accusing you of your alleged sins. And to make his point this person tells you about his and his friends mighty powers. In what situation are you? In Stalin's interrogation chamber? In the hands of the Mob? Wrong! You are reading Yogananda's book philosophising about Karma! Yoga might be a powerful tool for some people, but its ethics, as they appear in this book, are less than doubtful. They lack a sense for justice, freedom and an open heart.
Rating:
Summary: The book left me quite empty
Review: Mr. Yogananda's autobiography is very informative for someone who is interested in the powers of yoga. For that purpose it is worth reading. However, to me the book appeared oddly cold. Although the author talks about love a lot, I did not feel that he or the great yogis he describes actually really love anybody. The feelings described seemed to me very technical or chemical like a magnificent opiate kick. But this is not the kind of love I have experienced, the love, for instance, of two people who go through hell for each other. On the contrary, the book describes effective ways how to avoid suffering (which, of course, is very attractive), but there is not a single example where the author or his gurus show that they were prepared to show their love to a human being by giving themselves up completly. Instead, they devote themselves to mighty, quite abstract energies. What Yogananda calls "God" appears more like a strong force than a love giving, emotional personal being.
Rating:
Summary: THE BEST OF SPIRITUAL TEACHINGS
Review: Anyone who is truly interested in what life is all about, should buy this book. Paramahansa (para-ma-HAN-sa) Yogananda (yo-gah-NAN-da)takes the best of all spiritual and metaphysical teachings and explains how to apply them to your life and why you should do so. Everything in ordinary life eventually becomes boring. Read this book and find out how to put the fascination back in your life. Find out where you are supposed to be going and why.
Rating:
Summary: I never knew yoga before!
Review: I can't believe I never found this book before. For ten years yoga classes have kept me alive in the insanity inside the beltway. I never dreamed there was this whole further universe of yoga that the teacher never told us about. Yoga postures transformed my body; breathing and visualization calmed my mind. Yogananda has shown me that there is much, MUCH more - there is a spiritual awakening exceeding all the claims of Sunday worship or physical yoga practice. Never have I encountered such an authentic spiritual writer (well, perhaps the Dalai Lama)... speaking with the authority of one who has walked the walk - and yet conversing humbly and comfortably with my soul. Although I have moved beyond Autobiography of a Yogi to Yogananda's meditation Lessons, I keep rereading this book. "Oh, boy: When I just get that Kriya Yoga lesson!"
Rating: 
Summary: Will Make you Stronger In Your Own Faith
Review: This book increased my own Faith in Catholicism! Yes Catholicism. The mystical story of THerese Neuman reassured my Faith as a Christian and invoked a belief that we are put on this Earth to learn from each other ... we are meant to build bridges, not tear down walls. BRAVO! A sheer revelation!
Rating:
Summary: this edition is "the real McCoy"
Review: Autobiography of a Yogi
(Original 1946 Edition) by Paramhansa Yogananda Table of Contents Chapter 1. My Parents and Early Life
2. Mother's Death and the Amulet
3. The Saint with Two Bodies (Swami Pranabananda)
4. My Interrupted Flight Toward the Himalaya
5. A "Perfume Saint" Performs his Wonders
6. The Tiger Swami
7. The Levitating Saint (Nagendra Nath Bhaduri)
8. India's Great Scientist and Inventor, Jagadis Chandra Bose
9. The Blissful Devotee and his Cosmic Romance (Master Mahasaya)
10. I Meet my Master, Sri Yukteswar
11. Two Penniless Boys in Brindaban
12. Years in my Master's Hermitage
13. The Sleepless Saint (Ram Gopal Muzumdar)
14. An Experience in Cosmic Consciousness
15. The Cauliflower Robbery
16. Outwitting the Stars
17. Sasi and the Three Sapphires
18. A Mohammedan Wonder-Worker (Afzal Khan)
19. My Guru Appears Simultaneously in Calcutta and Serampore
20. We Do Not Visit Kashmir
21. We Visit Kashmir
22. The Heart of a Stone Image 23. My University Degree
24. I Become a Monk of the Swami Order
25. Brother Ananta and Sister Nalini
26. The Science of Kriya Yoga
27. Founding of a Yoga School at Ranchi
28. Kashi, Reborn and Rediscovered
29. Rabindranath Tagore and I Compare Schools
30. The Law of Miracles
31. An Interview with the Sacred Mother (Kashi Moni Lahiri)
32. Rama is Raised from the Dead
33. Babaji, the Yogi-Christ of Modern India
34. Materializing a Palace in the Himalayas
35. The Christlike Life of Lahiri Mahasaya
36. Babaji's Interest in the West
37. I Go to America
38. Luther Burbank -- An American Saint
39. Therese Neumann, the Catholic Stigmatist of Bavaria
40. I Return to India
41. An Idyl in South India
42. Last Days with my Guru
43. The Resurrection of Sri Yukteswar
44. With Mahatma Gandhi at Wardha
45. The Bengali "Joy-Permeated Mother" (Ananda Moyi Ma)
46. The Woman Yogi who Never Eats (Giri Bala)
47. I Return to the West
48. At Encinitas in California Illustrations -Map of India -My Father, Bhagabati Charan Ghosh -My Mother -Swami Pranabananda, "The Saint With Two Bodies" -My Elder Brother, Ananta -Festival Gathering in the Courtyard of my Guru's Hermitage in Serampore -Nagendra Nath Bhaduri, "The Levitating Saint" -Myself at Age Six -Jagadis Chandra Bose, Famous Scientist -Two Brothers of Therese Neumann, at Konnersreuth -Master Mahasaya, the Blissful Devotee -Jitendra Mazumdar, my Companion on the "Penniless Test" at Brindaban -Swami Kebalananda, my Saintly Sanskrit Tutor -Ananda Moyi Ma, the "Joy-Permeated Mother" -Himalayan Cave Occupied by Babaji -Sri Yukteswar, My Master -Self-Realization Fellowship, Los Angeles Headquarters -Self-Realization Church of All Religions, Hollywood -My Guru's Seaside Hermitage at Puri -My Sisters -- Roma, Nalini, and Uma -Self-Realization Church of All Religions, San Diego -The Lord in His Aspect as Shiva -Yogoda Math , Hermitage at Dakshineswar -Ranchi School, Main Building -Kashi, Reborn and Rediscovered -Bishnu, Motilal Mukherji, my Father, Mr. Wright, T.N. Bose, Swami Satyananda -Group of Delegates to the International Congress of Religious Liberals, Boston, 1920 -A Guru and Disciple in an Ancient Hermitage -Babaji, the Yogi-Christ of Modern India -Lahiri Mahasaya -A Yoga Class in Washington, D.C. -Luther Burbank -Therese Neumann of Konnersreuth, Bavaria -The Taj Mahal at Agra -Shankari Mai Jiew, Only Living Disciple of the great Trailanga Swami -Krishnananda with his Tame Lioness -Group on the Dining Patio of my Guru's Serampore Hermitage -Miss Bletch, Mr. Wright, and myself -- in Egypt -Rabindranath Tagore -Swami Keshabananda, at his Hermitage in Brindaban -Krishna, Ancient Prophet of India -Mahatma Gandhi, at Wardha -Giri Bala, the Woman Yogi Who Never Eats - Group of Ranchi Students, with the Maharaja of Kasimbazar -My Guru and Myself, Calcutta, 1935 -Mr. E. E. Dickinson of Los Angeles -Self-Realization Fellowship at Encinitas, California -My Father, in 1936 -Swami Premananda, before the Self-Realization Church of All Religions in Washington, D. C. -Speakers at a 1945 Interracial Meeting in San Francisco, California
Rating:
Summary: Profoundly Inspiring
Review: This is one of those books that can alter the course of one's life. When I found and purchased the book almost by accident, I thought it would be an interesting, but most likely philosophically foreign and therefore convoluted, read. My preconceptions arose largely from the strange sense of newness imparted by the chapter headings upon a cursory glance of the text. Nevertheless, I kept an open mind, and was more than pleasantly surprised. The book is a reflection of the life of an astoundingly inspired individual (I hesitate even to call him a mere "man") and his experiences growing up in India as the disciple of a beloved guru, and his coming to the US. But this is as much a tome of invaluable spiritual insight as it is a life's chronicle. Throughout, we get to inductively learn about Hinduism from the first hand experiences of an enlightened Yogi, not a scholar possessed with a vast mentality and little spirituality. I must admit, the only other books I've found thus far spiritually comparable are The Lord of the Rings and The Gospel of John. And this probably surpasses the former in inspiration, if for no other reason than the sense of spiritual immediacy and authenticity that it imparts. Most of the book centers around Yogananda's life in India as a youth and his return visit during 1935-36. Yogananda's guru, to whom Yogananda is divinely guided, is the spiritually towering figure of Sri Yukteswar. While reading, I became as much enamored by Yukteswar's character and wisdom as Yogananda's. Babaji, the guru of Sri Yukteswar's guru Lahiri Mayasaya, is the "deathless" yogi responsible for reviving the age-old technique of Kriya Yoga which Yogananda expounds as the scientific and psychophysical method of meditation responsible for his ability to commune with God. The ability to realize God through such spiritual labor results in a knowledge of reality that baffles conventional understanding gained through reason and empiricism alone. Throughout the book Yogananda encounters miracle after miracle (events that defy his initially mayic, or disillusioned, understanding of Ultimate Reality) and introduces us to incredible Yogis (scientific God-realizers) who can commune directly with God, abstain from all food, and even physically transport their bodies at will! And Yogananda is not just a communicator of such miracles, but a direct and sober witness to nearly all of them. At first, I wondered to myself, does Yogananda really expect a modern western audience to believe these miracles? Surely there had to be a reasonable explanation behind all these occurrences, I thought. Could it be that his intense spirituality blinded him to the rational processes directing the course of events? Even worse, did his master orchestrate these feats as some kind of lesson? But I ask myself: how do I know better? As Yogananda points out, I only question the miracles because they are unfamiliar to me, not because I cannot understand the miraculous procedures by which they arise. I don't understand many things, but that doesn't mean I disbelieve them. And one may reply "Yes, but it is different when the procedures involved are themselves miraculous and thus beyond understanding to begin with!" But might not there also be such fundamentally mysterious processes at work in the physical world? May not a particle's full nature be unknown to us? Indeed, Heisenberg has spoken. And it is even as Yogananda's guru said: "to the unenlightened man, dependent on his senses for all final judgments, proof of God must remain unknown and therefore nonexistent." Similarly, the nature and workings of God shall remain mysterious. So it is simply a perceived impossibility or improbability of things that cause me to recoil. After all, if I really believe that "divine communion" is the spiritual act of being one with God, then why would I not acknowledge these miracles as nominally outward manifestations of a more complete ultimate reality? Might we live our day-to-day lives but on the tip of a metaphysical iceberg? Could the sea of divinity cause the passing of fissures through unknown planes of existence up to our icy island of ignorance? Who am I to say that it could not? But Yogananda's autobiography is far more than an account of an outwardly miraculous life, it is spiritually uplifting. Hindus are generally very tolerant of other religions, and Yogananda is no exception. He makes numerous parallels between Christ and other saints such as Ramakrishna, Krishna, and his guru and their gurus. According to Yogananda, Christ, as the Son of God, is internal Christ-consciousness. Thus, Jesus is a figure which we should identify with rather than perpetually worship from below as the only Son of God. To be the Son of God (which we all can be) is to experience Christ and what he experienced. Yogananda routinely read and studied the New Testament, prayed to Christ, and even saw and talked to Jesus in one of his many visions. Paramahansa Yogananda's spiritual vision and authentic divinity shine through in this unusually enlightening autobiography. I recommend it unreservedly to anyone longing to probe the depths of their soul on the path to truth. Already I can feel Yogananda's words working within me, undoubtedly changing the way I think and act about and toward God. Somehow, I can't help but trust his inspired wisdom. Read this book slowly, taking care and thought in absorbing the life and teachings of a modern-day saint. May he be a model for all men.
Rating:
Summary: Yogananda is simply the best...
Review: This book has stood the test of time and retains the ability to literally transform lives up to the present day. Yogananda is simply the kindest, gentlest, most loving presence one can hope to encounter. The story of his live and his remarkable experiences is awesome enough, but he presents his work in such a way that his words can open and heal the reader's yearning heart as well. He is completely genuine, a true lover of God and humanity and all life. I recommend this book to people of all faiths; anyone yearning for a deeper experience of the divine will be nourished and inspired by this wonderful man and his absorbing true stories.
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