Series of letters from Jyotish and Devi Novak, Ananda Spiritual Directors

Letter 3: Books that Change Lives

May 2008

Dear Friends,

"Reading Autobiography of a Yogi, I alternated between tears and laughter: tears of pure joy; laughter of even greater joy! For three days I scarcely ate or slept. When I walked it was almost on tiptoe, as though in an ecstatic dream. It was the greatest book I ever read. One perusal of it was enough to change my entire life."

Thus Swami Kriyananda describes his first encounter in 1948 with this great spiritual classic.

Autobiography of a Yogi was first published in December 1946, shortly after the explosive end of World War II with the dropping of atom bombs. The book’s release did not make headlines – the world was still coming to terms with the war being over and with the inconceivable power for destruction unleashed by atomic energy.

In contrast, Autobiography talked about another kind of energy that, too, had unimaginable potential – the unlimited creative power of consciousness. Since its publication, Autobiography has been translated into 25 different languages. In 1999 it was chosen as one of the “100 most important spiritual books of the 20th Century” by a panel of influential world thinkers and theologians selected by Harper Collins Publishers.

Back in September 1948, Swami Kriyananda was one of the early ones whose life was transformed by this book. After finishing it, he took the next bus non-stop for 3 days and nights from New York to Los Angeles to meet Paramhansa Yogananda and become his disciple.

At their first meeting alone together, the Master asked him, “How did you like my book?”

 “Oh, it was wonderful!” Kriyananda exclaimed. “That’s because it has my vibrations in it,” Yogananda replied simply.

Kriyananda later wrote, “Clearly I had found his book almost alive in its power to convey, not merely ideas, but new states of awareness.”

In 1950 as Yogananda was training Kriyananda for his own life mission, he told him his work was to be lecturing, editing, and writing. Swamiji asked his guru, “Someone suggested that I write a book explaining how I was drawn to the path. Would you like me to do that?”

“Not yet,” Yogananda answered, but the clear implication was, “Later.” That “later” found expression in 1977 when Swami Kriyananda completed his own autobiography, The Path – My Life with Paramhansa Yogananda.

The Path is part of Swami Kriyananda’s legacy of over 90 books translated into 30 different languages. It’s the most comprehensive book of its kind by a direct disciple, showing the scope of Yogananda’s world mission, his divinity hidden in his humanity, and what it was like to live with a God-realized master.

Since Yogananda’s passing in 1952, Autobiography of a Yogi has appeared in a series of revised editions that some feel lack the spirit of the original book. In the 1990’s Ananda discovered that Yogananda’s first version was actually in the public domain, meaning it was no longer bound by copyright restrictions and could be published by anyone.

In 1994 Ananda published the original unaltered edition of Autobiography, which had been unavailable to readers for decades. Once again people could enjoy the book with the “vibrations” that the master had himself put into it.

In the afterword to 2004 reprint of the original edition, Swami Kriyananda writes: