BOOK: Approved literature –
Jan. 5, 2021 – Paramahansa Yogananda made an indelible impression on the spiritual landscape of the United States. Arriving in America in 1920 from his native India, he established Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) that same year. Throughout his ministry, he taught the underlying unity of all the great faith traditions—devoting himself to fostering greater harmony and cooperation among all religions, races and nationalities. He brought the knowledge of yoga and meditation to millions through his public lectures and writings, as well as through the many SRF meditation centers he established throughout the world. In 2014, an award-winning documentary about his life and work, AWAKE: The Life of Yogananda, was released in theaters.
In the preface to the book, W. Y. Evans-Wentz, author and translator of many classic works on yoga and the wisdom traditions of the East, writes: “As an eyewitness recountal of the extraordinary lives and powers of modern Hindu saints, the book has an importance both timely and timeless … His unusual life document is certainly one of the most revealing … of the spiritual wealth of India, ever to be published in the West.”
Author Jack Canfield, co-creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul® series, whose own personal journey began by reading AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A YOGI, says, “You would be hard-pressed to find anyone on the spiritual path whose life has not been influenced by this profound work of literature.” In the 300-plus interviews conducted for the book American Veda, author Philip Goldberg found that AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A YOGI “prompted more Americans to explore Indian spirituality than any other text.”
