Primerna autobiography of a yogi

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Paramahansaji had great respect for her knowledge and for her editorial abilities, and often praised her publicly.

Because of his family connections with royalty and others of influence, after the Communist takeover of his native land at the end of World War II he was forced to flee. Even so, in the depths of my consciousness I knew it to be true, that I had missed the most important person in my existence.

From that moment on my well-ordered, rather glamorous life no longer suited me.

Finally Mrs. Glanzmann wrote words to the effect: “Say you like it or say you don’t; but say something!” In a pensive mood — it happened to be his birthday, March 6, and he was pondering what to do with his life — he picked up the book and started to read.

Spellbound, he finished the entire book in one sitting. When people need ‘regrooving,’ I say read this, because it cuts to the heart of every religion.”
— George Harrison

“You would be hard-pressed to find anyone on the spiritual path whose life has not been influenced by this profound work of literature.

I was told that no one of that name was registered at the hotel, although the Indian Ambassador and his retinue were currently in residence. Neither easy nor difficult to read. It will be my messenger when I am gone.”

When the manuscript was finished, Tara Mata went to New York to find a publisher for it. It started me in a path of yoga, meditation, and self-exploration that has continued until this day.”
— Jack Canfield,
co-creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul® series

“Autobiography of a Yogi is regarded as an Upanishad of the new age....It has satisfied the spiritual thirst of hundreds of thousands of truth-seekers throughout the world.

After each part was typed, he would give it to Tara Mata, who served as his editor.

“What treasured memories! He inscribed my copy, as he did for many of the other devotees who were here in the ashrams. I remember thinking that this book will play a major role in promoting interest in Paramahansaji’s teachings. Frank Lloyd Wright too had written an autobiography, but I had tried in vain to read the first couple of pages.

In 1925, Yogananda established the headquarters of his organization, the Self-Realization Fellowship, on Mount Washington in Los Angeles. I was so fascinated that I didn’t even notice that this in itself was a miracle — I didn’t know enough English to read a book in that language. Once when I was in his study attending to some secretarial duties, I was privileged to see one of the first chapters he wrote — it was on ‘The Tiger Swami.’ He asked me to save it, and explained that it would be going into a book he was writing.

He held her editorial abilities in highest esteem, and used to say that she had one of the most brilliant minds of anyone he had ever met. Some further revisions made by him after the third edition could not be incorporated until the publication of the seventh edition, which was released in 1956.

The following Publisher’s Note was printed in the seventh edition of Autobiography of a Yogi, giving the history of the author’s wishes for the book:

“This 1956 American edition contains revisions made by Paramahansa Yogananda in 1949 for the London, England, edition; and additional revisions made by the author in 1951.