72 pages • 2-hour read
Autobiography of a Yogi
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Chapters 29-32Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 29 Summary: “Rabindranath Tagore and I Compare Schools”
Yogananda tells about the time he visited Rabindranath Tagore in Calcutta, soon after Tagore won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. Two years after founding his school, Tagore invites Yogananda to visit him in Santiniketan to discuss their educational ideals. Yogananda sees many similarities between Tagore’s school and his own. The differences are that Tagore places greater emphasis on the study of literature and poetry and the performance of music and song and does not include instruction in yoga. Tagore listens attentively as Yogananda explains the Yogoda exercises. Tagore talks about his own life, including the fact that he dropped out of school in the fifth grade. His aim in his own school is not to cram students with information from outside sources but to encourage their discovery of the wisdom they hold within themselves.
Chapter 30 Summary: “The Law of Miracles”
Yogananda explains the law of miracles by first supplying some metaphysical background. Humans are normally subject to the dualism of appearances. God is a unity, but creation is made up of duality. This is the nature of maya, or illusion, whereby the One takes on the appearance of many. It is necessary to rise above maya and perceive the unity of God the creator.
Yogananda then discusses modern physics, in which the only constant is the velocity of light, according to Einstein’s formulation. He also mentions Einstein’s search for a unified field theory: “Reducing the cosmical structure to variations on a single law, Einstein has reached across the ages to the rishis who proclaimed a sole fabric of creation: a protean maya” (300). With examples from physics, Yogananda attempts to show that science supports the Eastern perception that there is no stable material universe; he quotes physicist Sir James Dean as saying, “[T]he universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine” (302).
With that in mind, Yogananda states that spiritual masters can dematerialize their bodies and move with the velocity of light. The perfected yogi identifies not with his body but with the universal structure. The miracles he performs are not supernatural at all: They proceed out of the mastery of this structure and operate according to a different kind of law. The yogi is free from identification with matter and can move his body of light freely.
Yogananda concludes by describing two visions he had in which he perceived that creation is like a motion picture and that his physical form is nothing but light.
Chapter 31 Summary: “An Interview With the Sacred Mother”
Yogananda visits Srimati Kashi Moni, the wife of Lahiri Mahasaya. She tells Yogananda that she did not at first recognize her husband’s true status. Then one night, the room was filled with divine light, and Lahiri Mahasaya was levitated in the center of the room, surrounded by angels. From that point on, she regarded him not only as her husband but also as her guru. After that, Lahiri Mahasaya no longer slept in her room. He remained downstairs with his disciples. She felt neglected, but when she challenged him to do more to take care of his wife and children, he told her to seek divine rather than earthly wealth. He also assured her that one of his disciples would provide for her, and she confirms that a disciple left the family a considerable sum of money.
Yogananda relates two miracles that Lahiri Mahasaya performed for a female disciple, Abhoya. In the first, the guru delays the departure of a train so that Abhoya and her husband, who have arrived late, are able to catch it. In the second miracle, Abhoya, who has had eight babies that died soon after birth, asks the guru to ensure that her ninth child lives. Lahiri Mahasaya instructs that a lamp filled with oil must be kept burning at the bedside. But both mother and nurse fall asleep, and the lamp is almost out. Lahiri Mahasaya appears magically at the scene and reminds them to keep the lamp burning. The nurse fills the lamp with oil, and the baby lives.
Yogananda also hears about a friend of Lahiri Mahasaya named Trailanga Swami, who was thought to be over 300 years old. He performed many miracles. He would drink deadly poisons with no ill effect, and for days he would float on the Ganges or remain hidden under the waves for long periods. He seldom ate, but he weighed 300 pounds. He was also completely nude at all times. He was arrested for indecency several times, but a police cell could not hold him. He would be seen strolling on the roof of the building. Yogananda relates that an uncle of his once saw Trailanga Swami in a crowd. He managed to edge forward and touch the guru’s feet, and he was instantly healed of a chronic disease.
Chapter 32 Summary: “Rama Is Raised From the Dead”
Sri Yukteswar tells a story to Yogananda and some of his disciples of how he witnessed a miracle in which his guru Lahiri Mahasaya healed his friend Rama. Rama contracted Asiatic cholera, and the doctors said he was dying. Lahiri Mahasaya said that Rama would be fine, but Rama soon died nonetheless. Sri Yukteswar informed Lahiri Mahasaya of Rama’s death, and the next day, the guru told Sri Yukteswar to put seven drops of castor oil in Rama’s mouth. Rama recovered instantly. Lahiri Mahasaya had allowed Rama to die because Sri Yukteswar did not have enough faith in his assurance that Rama would be well.
Sri Yukteswar then tells Yogananda about Lahiri Mahasaya’s prediction that an account of his life would be written 50 years after his death. Sri Yukteswar tells Yogananda that writing this account will be part of his work. The result is contained in Autobiography of a Yogi, completed 50 years after Lahiri Mahasaya’s death.
Yogananda ends this chapter with a brief outline of Lahiri Mahasaya’s life. Born in 1828, he married at 18, and he and his wife had two sons and two daughters. When he was 23, Lahiri Mahasaya became an accountant in the government’s military engineering department. At the age of 32, he met his guru, Babaji, and was initiated into Kriya Yoga.
Chapters 29-32 Analysis
The meeting with Tagore in Chapter 29 shows that Yogananda had by that time attained some eminence. He was well known and successful, and some of India’s celebrities made their way to his door.
If that chapter dwells on the work of India’s most famous modern poet, the next chapter focuses not on art but on science. Yogananda had an appreciation of both. In Chapter 30, “The Law of Miracles,” he undertakes his most direct attempt to bind science and spirituality together as part of his larger investment in The Coming Together of East and West. The many miraculous occurrences sprinkled throughout the Autobiography of a Yogi are not supernatural at all, he argues—they simply follow natural laws that science has not yet fully perceived. Yogananda draws on recent developments in physics to suggest that the material universe is not as stable as it appears and that this hidden flux is the source of the yogi’s power. The underlying principle of Yogananda’s argument is connected to another theme: Realizing the Nature of the Self. A yogi whose consciousness is stationed at the highest level of human awareness is a part of the unity rather than the illusion of diversity. Within that unified field, he can materialize anywhere and manipulate the most subtle aspect of creation to manifest whatever he desires.
Yogananda often draws parallels between Western science and Vedic knowledge (i.e., derived from the ancient Vedic hymns of India), and he has good reason to do so, especially regarding the field of physics. His near contemporary, the German theoretical physicist Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976), once wrote, “One cannot always distinguish between statements made by Eastern metaphysics based on mystical insight, and the pronouncements of modern physics based on observations, experiments, and mathematical calculations” (quoted in Goldberg, Philip. American Veda: From Emerson and the Beatles to Yoga and Meditation—How Indian Spirituality Changed the West. Harmony Books, 2010, p. 285). Since Yogananda’s time, there has been a torrent of ideas and speculation about the parallels between the new quantum physics and Eastern spirituality. One of the most popular was Fritjof Capra’s The Tao of Physics (Wildwood House, 1975).
The story of Lahiri Mahasaya’s resurrection of Rama emphasizes the theatrical aspect of Visions, Miracles, Foreknowledge, and Healing. Sri Yukteswar says that his guru “allowed Rama to die” because he, the young Sri Yukteswar, did not fully believe him when he said that Rama would recover (325). Thus, Lahiri Mahasaya allows a man to die just to punish his disciple for his lack of belief. The guru then indulges in a piece of resurrection theater when he tells Sri Yukteswar to put seven drops of castor oil into Rama’s mouth. Rama rises from the dead at the seventh drop of oil and says he saw Lahiri Mahasaya in a vision and he told him to arise. Lahiri Mahasaya later admits to his disciple that the castor oil was unnecessary. It did nothing. He had told his disciple to use it because Sri Yukteswar “had expected something material” (325). Yukteswar takes offense—“Guruji, you are ridiculing me,” he says (325)—but here, as elsewhere in the text, ridicule is a powerful pedagogical tool. The underlying lesson seems to be something like the levitating saint’s “Do not mistake the technique for the goal” in Chapter 7 (69). The young Yukteswar, however, will not learn this lesson simply by being told. He must be shown his foolishness before he can overcome it.
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