IN 1946, THE GREAT INDIAN MASTER, Paramhansa Yogananda, published his famous Autobiography of a Yogi. His book has sold over a million copies, has been named one of the top 100 spiritual books of the last century, and has become the most widely read spiritual autobiography of all time. Yogananda's story has inspired many millions of readers to seek God and divine joy within themselves.
The New Path: My Life with Paramhansa Yogananda, written by his close disciple, Swami Kriyananda, is a much-needed sequel to Autobiography of a Yogi. It is really the only account ever written by someone who lived with the Master, whom the Master commissioned personally to share with the public his words, teachings, and message.
The reader of Autobiography of a Yogi is likely, after finishing that inspiring book, to wonder what it was like to live with its author.
For Yogananda wrote much less about himself than about the great saints he had met. Though his book is an autobiography, he manages to give the impression that he was only a humble devotee seeking wisdom at the feet of those great saints. The truth is, however, that he was born already fully enlightened, and was wiser than most of the saints about whom he wrote. In his last years he told his disciple Kriyananda, "I went to those saints for guidance, but they kept looking for answers to me!" Such, evidently, was his life-role. It was similar in this respect to that of Arjuna, the already-enlightened soul who played the role of humble seeker of truth from Lord Krishna, in the Bhagavad Gita.
What, the reader is left wondering also, was Yogananda's experience of America? What was his mission to the West? How did he present the ancient yoga science to modern audiences? How did he train his disciples? And finally, a burning question for the reader who has been deeply moved by his life story: What was it like to live with him?
Two or three other disciples of Yogananda have written sweet and uplifting accounts about him. Their books lack the insight, however, born of many years' experience with the public: while de-scribing how Yogananda affected them, personally, they tell little about the vast scope, and omit the countless subtle details of the Master's life and mission. The reader, after finishing those books, is left thinking only, "How lucky the authors were to have known Yogananda!"
In The New Path, Swami Kriyananda addresses the many questions that naturally occur to anyone who has read Yogananda's autobiography. Indeed, this book gives the reader a feeling that he has actually lived with the Master. The New Path tells from the point of view of every disciple what it was like-and what it would have been like for the reader to have lived with the Master. This book shares Yogananda's teachings directly, in the Master's own words. And it serves as a handbook for every truth-seeker, by addressing the common problems everyone faces on the spiritual path. Full of fascinating stories, humor, and insight, The New Path conveys high teachings and deep, but simply stated, truths with illustration after illustration.
As one reader exclaimed, "After reading this book I felt as if I too had lived with Yogananda!"
INCE THE PUBLICATION of The Path over thirty years ago, it has appeared several editions and languages. Recently I reread it, and decided that, after so many years, it could do with revision. And though the same number of years of my own life have passed also, bringing me now to the age of eighty-two, I decided not to bring the reader comparably up to date on my own life. Essentially, indeed, this book was never intended to be an autobiography so much as an account of my life with Paramhansa Yogananda. My basic purpose was to tell about his life from the perspective of a disciple. This would, I felt, fill a much neglected need.
I've written here about the deep humility which caused him, in his autobiography, to relate more about other great saints he had known than about himself. Indeed, the average reader might receive the im-pression from that autobiography that the author himself was not even a master, but simply a devout, earnest spiritual seeker who had had the good fortune to meet all those saints.
What I have done here, then, is complete the story of his life from an objective point of view. In this sense, I might indeed have titled this book A Gospel of Paramhansa Yogananda, were it not for the fact that I have also written other books, containing hundreds more of his sayings.
This book is also, and primarily, a sequel to Yogananda's auto-biography, which, I am told, has become the best-selling spiritual autobiography of all time, and is still, after more than sixty years, among the ten best-selling spiritual books in the world.
WHEN ONE HAS been moved to laughter and tears, deep con templation and joyful insight, as I have been while immersed in The Path, it is hardly possible to find a word or a phrase sufficient to encompass the enriching experience. "Deeply inspiring"-though hardly adequate is the best way I can find to describe it.
Briefly, The Path is a story of one man's search for God through the path of yoga. It tells how American-born Donald Walters be-came universally-born Swami Kriyananda. At the same time, it serves as a practical manual of instruction for others in search of God-realization, no matter what tradition or path they follow. As an exceptionally lucid explanation of yogic philosophy, The Path will also be a valuable resource for those intellectually curious, but not consciously committed to spiritual growth.
The catalyst in Kriyananda's transformation was his guru, the well-known yogi, Paramhansa Yogananda, author of Autobiography of a Yogi. In fact, it is accurate to say that The Path, subtitled "Autobiography of a Western Yogi," is as much about Yogananda as about Kriyananda. For, in truth, the two are one. That is part of the inspirational quality of The Path the selfless devotion to guru which Kriyananda displays throughout the book. At the same time, he makes clear that Yogananda did not want devotion for himself. Rather, he would lovingly redirect his disciples' devotion to God. which Kriyananda displays throughout the book. At the same time, he makes clear that Yogananda did not want devotion for himself. Rather, he would lovingly redirect his disciples' devotion to God.
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