Autobiography of a Yogi

Returning to the theme of Visions, Miracles, Foreknowledge, and Healing, many of the anecdotes in this section specifically emphasize Sri Yukteswar’s ability to predict future events. In Chapter 21, for example, the master buys strawberries and offers one to Mukunda. Mukunda has never tasted a strawberry and finds it too sour; he says he will never like them. Sri Yukteswar contradicts him, saying that at a dinner in America, his hostess will serve them with sugar and cream. She will mash the berries with a fork and Mukunda will say how delicious they are and remember the master’s words. Sure enough, as Yogananda writes in the next paragraph, every little detail of this would later come true at a dinner party Yogananda attended in West Somerville, Massachusetts. Yogananda comments, using florid language that may strike readers as excessive, given the triviality of the prediction, “I was awestruck to realize that long ago his God-tuned mind had detected the program of karmic events wandering in the ether of futurity” (218). The juxtaposition between this minor event and the dramatic language is typical of Yukteswar’s spiritual teaching as Yogananda portrays it. In many places throughout the text, Yukteswar locates the divine in the seemingly most minor and trivial details of lived experience. At times, he seems to do so in direct rebuke to those saints who retreat to high mountain caves to commune with the divine.

Later in the chapter, the ability of the master to know the future receives more serious treatment when Sri Yukteswar knows in advance that he will likely become ill soon and could die. Yogananda uses the incident as a teaching moment to expound on how an advanced yogi can, through his own illness, take away the karma of others. Always looking to promote The Coming Together of East and West, he compares Yukteswar to Jesus, who through his crucifixion took away the sins of the world. Part of Yogananda’s method is to use significant events in his own life or that of another to explain spiritual laws and truths. As such, he dwells on this topic for a while, with other examples, concluding that “only great gurus are able to assume the karma of their disciples” (230).

In Chapter 22, as with the disbelieving Dr. Roy in Chapter 17 and Dijen in Chapter 19, Yogananda features a skeptical or doubting person in order to offset by contrast the wisdom of the guru or, in this case, the superior knowledge of Mukunda and the grace of the Divine Mother. This time the dramatic foil is Satish, Mukunda’s rude and churlish brother-in-law. Foreknowledge plays a role here too, as Mukunda seems to know that lunch will be provided for them. The episode demonstrates that it is possible to rely on God to provide everything, just as Mukunda learned on his trip to Brindaban (Chapter 11). When Satish learns this lesson, he changes his life completely (which is more than the skeptics in the previous chapters do) and embraces the spiritual life.

Chapter 23 continues the running joke about Mukunda’s lazy habits as a student. His nickname of “Mad Monk” actually shows him in quite a flattering light, as if he is inspired by some religious or spiritual vision—which of course he is. Yogananda wants to emphasize that he has always been driven by the desire for spiritual rather than academic knowledge, frequently emphasizing that the former is far superior to the latter. He makes sure to include in the book various gurus who say similar things, which serve to validate his own position. In such a view, his poor performance in college only underscores his authenticity.

Chapter 24 records a major rite of passage as Mukunda becomes a swami and takes the name Yogananda. His path in life is now set—if it had not been before—and he is about to enter his spiritual maturity. He emphasizes the long tradition of swamis that he is about to enter. The chapter also returns to a familiar theme: The Coming Together of East and West in the universality of spiritual knowledge.