72 pages • 2 hours read
Paramahansa YoganandaAutobiography of a Yogi
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1946A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 41-44Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 41 Summary: “An Idyll in South India”
In November 1935, Yogananda and his secretary spend a month in Mysore state, in southern India. Yogananda gives lectures, some of which attract audiences of several thousand. Yogananda enjoys visiting ancient archeological sites and learning about the history of Hyderabad. He also learns about the history of Mysore State, visiting an 11th-century temple at Belur. Yogananda discusses Alexander the Great’s unsuccessful invasion of India, which began in 327 BC. Alexander expressed great interest in Hindu philosophy and Hindu holy men. Yogananda quotes some favorable opinions of Hindu society written by ancient Greek historians, who praised the freedom Indians enjoyed and noted that healing was accomplished in simple, natural ways. Yogananda also notes the numerous religious shrines in Mysore. Continuing their travels, he and Wright stop at a shrine that memorializes Sadasiva Brahman, who lived in the 18th century and performed many miracles. Finally, the travelers make a pilgrimage to meet Sri Ramana Maharishi, a great sage, at his ashram near Tiruvannamalai.
Chapter 42 Summary: “Last Days With My Guru”
In Calcutta, Yogananda speaks to a large audience and also gives a talk to alumni of Serampore College. At a winter solstice festival at the Serampore hermitage, Sri Yukteswar’s followers come from far and wide. The 80-year-old Sri Yukteswar confides in Yogananda that he does not have long to live and that Yogananda must take charge of their ashram in Puri.
Yogananda attends the Kumbha Mela festival in January 1936. He and his party visit various saints and gurus, including Swami Krishananda, who keeps a tame lioness that eats only rice and milk.
After the festival, they travel northwest to Agra, where they see the Taj Mahal. Then they go to the ashram of Swami Keshabanda in Brindaban. The swami knows that Yogananda will be visiting him, and he has a message for him from Babaji. Babaji says that although he will not see Yogananda this time (at the Kumbha Mela), he will see him on some other occasion.
Yogananda and his party return to Calcutta. They learn that Sri Yukteswar is 300 miles away in Puri. A telegram arrives summoning them urgently to Puri, and Yogananda prays that his master be allowed to live. When he arrives at Puri, a man tells him that Sri Yukteswar has died. After Yogananda conducts the funeral rites, he returns to Calcutta. He fills his life with activity as he tries to come to terms with his loss.
Chapter 43 Summary: “The Resurrection of Sri Yukteswar”
Several months later, in June 1936, Yogananda is in a hotel room in Bombay when he has a vision of Sri Yukteswar, who appears in flesh-and-blood form. He says he has created a new body for himself, and he is resurrected—not on earth but on an astral planet called Hiranyloka, where all the inhabitants are highly developed spiritually. Sri Yukteswar explains that the astral universe consists of “subtle vibrations of light and color [and] is hundreds of times larger than the material cosmos” (459). The astral world is “beautiful, clean, pure, and orderly” (459); it exhibits harmony and equality, although there are also dark astral realms, where evil spirits dwell. A person’s astral body is the counterpart of the last physical form that the soul inhabited, although it resembles that person in his or her youth. Astral beings communicate telepathically with each other. They also meet family and friends from many different lifetimes on earth. Their lifespan is longer than on earth. The soul will only become completely free, however, when it evolves beyond the astral world and a higher, causal world (the latter is a subtle world of ideas in which thought can manifest objective reality simply as a form of consciousness). Then the soul will become one with “Omnipresent Life” without losing its individuality (468). Many of the beings in the astral world, however, will be required to reincarnate on earth many times until their karma is resolved.
Over the course of two hours, the resurrected Sri Yukteswar supplies Yogananda with many more details of the destiny of the soul after the death of the physical body, and Yogananda is joyful at gaining so much new knowledge. Eventually, the guru melts away, but not before telling his disciple that if he calls on him, he will come to him again. Yogananda finds that the grief he felt at his master’s passing has now left him.
Chapter 44 Summary: “With Mahatma Gandhi at Wardha”
Yogananda and his small party visit Mahatma Gandhi at his ashram in August 1935. It is Gandhi’s day of silence, and he welcomes them with a written note. At 8 o’clock, he comes out of silence. He questions Yogananda about America and Europe, and they discuss India and world affairs.
The following afternoon, Yogananda visits Gandhi’s ashram for little girls. When he returns to Gandhi’s ashram, he observes how simple the man’s life is, devoid of material trappings. He reviews what he knows about Gandhi’s life, such as how he renounced possessions early in his married life and gave his money to the poor.
Yogananda asks Gandhi for his definition of nonviolence, and the Mahatma replies, “The avoidance of harm to any living creature in thought or deed” (486). Yogananda instructs Gandhi and others at the ashram in Kriya Yoga. On his final evening in Wardha, Yogananda addresses a meeting of 400 people at the town hall.
Reflecting 10 years later on Gandhi, Yogananda writes that his method of nonviolence has proved to be extremely effective. He observes that force, including two world wars, has not solved human problems. He calls for all nations to align themselves with life rather than death and destruction.
Chapters 41-44 Analysis
Chapter 41 takes the form of a travelogue, including a number of amusing stories before more weighty matters come up in Chapter 42. At the Kumbha Mela festival, the swami who keeps a tame lioness recalls the episode of the Tiger Swami in Chapter 6. The lioness, having “succumbed to the monk’s spiritual charm” (444), eats only rice and milk. The swami has also taught this lioness to utter Aum, a sacred syllable (it’s the vibration that leads to creation), “in a deep, attractive growl” (444). Yogananda does not spend much time on this episode, but he appears to treat it as genuine evidence of the universality of the cosmic self, which extends even beyond the boundaries of the human. The implication is that unlike the Tiger Swami, who merely manipulated his animals for the amusement of audiences, the swami in Chapter 41 has led this animal toward genuine spiritual understanding. This brief anecdote demonstrates an important aspect of the theme of Visions, Miracles, Foreknowledge, and Healing. As elsewhere in the book, the value of a miracle for Yogananda lies in its purpose. True miracles are done for the benefit of others, not merely to show off the power of the guru or swami.
Chapter 42 is shadowed by the death of Sri Yukteswar, but the guru’s resurrection follows swiftly in Chapter 43. This is the sixth, and last, resurrection alluded to in the book, including that of Christ. Taken together, these resurrections emphasize the power of spiritual enlightenment to defeat death itself and thus constitute a powerful argument for Yogananda’s teaching.
Yogananda was a spiritual rather than political leader, and he makes almost no comment in his book about politics despite the fact that India was engaged in a struggle to achieve its independence from Great Britain as he wrote. Mahatma Gandhi was a central figure in that struggle, and in Chapter 44 Yogananda comes as close as he ever will in the book to political issues. He does so in a general way, endorsing Gandhi’s doctrine of nonviolence as a solution to the devastation caused by attempts to solve political problems through violent means. He briefly mentions the two world wars and states that the “use of jungle logic instead of human reason in settling disputes will restore the earth to a jungle” (491).
