Probably
the majority of people on this planet will never have heard of this great,
enlightened Indian yogi, guru and teacher, Paramahansa Yogananda. It was by
pure accident if I can call it that, when I discovered him and his wonderful
autobiography that changed my thinking right up until the present day. It would
have been back in 1973 - 1974 when I was a drummer in a rock band called Triad.
Of course, we were not professionals - the three of us in the band had
full-time jobs. It was one weekend when we were practicing new songs in a
village hall that our roadie had turned up with this book: Autobiography of a
Yogi. I asked him what it was about and he just said it was the most incredible
book he'd ever read. He handed it to me and I checked the contents page. At
that very moment, something happened. I still cannot put my finger on it;
something away deep down in one's being, one's spirit. Anyway, he lent me the
book and that night, whilst tucked up in bed, I started to read it. I can't remember what time it was but I read the
whole 391 pages.
So the following weekend I went
through to Edinburgh to buy the book from the same bookshop as our roadie. He
gave me directions on how to get to the shop. And there it was, on the shelf,
Autobiography of a Yogi. It cost me £3.25p. Today you can buy it on Amazon for
between £13.00 and £15.00! Back then I reckon I read this book about a dozen
times over an 18-month period. So in the book, Yoganda (born: January 5, 1893 -
died: March 7, 1952) describes his upbringing in India and his encounters with
spiritual figures of both the Eastern and the Western world. The book begins
with his childhood family life and follows to his finding his guru, to becoming
a monk and establishing his teachings of Kriya Yoga meditation. The book
continues in 1920 when Yogananda accepts an invitation to speak in a religious
congress in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. He then travels across America
lecturing and establishing his teachings in Los Angeles, California. In 1935,
he returned to India for a year-long visit. When he returned to America, he
continued to establish his teachings, including writing this book.
The thing that caught my
imagination on first reading it was that he died on March the 7th, 1952 which
was exactly seven days after I was born. Of course, during that time the hippie
era was coming to a close. This was an age when many of us took to smoking
dope, dropping acid (LSD) and practicing meditation. I gave up on the drugs and
began practicing meditation every morning before going out to work. And so my
interest in Hinduism evolved especially the subject of reincarnation. Why was
it that, me a born Christian, suddenly found myself embracing Hinduism?
However, to cut a very long story short, I eventually got involved in Buddhism
from my Hindu studies and became a practicing Buddhist in 1975.
Obviously, I am not going to go
into all the details of the book. You can purchase it online via Amazon, eBay,
etc and I am telling you, you shall be amazed!
So I shall just finish with the
death of this wonderful yogi. As mentioned above he died on the 7th March 1952.
The Mortuary Director of the Forest-Lawn Memorial park, where Yogananda's body
was temporarily placed, gave an account of the body. Here is a part extract of
his account.
"The body of the blessed
master, Paramhansa Yogananda, was laid down on his bed three days after his
passing. The phenomenal state of immutability that manifested itself at
his death appears to be God’s dramatic way of calling mankind’s attention to
the soul-revealing science of yoga. The absence of any visual signs of decay in
the dead body of Paramhansa Yogananda offers the most extraordinary case in our
experience . . . no physical disintegration was visible in Yogananda’s body
even twenty days after death. The body was under daily observation at the
mortuary from March 11, 1952, the day of the last public rites, until March 27,
1952, when the bronze casket was sealed by fire. During this period no
indication of mould was visible on Yogananda’s skin, and no visible desiccation
(drying up) took place in the bodily tissues. This state of perfect
preservation of a body is, so far as we know from mortuary annals, an
unparalleled one."
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