Autobiography of a Yogi-Paramhansa Yogananda
I struggled and stopped reading this book after a few pages a few years back when I picked it. It seemed too dramatic. This book has been a personal favorite of Steve Jobs and many of my close friends (for records, Steve Jobs was not my friend). The writer (apparently a well known guru in India from the early 1900’s) writes passionately about his journey as a spiritual seeker, teacher and then propagator of his faith “Ananda” to the masses. Magical godly manifestations in the writer’s life didn’t make any sense to me. I have always been dismissive of people who believed in physical space altering realities. I dismissed it as yet another book on pseudo spirituality. Fast forward a few years, it could be the effect of growing old or opening up to the idea of diverse experiential journeys, I picked it up again this year and surprisingly enjoyed reading it this time.
Many people are wired to feel more and be more flowy in their day to day. These people tend to hyperbole and express using a lot of adjectives. This set of people also tend to alter their reality and imagine what they want it to be. For many others, the mind has a stronger grip on their personality. They typically tend to understate what they experience. This writer (or guru) definitely falls in the former category. He was a modern style guru with vivid imagination, spoke in English, bridged the gap between East and West and talked about his deep spiritual experiences almost to the point of imagining things. While reading it almost felt as if he wrote this book after getting high from deep trance meditative states. To feel high in life, you can go smoke up, get exposed to emotions that can stir you. Or you can pursue a more challenging path of discipline and devotion. You can still get high. This book captures that. It does give the spectrum of what can be experienced in the spiritual space. A paradigm shift on what possible experiences you can have if you close your eyes and go deep in yourself. In that sense this book fulfills its purpose.
In recent years, I have personally dabbled more in understanding the spiritual space. The diversity with which people around the world have approached this topic in the past and as well as present fascinates me. Now I am less dismissive of the possibilities that these people highlight. Even though I still don't believe in magical appearances of people and objects in the physical world, I do think anything is possible when it comes to mind thoughts and bodily experiences. Most of these people who spend their lifetime in this space tend to convey their thoughts and ideas in a slightly different language. The understanding of this language and ideas commands more merit than understanding the lack of scientific explanation for some for the things they say.
As the world evolves from a traditional religious space and moves into a space where you see more and more gurus propping up, it’s even more confusing to attach significance around a guru or a spiritual leader. What makes a spiritual leader truly spiritual vs just an entertainer or a self motivated narcissistic idea propagator? Is spirituality not truly personal? Is true spirituality not a pursuit of going deeper into self or the metaphysical realm away from any glamour, material footprint or identity in this familial world? Is it not a lifelong (or even eternal) lonely yet fulfilling journey of a one to one dialog with the self? If a person or in modern times that famous “Guru” moves in the public domain and starts propagating his/ her philosophy to the outside world, does that person not move away from the very idea of spirituality as true spirituality is purely about practicing with self vs preaching to others? I bet there have been many people in this world that no one will ever know about as these individuals may have spent their whole life in isolation in pursuit of true spirituality. Amongst the rest, who have dabbled in this domain, most seem to be just mediocre propagators of ideas of spirituality, fulfilling their own egoistic needs making it entertaining and worldly for mass consumption.
