First published in 1946, the Indian monk’s account of his search for a spiritual teacher introduced generations of readers to Kriya Yoga and the place of meditation in everyday life.
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In 2026, Autobiography of a Yogi marks 80 years since its first publication. By the time the book appeared in 1946, Paramahansa Yogananda had spent more than two decades teaching in the United States. The autobiography took his work beyond the lecture hall. Readers who had never attended one of his talks could follow his journey from a childhood in India to a life spent teaching meditation across cultures.
Born Mukunda Lal Ghosh on January 5, 1893, in Gorakhpur, Yogananda grew up in a Bengali family with close ties to the Kriya Yoga tradition. His parents were disciples of Lahiri Mahasaya, a prominent teacher in that lineage. At 17, Mukunda met Sri Yukteswar Giri and became his disciple. He graduated from Calcutta University in 1915 and took monastic vows that year, receiving the name Yogananda.
From a school in Bengal to lectures across America
In 1917, Yogananda started a small school for boys in Dihika, in present-day West Bengal. The school later moved to Ranchi, where academic subjects were taught alongside yoga and spiritual training. It became the foundation of the Yogoda Satsanga Society of India. The school gave Yogananda an early opportunity to put into practice an idea he would teach throughout his life: spiritual discipline could be learned alongside the skills people needed for their everyday responsibilities.
In 1920, at the age of 27, Yogananda travelled to Boston to address the International Congress of Religious Liberals. He founded Self-Realization Fellowship that year and went on to lecture across the United States. Public talks introduced audiences to his ideas, while classes and written lessons gave students a way to study and practise at home. He spent most of the rest of his life in the United States, returning to India for a visit in 1935–36.
Kriya Yoga was central to his teaching. In the tradition he taught, breath and attention are used in meditation as part of a discipline aimed at direct personal experience of the divine. He urged students to practise regularly and carry that attention into their work, relationships and responsibilities. His talks and writings also sought common ground among religions, an approach that helped him speak to audiences from different faith backgrounds.
The book that carried his story across generations
In Autobiography of a Yogi, readers first meet a young Mukunda, eager to find a teacher and impatient to begin the life he imagines for himself. Yogananda recounts his years of training with Sri Yukteswar, his encounters with spiritual figures and the experiences he understood through his faith. Among the people he writes about is Mahatma Gandhi, whom he met during his return visit to India. These episodes give the book its personal character. Readers see Yogananda learning from others long before he assumes the role of teacher himself.
Yogananda died in Los Angeles on March 7, 1952, six years after the book appeared. The autobiography was translated into dozens of languages and found readers well beyond the organisations he founded. In India, a commemorative postage stamp issued in 2017 marked a century of the Yogoda Satsanga Society of India, recognising a legacy that began with the school in Dihika.
The two institutions Yogananda founded continue to teach meditation and publish his work. His autobiography offers a more personal route into the same subject. Much of it follows a young man learning to sit still, accept guidance and bring what he learns back into ordinary life. Eight decades after the book first appeared, that part of his story remains familiar to anyone trying to make room for reflection in a busy day.
