Autobiography of a Yogi is an autobiography of Paramahansa Yogananda. This book has got some very good reviews and even promoted by Steve Jobs, Virat Kohli, and others and hence I was quite excited when I picked up this book. I expected that this book will take me on a spiritual journey and it will change my life. But nothing like that happened. Truly speaking I am very disappointed by this book.
This is quite a lengthy book, more than 500 pages. After reading only 100 pages, I was sure that this book is not for me. It is filled with stories of babas and swamis performing miracles, levitating in the air, appearing and disappearing out of nowhere, living without food, producing food, places, and other riches out of thin air, healing people, seeing the future, and then finally the most unbelievable of all, resurrecting people from death. But since I have started the book, I have to finish it. Being a book lover, I feel it is a sin to leave a book in the middle. So, I went through all the 500 pages, and here is my experience and review.
Even though the book seemed like a fantasy book at times, there are times where the book has given a lot of deep spiritual messages. But alas for me it was lost in the conundrum of magic and miracles. I know this book will appeal to a certain kind of audience and I think that is the problem I have with this book. I accept my ignorance that there might be things about which I don’t know and since I haven’t seen it myself I choose not to believe it. But some people choose to believe in it without even questioning it in the name of faith. And I believe that is the cause of a lot of inaction and passivity in today’s world.
The one thing that I liked about this book is that it is not a book promoting Hindu propaganda. The gurus or swamis in the book spread the idea that all the religion is basically same and following a monotheistic way of all religions by taking the best teaching of all is what I liked the most. And hence for this reason only I am giving this book 2 and a half stars.
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