In 1975, while traveling by bus to India and Nepal, I got a postcard along the way from a friend about a dream she had about me finding "Autobiography of a Yogi" on a table in a house full of books. Two months later, the dream came true down to the last detail when I visited a friend in Nepal. The friend in Nepal said the book had just come in the mail with no return address. The one who had the dream never heard of Yogananda before. How is this possible & is there a possible meaning for me?
—Tom Stimson, USA
What we think of as ‘miraculous’ today will likely be seen as ‘normal’ in a few hundred years — much like the technologies, and even the intelligence of people today, would seem miraculous to people living 300 hundred years ago.
A much deeper explanation of certain experiences that seem miraculous or strange is given in the Autobiography of a Yogi, particularly the following chapters:
As far as its meaning for you, it is certainly a gift you’ve been given. Someone took enough interest in you to give one friend a dream about you, and another friend the book to give to you!
Many people see the Autobiography of a Yogi as a beautiful, inspiring, spiritual adventure story. It is surely that, but it is so much more. There are deep teachings on every page, and when you ‘read between the lines’, you’ll find that the entire book is a call to discipleship and to the practice of meditation and Kriya Yoga.
A friend of mine half-jokingly likes to say, “Every time I read that book, a miracle happens. I don’t know how Yogananda does it, but he inserts new things in there that I know weren’t in there the last time I read it!”
Read the book again, and maybe you’ll find what the giver of that gift was trying to tell you.
