Articles on Blog Type: Explore AY
Like so many in my generation of the 1960s, I wanted to unravel one of humanity’s deepest questions: What is the purpose of life? I studied psychology, hoping to find something that would show me the far horizon of human potential. My studies in college were a dry hole, a barren landscape (for me, at…
Worshipping Our Mistakes In the early days of Paramhansa Yogananda’s work in Los Angeles, a small group of disciples lived with him at his Mount Washington ashram. Despite this blessing, one young woman was drawn to leave the ashram and marry. After a few years, she realized marriage was not what she wanted, and she…
Birth of a Spiritual Scientist By Nayaswami Gyandev Autobiography of a Yogi shocked me — in the best possible way. Many years ago, I rejected the God that my Christian upbringing had taught: as Paramhansa Yogananda’s guru put it so amusingly, “a venerable Personage, adorning a throne in some antiseptic corner of the cosmos.” And why would…
In 1977 I was living in southern California in the town of Leucadia, right next to Encinitas, where Paramhansa Yogananda had his seaside hermitage Though I had been looking for a spiritual path to follow I knew nothing of Swamis, or Yogananda or Eastern religions. I take no credit whatsoever for what ensued! I was…
Are the teachings of our major religions really different — Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam? In focusing too narrowly on the details are we missing the point? Many paths lead to one truth is central to the teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda, an Indian Saint who came to American in 1920. Today, saying `We’re all one; it’s all…
“The Gauntlet” was a stretch of sidewalk at my college campus lined with booths preaching the world’s religions. Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and Jews advertised. Interspersed between them, if eternal salvation wasn’t enough, one could get good deals on gym memberships and credit cards too! I spent most of my time at the Mormon booth…
Joseph Cornell, author of the bestselling Sharing Nature books and founder of the worldwide Sharing Nature foundation was deeply influenced by Yogananda and the Autobiography of a Yogi.