When she first saw Yogananda’s picture on AOY cover, Nayaswami Devi was just 4 years old, but it made a lasting impression on her. Years later after finishing her college Deviji finally read Autobiography of a Yogi. Nayaswami Devi shares that AOY is a living reality for her. It has been a guiding light for whenever she is faced with … Read More
Paramhansa Yogananda was one of the first to bring meditation and spark a spiritual awakening in the West.
Growing up whenever someone died in our family, it was customary to ask for a sign from God that their soul was at peace. I don’t know if this was an Italian thing, a Catholic thing, or a combination. Surely, we all want to know our loved ones are at peace after passing from this physical world.When my cousin Joanna … Read More
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 least) of lab rats, mental … Read More
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 came back to live in … Read More
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 God—supposedly the home of all … Read More
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 living in the area taking … Read More
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 same,”’ could be a … Read More
I grew up in the Los Angeles region, Pacific Palisades specifically. I wanted to learn to meditate while in college at Lewis & Clark in Portland, Oregon in 1976. I was directed to Ananda as a legitimate place to learn how to meditate. People at Ananda, I was told, meditated as a way of life, fully integrating it into daily … Read More
“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 because they had free brownies. … Read More
