PD Revelation

I find reading Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramhansa Yogananda to be a nice complement to the JWH protocol. I believe it was in Janice's writings that I learned about the book. I suppose I hadn't heard of it before that because I just wasn't hanging out in spiritual circles. There it is considered a classic. Prior to beginning the protocol my spiritual interets did not go far outside a select few writers, most notably Albert Camus. Camus wrote some marvelous pieces emphasizing the awe and wonder to be found in nature and immediate, everyday experience. (Try his essay “Nuptials at Tipasa,” found in this collection.)

That served me well for years, but I quickly learned that the spiritual elements that can assist in recovery from PD necessarily venture to places an emphasis on the immediately tangible does not as easily lead. If nothing else, developing a conversational relationship with the “other,” with an “invisible friend” requires a looking inward with the imagination that ideally develops in such directions as faith, belief, and trust in someone or something you can't reach out and touch.

I found fascinating in JWH's writings the mix of spiritual ideas, particularly those derived from Indian yogic disciplines. When I realized she'd been influenced by Yogananda, I had to look further! It turns out Autobiography of a Yogi is tremendous fun to read! Every few pages Yogananda describes some amazing experience or event that, for most of us, would probably be hard to believe. Yet here is this fellow, clearly rational and educated, seemingly of great integrity, reporting these events initiated by various yogis, swamis, and saints, one after another.

That makes the book a great tool for practicing suspending skepticism, an ability I believe to have some value in pursuing the JWH protocol. To quote Babaji, perhaps the most amazing of all yogis:

Truth is for earnest seekers, not for those of idle curiosity. It is easy to believe when one sees; there is nothing then to deny. Supersensual truth is deserved and discovered by those who overcome their natural materialistic skepticism (p. 308 in the 2011 reprint of the 1946 first edition of Autobiography of a Yogi).

From what I've read in some reviews, the reprint of the 1946 first edition of the book (blue cover) may be the edition to get as some of the newer editions may have lost something in editing. But I really don't know.

Yogananda was part of a lineage of yogis practicing a set of techniques called Kriya Yoga. After I recover from PD I may very well seek out some training in Kriya Yoga, for it appears to be a most efficient way of advancing one's spiritual growth. And I will have my journey with PD to thank for sparking my interest in such additional growth!

Here's the trailer for a documentary about Yogananda: