05/12/2026
Paramahansa Yogananda, a realized and awoken yogi and highly influential spiritual catalyst. After first arriving in the US in 1920, Yogananda travelled widely lecturing on the nature of divinity. Settling in Los Angeles circa 1925, Yogananda would go on to found the Self-Realization Fellowship. By 1927 he’d achieved such renown he was invited by President Calvin Coolidge to the White House. After publishing numerous books and articles, in 1946 his magnum opus “Autobiography of a Yogi” would debut, going on enrich the lives of millions. That book, infused with consciousness and wisdom. narrates Yogananda’s life’s journey, from birth, thru his boyhood and teenage years, his experience in America, returning to India and then to Encinitas, CA where he would write the book.
Yogananda’s parents were devotees of Lahiri Mahasaya, a Varanasi area guru, who in 1861 purportedly learned Kriya Yoga techniques directly from Mahvatar Babaji (a mythological and magical immortal yogi living in the Himalayas). It was in this lineage Yogananda was raised, encountering many saints and teachers before meeting his guru, Sri Yukteswar.
Yukteswar, a monk, kriya yogi, astronomer, and scholar, founded ashrams and mentored many disciples. (In 1894 Sri Yukteswar also reportedly met Babaji at the Kumbh Mela who then requested he author a book, the subsequent “Holy Science”) It was at Yukteswar’s direction Yogananda was sent to spread Self-Realization and Kriya Yoga to the Western World.
At the Awoken Space we are happy to carry many beautiful editions of “Autobiograpy of a Yogi”, along with other writings by Yogananda, Sri Yukteswar’s “The Holy Science”, along with many other enlightening books on a range of fascinating topics.
Alan Watts said “The value of a book like Yogananda’s is that it challenges the provincialism of the Western mind... it suggests that the universe is not a machine, but a play of consciousness.”