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Paramahansa YoganandaAutobiography of a Yogi
Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1946A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 33-36Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 33 Summary: “Babaji: Yogi-Christ of Modern India”
Babaji was Lahiri Mahasaya’s guru. He is reputed to be immortal, having “retained his physical form for centuries, perhaps for millenniums” (332). There is no historically verifiable reference to him; he does not appear openly, preferring to work in obscurity. Babaji’s birthplace is unknown. He appears as a fair-skinned young man of about 25.
Swami Kebelananda, Yogananda’s Sanskrit teacher, spent time with Babaji and told Yogananda some details about him. Babaji lives with a few disciples in the Himalayas and moves around from time to time, sometimes on foot and sometimes by means of astral travel. He can be recognized by others only when he desires it. Swami Kebelananda relates a miracle Babaji performed. A man asked to be Babaji’s disciple, and Babaji turned down his request, telling him instead to jump off a cliff. The man obeyed, jumping to his death. Babaji then raised the man from the dead and took him on as a disciple because of his faithful obedience.
Ram Gopal Muzumdar, the “sleepless saint,” tells Yogananda about having met Babaji. He also met Mataji, Babaji’s sister, who has lived for centuries. Babaji told his sister he was about to shed his physical form, but Mataji persuaded him not to. He resolved never to leave his physical body. Babaji and Lahiri Mahasaya (who was also present) then levitated and were surrounded by dazzling light.
Chapter 34 Summary: “Materializing a Palace in the Himalayas”
Swami Kebelananda tells Yogananda another story about Babaji that he heard from Lahiri Mahasaya. In the story, Lahiri Mahasaya encounters Babaji in the Himalayas, and Babaji takes him to his cave. An unknown man arrives, and they walk to a golden palace that Babaji has just materialized. In the past, Lahiri Mahasaya expressed a desire to be in a palace. By manifesting it, Babaji enables Lahiri Mahasaya to free himself from his final piece of karma since every wish must eventually be fulfilled.
The palace is made of gold and ornamented with many jewels. Babaji has created it through his power to command the atoms of the material world to arrange themselves in any form he chooses. As Lahiri Mahasaya explores the palace, he discovers Babaji sitting on a throne in a great hall. After initiating Lahiri Mahasaya into Kriya Yoga, Babaji dematerializes the palace since its purpose has been served. More blessings from Babaji follow, and Lahiri Mahasaya remains in bliss for seven days. He wants to remain with Babaji, but the saint tells him that he must return to the world to bring Kriya Yoga to everyone who seeks spiritual advancement.
Before returning to his job, Lahiri Mahasaya stays with a Bengali family in Danapur. He tells the skeptical family about his experiences in the Himalayas. One man says it was just a daydream. Lahiri Mahasaya calls for Babaji, and the guru appears. He stays for a while, and the family is filled with awe, their doubts overcome.
Lahiri Mahasaya also tells Swami Kebelananda that he met Babaji on one other occasion, at the Kumbha Mela festival, in which Babaji imparted a message of humility by washing the feet of a scruffy-looking renunciate.
Chapter 35 Summary: “The Christlike Life of Lahiri Mahasaya”
After Lahiri Mahasaya met Babaji, he returned to his life as a householder, but he could not hide his spiritual mastery, and devotees from all over India began to seek him out. In addition to initiating his devotees into Kriya Yoga, he also created study groups and played a role in the growth of a large high school in Benaras. He led a life balanced between business, social duties, and meditation.
Lahiri Mahasaya taught Kriya Yoga to people of all different faiths. He also tried to overcome the bigotry of the caste system. He would teach anyone from any walk of life or caste. He gave hope to the poor and the outcasts. He did not encourage theoretical discussion of the scriptures, emphasizing direct spiritual experience instead.
As a result of his work over many years, many Kriya Yoga groups sprouted up in Bengal. His teaching spread even though he created no organization and published no books. In 1886, he retired from his government job. Able to devote himself fully to teaching, he accumulated even more disciples.
Chapter 36 Summary: “Babaji’s Interest in the West”
Yogananda recalls learning from his guru Sri Yukteswar about the three occasions on which the guru met Babaji. The first was in 1894 at the Kumbha Mela festival, before he became a swami. The young saint he met named him a swami straightaway. Sri Yukteswar did not know he was Babaji. As they talked, Sri Yukteswar said that Western scientists could benefit by meeting India’s spiritual masters. Babaji replied that East and West must establish a middle path that combines material development and spirituality. He said he would send Sri Yukteswar a disciple whom he could train to spread yoga in the West. (This proved to be Yogananda.)
Sri Yukteswar returned to his guru, Lahiri Mahasaya, who explained, to Sri Yukteswar’s enormous surprise, that the saint he had spoken to was none other than Babaji. Sri Yukteswar passed on a message to Lahiri from Babaji, which said that Lahiri did not have long to live.
Sri Yukteswar next met Babaji near the river Ganges. He departed briefly to fetch some sweetmeats for the guru, but when he returned, Babaji and his disciples were no longer there. Sri Yukteswar was upset that Babaji had left so abruptly.
His final meeting with Babaji occurred several months later, at Lahiri Mahasaya’s house. Babaji knew that Sri Yukteswar was annoyed with him, and he spoke a few kind words that softened Sri Yukteswar’s heart. Sri Yukteswar knelt at the feet of Babaji, who told him he should meditate more. Then Babaji disappeared.
A short while later, Sri Yukteswar told Yogananda, Lahiri Mahasaya died, fulfilling Babaji’s prediction. He appeared to his disciple Swami Keshanananda a day later and said that, in his newly constituted form, he would be with Babaji in the Himalayas. The resurrected Lahiri Mahasaya also appeared to two more disciples, making three in all, in three different cities.
Chapters 33-36 Analysis
Although the book is an autobiography, these four chapters contain little or nothing about Yogananda’s own life and activities. Instead, they describe the lives and work of two of the gurus who form essential links in the line of spiritual masters with whom Yogananda identifies. Yogananda’s willingness to ignore his own biography for long stretches in his book suggests that he regards individuality—the doings of just one individual—as relatively unimportant in the context of the age-old tradition of which he is a part. What counts for Yogananda is the larger picture at any one moment, and in his scheme of things, Babaji, Lahiri Mahasaya, and Sri Yukteswar occupy places of primary importance. They are the forerunners who made Yogananda’s life and work possible. As great spiritual masters, they demonstrate the ultimate truths of life in their own being and actions.
The stories in these chapters are related secondhand. Yogananda did not personally know Lahiri Mahasaya, so he is dependent on what others said about him. The same applies to the stories about Babaji. (Later, Yogananda would meet Babaji in person, as he notes in Chapter 37.) In Chapter 33, Swami Kebelananda tells Yogananda that he spent time with Babaji in the Himalayas. However, when he tells of miracles Babaji performed, he says, “Two amazing incidents of Babaji’s life are known to me” (335). The passive grammatical construction throws a veil over whether Swami Kebelananda witnessed these incidents himself or was told about them by someone else, perhaps Lahiri Mahasaya, whom he names as being present when they happened. If he learned about them from Lahiri Mahasaya, then by the time the story reaches Yogananda, it is thirdhand: from Lahiri Mahasaya, to Swami Kebelananda, to Yogananda.
Each retelling of a story over a period of time allows for some amount of inaccuracy, misrepresentation, and embellishment to creep in. In Chapter 34, Swami Kebelananda tells Yogananda a story about Lahiri’s first meeting with Babaji, which took place in 1861. More than 50 years elapse before Yogananda hears that story.
Going back to Chapter 32, Sri Yukteswar’s stories about Lahiri Mahasaya record events that took place decades earlier. Yogananda tells many of these stories at length, with long paragraphs in quotation marks as if they were the exact words the guru spoke. He even includes dialogue in quotation marks, as if he is exactly repeating conversations that he received secondhand from Sri Yukteswar. The same is true of many other stories about these gurus, including Swami Kebelananda’s story in Chapter 34 of Lahiri Mahasaya’s first meeting with Babaji, Ram Gopal Muzumdar’s story of his meeting with Babaji (Chapter 33), and Sri Yukteswar’s three meetings with Babaji in Chapter 36.
The immortal Babaji, in particular, occupies a liminal space between personal history and fiction. As Yogananda acknowledges, “The great guru has never openly appeared in any century” (334). As the final link in a hierarchical chain of disciples and gurus reaching back through generations, his legend serves to increase the prestige of all those who claim to come after him. In this way, he is similar to the immortal guru of the Perfume Swami—a figure that Yogananda treats as clearly fictional.
