By
W. Y. EVANS-WENTZ, M.A., D.Litt., D. Sc.
Jesus College, Oxford; Author of
The Tibetan Book of the Dead,
Tibet's Great Yogi Milarepa,
Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines, etc.
The
value of Yogananda's Autobiography is greatly enhanced
by the fact that it is one of the few books in English about the
wise men of India which has been written, not by a journalist
or foreigner, but by one of their own race and trainingin short,
a book about yogis by a yogi. As an eyewitness
recountal of the extraordinary lives and powers of modern Hindu
saints, the book has importance both timely and timeless. To its
illustrious author, whom I have had the pleasure of knowing both
in India and America, may every reader render due appreciation
and gratitude. His unusual life-document is certainly one of the
most revealing of the depths of the Hindu mind and heart, and
of the spiritual wealth of India, ever to be published in the
West.
It
has been my privilege to have met one of the sages whose life-history
is herein narratedSri Yukteswar Giri. A likeness of the venerable
saint appeared as part of the frontispiece of my Tibetan Yoga
and Secret Doctrines.1 It was at
Puri, in Orissa, on the Bay of Bengal, that I encountered Sri
Yukteswar. He was then the head of a quiet ashrama near
the seashore there, and was chiefly occupied in the spiritual
training of a group of youthful disciples. He expressed keen interest
in the welfare of the people of the United States and of all the
Americas, and of England, too, and questioned me concerning the
distant activities, particularly those in California, of his chief
disciple, Paramhansa Yogananda, whom he dearly loved, and whom
he had sent, in 1920, as his emissary to the West.
Sri
Yukteswar was of gentle mien and voice, of pleasing presence,
and worthy of the veneration which his followers spontaneously
accorded to him. Every person who knew him, whether of his own
community or not, held him in the highest esteem. I vividly recall
his tall, straight, ascetic figure, garbed in the saffron-colored
garb of one who has renounced worldly quests, as he stood at the
entrance of the hermitage to give me welcome. His hair was long
and somewhat curly, and his face bearded. His body was muscularly
firm, but slender and well-formed, and his step energetic. He
had chosen as his place of earthly abode the holy city of Puri,
whither multitudes of pious Hindus, representative of every province
of India, come daily on pilgrimage to the famed Temple of Jagannath,
"Lord of the World." It was at Puri that Sri Yukteswar
closed his mortal eyes, in 1936, to the scenes of this transitory
state of being and passed on, knowing that his incarnation had
been carried to a triumphant completion.
I
am glad, indeed, to be able to record this testimony to the high
character and holiness of Sri Yukteswar. Content to remain afar
from the multitude, he gave himself unreservedly and in tranquillity
to that ideal life which Paramhansa Yogananda, his disciple, has
now described for the ages.
W.
Y. EVANS-WENTZ
Author's
Acknowledgments
I
am deeply indebted to Miss L. V. Pratt for her long editorial
labors over the manuscript of this book. My thanks are due also
to Miss Ruth Zahn for preparation of the index, to Mr. C. Richard
Wright for permission to use extracts from his Indian travel diary,
and to Dr. W. Y. Evans-Wentz for suggestions and encouragement.
PARAMHANSA
YOGANANDA
October 28, 1945
Encinitas, California
1
Oxford University Press, 1935.
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