About the Author:
Hailed as "the father of Yoga in the West", Paramahansa Yogananda - author of the spiritual classic Autobiography of a Yogi - is regarded as one of the great spiritual figures of our time. Born in India on January 5, 1893, he devoted his life to helping people of all races and creeds to realize and express more fully in their lives the true beauty, nobility, and divinity of the human spirit. After graduating from Calcutta University in 1915, Yogananda took formal vows as a monk of India's venerable monastic Swami Order. Two years later, he began his life's work with the founding of a how-to-live school since grown to twenty-one educational institutions throughout India where traditional academic subjects were offered together with yoga training and instruction in spiritual ideals. In 1920, he was invited to serve as India's delegate to an International Congress of Religious Liberals in Boston. His address to the Congress and subsequent lectures on the East Coast were enthusiastically received, and in 1924 he embarked on a cross-continental speaking tour. Over the next three decades, Paramahansa Yogananda contributed in far-reaching ways to a greater awareness and appreciation in the West of the spiritual wisdom of the East. In Los Angeles, he established an international headquarters for Self-Realization Fellowship, the nonsectarian religious society he had founded in 1920. Through his writings, extensive lecture tours, and the creation of Self-Realization Fellowship temples and meditation centers, he introduced hundreds of thousands of truth-seekers to the ancient science and philosophy of Yoga and its universally applicable methods of meditation. Today, the spiritual and humanitarian work begun by Paramahansa Yogananda continues under the direction of Sri Daya Mata, one of his earliest and closest disciples and president of Self-Realization Fellowship/Yogoda Satsanga Society of India since 1955. In addition to publishing his writings, lectures and informal talks (including a comprehensive series of Self-Realization Fellowship Lessons for home study), the society also oversees temples, retreats, and centers around the world.
Review:
This is one of my all-time favorite books. Paramhansa Yogananda, who wrote the classic Autobiography of a Yogi, shares his inspiring poem-prayers as well as giving us advice about how to pray. Instead of begging, he says, we need to demand and explains why this is so. By following his advice, we can reach new heights in our understanding of God-Spirit as well as in our relationship to divinity.
There are prayers for everything from greeting the dawn and starting our day to prayers for wisdom, prosperity, balance, health, and relationships. This edition has been edited by one of Yogananda's disciples, Nayaswami Kriyananda, so that the words flow a bit better while still remaining true to the content of the original 1949 edition.
If you've been looking for a prayer book or one that might inspire you to higher thoughts, feelings, and actions, this is the one for you. It was written for people of all religions and beliefs and is dedicated to the "soul-temples of Christians, Moslems, Buddhists, Hebrews, Hindus, and others...." This is a book for everyone, including you.
–Krysta Gibson, New Spirit Journal; September, 2011
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