It changed my life when I read it at age 25. After that, I just wanted to go to India. I did so a few years later and went for initiation into Kriya Yoga at the Bihar School of Yoga in 1976. After that, back in Australia, I practised Kriya Yoga each morning, and my whole life changed. By 1977, I was back in India and received initiation into the holy order of Sannyasa by Swami Satyananda. I continued to live in India until the end of 1985.
I was not the only one influenced by Kriya Yoga, which Paramahansa Yogananda and others taught. Many of the people who came to live with Swami had also read that book. The practice of Kriya Yoga was different depending on who the initiator was. I learned from one devotee, initiated into Kriya Yoga, that the practice we learned at the Bihar School of Yoga and the one he learnt from a disciple of Paramahansa Yogaland were quite different, though similar in some parts.
Steve Jobs read Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda close to forty times throughout his lifetime. He also gave five hundred copies to guests at the conclusion of his funeral service. (from an internet search)
In 1974, Jobs made a pilgrimage to India with friend Daniel Kottke. “I’d been turned on to the idea of enlightenment and trying to figure out who I was and how I fit into things.” While in India, Haidakhan Babaji, a legendary religious teacher, initiated Jobs and told him he came to Earth to enlighten and advance the planet. Jobs said of the trip, “There was a copy there of Autobiography of a Yogi in English that the previous traveller had left, and I read it several times because there was not a lot to do, and I walked from village to village and recovered from dysentery.” “The people in the Indian countryside don’t use their intellect as we do; they use their intuition instead, and their intuition is far more developed than in the rest of the world. Intuition is a very powerful thing, more powerful than intellect, in my opinion. That had a big impact on my work.”
Autobiography of a Yogi follows Paramahansa Yogananda’s adventures as he seeks enlightenment through the swamis and saints he encounters, his guru Sri Yukteswar, the Immortal Babaji, and Kriya Yoga Science. Throughout the book, magical, mysterious, and miraculous healings occur; his guru appears in multiple places at once; and he resurrects himself from the dead before Yogananda. The book is about realising one’s true soul essence through the consistent, persistent practice of Kriya Yoga. True peace and bliss can be attained in a lifetime. You can be liberated and awaken to higher states of consciousness. Sri Yukteswar stated, “Kriya Yoga is an instrument which human evolution can be quickened.” In Autobiography of a Yogi, Yogananda says, “The goal of Yoga science is to calm the mind, that without distortion it may hear the infallible counsel of the Inner Voice.” “Intuition is soul guidance, appearing naturally in man during those instances when his mind is calm.”
Steve Jobs was a lifelong meditator, seeker, and artist. He made the impossible possible and foresaw the future with such clairvoyance, focus, and determined intensity that no one else in his field possessed. Where Paramahansa Yogananda used all his life force energy to turn others inward and toward self-realisation, Jobs used it to advance human civilisation through technology. Autobiography of a Yogi taught him that everything and anything is possible, and that intuition and soul consciousness lead to peak moments of inspiration and creativity. Yogananda taught him that any human feat can be achieved through spiritual power. The highest form of learning does not come from intellect or rational mind. Steve was greatly aware of this, and it manifests in his products. He broke down old paradigms and belief systems that needed to go. He did this through his work as he remoulded reality. Without The Autobiography of a Yogi, Steve Jobs would not have accomplished everything he did.
