158 Biography of a YogiWright’s travel diary, Yogananda himself acknowledges that he received much
editorial assistance in producing the final published work. However, since
Yogananda’s death the Autobiography has undergone further revisions, which
it is doubtful that Yogananda himself either made or approved. The book was
first published in 1946 by The Philosophical Library and went through four
editions before the rights to the text were acquired by the SRF in 1953. The
third edition, released in 1951, includes several revisions, the most notable of
which is an extra chapter that accounts for the final decade of Yogananda’s
life, aptly titled “The Years 1940– 1951.”^5 This may in fact be the definitive
edition of the Autobiography. It is the most complete account published dur-
ing Yogananda’s lifetime and it is almost certain that he himself would have
approved any changes made therein.
However, beginning with the fifth edition in 1954, several editorial changes
have been made to the images and text of the book.^6 The SRF acquired the pub-
lishing rights to the Autobiography and has been responsible for the printing of the
book since this time. Photos have been deleted, added, and modified (for exam-
ple, Lahiri Mahasaya appears robed, whereas in prior editions he had appeared
bare- chested). Most of the changes are minor and probably innocuous. Others,
however, appear to be more ideologically charged. For instance, the initial edi-
tions mention that during the opening ceremonies at the Los Angeles Lake Shrine
in 1951, “the audience then witnessed a remarkable demonstration of SRF boys of
scientific asanas (postures) for health of body and mind.”^7 However, this mention
of postural practice is omitted from the text beginning with the sixth edition, and
one cannot help but think that this may have much to do with the SRF’s reluc-
tance to acknowledge or propagate the postural element of Yogananda’s lineage.^8
The seventh edition in 1956 brings a major overhaul with minor changes applied
to nearly every page, nominally justifying most of these by citing edits that were
made by Yogananda prior to his death but were not previously incorporated due
to the expense of typesetting.
The most troubling changes include modified wording that seems to
explicitly depart from Yogananda’s original text. Mentions of Yogananda’s
goal to establish World- brotherhood Colonies are removed,^9 many mentions
of the SRF are added, and the position and status of the householder Yogi is
diminished.^10 At the same time, I was dismayed to find that one of my favor-
ite quotes— “the law of miracles is operable by any man who has realized that
the essence of creation is light”^11 — is nowhere to be found in the original edi-
tions. The changes are too numerous to effectively catalog here (especially when
one takes into account the fact that some of the original edits have been edited
numerous times since), and such a project is perhaps not directly relevant to
the present study. Suffice it to say that the Autobiography has remained a living