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On 19 September 1920 a 27-year-old Bengali monk landed in Boston, sent as India’s delegate to an International Congress of Religious Liberals; two weeks later he gave his first speech in America, on “The Science of Religion”. He stayed for more than thirty years, built a headquarters on Mount Washington in Los Angeles, and in 1946 published Autobiography of a Yogi, the book Steve Jobs had handed out at his memorial. In his lifetime Yogananda published a handful of slim books of poems, prayers and lectures; most of what carries his name today was compiled after his death in 1952 by Self-Realization Fellowship, the organisation he founded, from talks his disciples took down in shorthand. This guide covers every major book in order, separates the books he saw into print from the posthumous compilations, and says where to start.
By Lisanne Swart · 13 key books · 1923–2025 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
This guide lists 13 key books by Paramahansa Yogananda, from Songs of the Soul (1923) to Solving the Mystery of Life (2025), plus 9 more shorter titles. Five of the key books appeared in his lifetime, Autobiography of a Yogi (1946) among them; the other eight were edited and published by Self-Realization Fellowship between 1975 and 2025. Knowing which is which explains why the same book can read differently from one edition to the next.
Where to Start with Paramahansa Yogananda
If you read only one book
→ Autobiography of a Yogi (1946).
If you want short prayers to read before meditating
→ Whispers from Eternity (1929).
If you want his talks to ordinary American audiences
→ Man’s Eternal Quest (1975).
If you want his reading of the Gospels without 1,700 pages
→ The Yoga of Jesus (2007).
If you want his newest book
→ Solving the Mystery of Life (2025).
13 Key Paramahansa Yogananda Books, in Order
Songs of the Soul
His first book of poems, printed in Boston in 1923 by Sat Sanga, three years after he came to America. The poems are addressed to God, to nature and to his teachers, written in the devotional register he would later use for prayers and chants. Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) still keeps it in print.
The Science of Religion
An expanded version of his first speech in America, given in October 1920 at the International Congress of Religious Liberals in Boston, a little more than two weeks after he landed on 19 September. It argues that all religions share one aim, the direct experience of God, and sets out a case for meditation as the method. SRF says only that the book was first published “in the 1920s”; independent bibliographies date the book edition to 1924.
Whispers from Eternity
Prayers and prose poems, first published in Los Angeles in 1929 by Yogoda and Sat-Sanga, the name of his work in America before it became Self-Realization Fellowship. The book collects what its 1929 edition called “universal scientific prayers and poems”, addressed directly to God. The eighth edition of 1959, edited after his death by his long-time editor Tara Mata, was substantially revised; critics of SRF say almost every sentence was changed, which is why both the 1929 text and the SRF text circulate today.
Metaphysical Meditations
A book of short meditations, prayers and affirmations, first published in 1932, between Whispers from Eternity and the Autobiography. The pieces are meant to be read slowly before or during meditation rather than read through. SRF and its Indian sister society, Yogoda Satsanga Society of India (YSS), still publish it.
Autobiography of a Yogi
Published in December 1946 by the Philosophical Library in New York, 498 pages long, dedicated to the plant breeder Luther Burbank and with a preface by the Tibet scholar W. Y. Evans-Wentz. It follows him from a childhood in Gorakhpur through ten years with his guru Sri Yukteswar to America, with chapters on meetings with Rabindranath Tagore, the stigmatic Therese Neumann and Mahatma Gandhi at Wardha, and on Kriya Yoga. SRF bought the rights in October 1953 and has published it in more than fifty languages; in 1999 a HarperCollins panel named it one of the 100 most important spiritual books of the twentieth century.
Another Indian teacher who brought meditation to the West: Maharishi Mahesh Yogi →
Man’s Eternal Quest
The first of SRF’s four volumes of his “collected talks and essays”, published 23 years after his death. The talks were given in America between the 1920s and his death, many of them at SRF temples and at the Mount Washington headquarters in Los Angeles, and first printed in the society’s magazine. Each chapter is a single talk, edited from notes his disciples took down as he spoke.
The Divine Romance
Volume II of the collected talks and essays, published in 1986. Like the first volume it is drawn from lectures and from articles in SRF’s magazine, edited by the monastic disciples who had taken them down; it appeared eleven years after the first volume.
Wine of the Mystic
His reading of Edward FitzGerald’s 1859 English version of the Rubaiyat, quatrain by quatrain, as an allegory of the soul’s search for God rather than a poem about wine. He began it in the early 1930s; Daya Mata took the dictation and Mrinalini Mata edited it. SRF commissioned 51 paintings for it, a project that took nineteen years, and launched the book at the American Booksellers Association convention in Los Angeles in 1994.
God Talks with Arjuna
A verse-by-verse translation of the Bhagavad Gita with his commentary, in two volumes. The commentary began appearing in his magazine in 1932; in 1948 he started revising it into a book with his editor Tara Mata and finished a first draft in 1950. It had not appeared when he died in 1952, and SRF published it only in 1995, after Mrinalini Mata completed the editing.
Journey to Self-Realization
Volume III of the collected talks and essays, published in 1997. It gathers more of the lectures and magazine articles from his years in America. It was the last volume of the series for 28 years, until Solving the Mystery of Life in 2025.
The Second Coming of Christ
A commentary on the four Gospels, read as a yogi’s account of Jesus’ teaching: two volumes, 75 chapters and about 1,700 pages. It began as talks taken down in shorthand by Daya Mata and as a series of articles under the same title in his magazine, East-West and later Inner Culture. Mrinalini Mata compiled and edited the material; SRF published it in 2004, more than fifty years after his death.
The Yoga of Jesus
A 147-page selection from The Second Coming of Christ, published by SRF on 30 September 2007. It cuts the two-volume commentary to less than a tenth of its length, in a form that can be read in a few evenings. It went into a second printing within months of publication.
Solving the Mystery of Life
Volume IV of the collected talks and essays, about 400 pages, released by SRF in June 2025, 28 years after volume III. Most of the talks were given at SRF temples and the Los Angeles headquarters and first printed in the magazine he founded in 1925. It was the first major new Yogananda title from SRF since The Second Coming of Christ in 2004.
How Many Books Has Paramahansa Yogananda Written?
There is no single count. Yogananda published only a few books himself; most titles under his name were compiled after 1952 by Self-Realization Fellowship from talks, magazine articles and unfinished manuscripts, and SRF and its Indian sister society YSS also issue many small booklets drawn from the same material.
- Published in his lifetime — Songs of the Soul, The Science of Religion, Whispers from Eternity, Metaphysical Meditations, Autobiography of a Yogi Read the entries →
- Collected talks and essays (four volumes) — Man’s Eternal Quest, The Divine Romance, Journey to Self-Realization, Solving the Mystery of Life Read the entries →
- Scripture commentaries — Wine of the Mystic, God Talks with Arjuna, The Second Coming of Christ Read the entries →
- Abridgements — The Yoga of Jesus, The Yoga of the Bhagavad Gita Read the entries →
- Shorter books and booklets — Scientific Healing Affirmations, Cosmic Chants, The Law of Success and more See the list →
In What Order to Read Paramahansa Yogananda
There is no series to follow, but the books fall into clear groups. Autobiography of a Yogi comes first because it introduces the people the other books keep returning to: Sri Yukteswar, Lahiri Mahasaya, Babaji and the practice of Kriya Yoga. The four volumes of collected talks, from Man’s Eternal Quest (1975) to Solving the Mystery of Life (2025), can be read in any order; each is a separate selection of lectures.
The two long commentaries belong together: God Talks with Arjuna on the Bhagavad Gita and The Second Coming of Christ on the Gospels were written in parallel over the same decades and make the same argument from two scriptures. Each has a short abridgement, The Yoga of the Bhagavad Gita and The Yoga of Jesus, which are the easier way in. Whispers from Eternity and Metaphysical Meditations are for using rather than reading through.
A reading path
1. Autobiography of a Yogi (1946), the life, the teachers and Kriya Yoga
2. Metaphysical Meditations (1932), short enough to use daily
3. Man’s Eternal Quest (1975), his talks, as Americans heard them
4. The Yoga of Jesus (2007), or The Yoga of the Bhagavad Gita
5. God Talks with Arjuna (1995), the full Gita commentary
6. The Second Coming of Christ (2004)
Everything Else Paramahansa Yogananda Published: The Full List
Beyond the 13 key books: 9 more titles, grouped by form.
Open a form with the + to see every book in it.
Other books from his lifetime
3
3 books · 1924–1944
- 1924Scientific Healing Affirmationsaffirmations for health, will and prosperity, with his explanation of how they work; SRF issued a 100th-anniversary edition
- 1938Cosmic Chantsdevotional chants for singing before meditation, with his preface dated December 1938
- 1944The Law of Successa short booklet on success through will and concentration, first issued under the title Attributes of Success
Posthumous SRF anthologies and abridgements
6
6 books · 1998–2007
- 1998In the Sanctuary of the Soulcompiled from his talks and writings
- 1999Inner Peaceshort passages compiled from his talks and writings
- 2002Why God Permits Evil and How to Rise Above Ithis talks on suffering and the problem of evil
- 2002To Be Victorious in Lifetalks on success and self-confidence
- 2003Living Fearlesslytalks on overcoming fear and worry
- 2007The Yoga of the Bhagavad Gitaan abridgement of God Talks with Arjuna, about 180 pages
Quick facts about Paramahansa Yogananda
- Born
- Mukunda Lal Ghosh, 5 January 1893, Gorakhpur, India
- Died
- 7 March 1952, Biltmore Hotel, Los Angeles, after a speech at a dinner for India’s ambassador
- Guru
- Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri, whom he met in 1910
- Founded
- Yogoda Satsanga Society of India (1917) and Self-Realization Fellowship (1920)
- Came to America
- 19 September 1920, as India’s delegate to a religious congress in Boston
- Known for
- He was one of the first Indian teachers to live and teach in the West for decades, bringing Kriya Yoga meditation to a wide American audience, and his Autobiography of a Yogi introduced yoga and Indian spirituality to millions of readers.
- White House
- Received by President Calvin Coolidge in 1927
- Buried
- Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California
How Paramahansa Yogananda Taught: Talks, Dictation and Editors
Yogananda wrote some of his books himself, but most of his work survives because others took it down. Sri Daya Mata recorded his talks in shorthand; Tara Mata (Laurie Pratt) worked with him as his editor, on the Gita commentary from 1948; Mrinalini Mata compiled and finished the Gita and Gospel commentaries decades after his death. Autobiography of a Yogi, which he said he began in 1921, went through four editions with the Philosophical Library before SRF took over the rights in 1953, and the first edition of 1946 is now in the public domain in the United States. Because SRF has revised several books since his death, the 1946 Autobiography and the 1929 Whispers from Eternity are also reprinted by others, notably Crystal Clarity and Ananda, the publisher linked to Ananda, a community founded by his disciple Swami Kriyananda.
The ideas are few and constant. Every book argues that the religions share one goal, direct experience of God, and that meditation, above all the breath-and-energy technique of Kriya Yoga passed down from Babaji through Lahiri Mahasaya and Sri Yukteswar, is the scientific way to reach it. He reads the Bhagavad Gita, the Gospels and even the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam as describing the same inner journey, and he is practical: talks on concentration, healing, diet and success sit next to accounts of saints and miracles.
His life in America was not without dispute. In 1929 his early collaborator Swami Dhirananda (Basu Kumar Bagchi) sued him for unpaid wages and royalties; the case was settled. In 1928 Miami’s police chief stopped his lectures there after hostile press coverage, and British and US authorities kept a file on him from 1926 to 1937 over links to the Indian independence movement. After his death, SRF sued Ananda in 1990 over the name “Self-Realization” and over his writings and recordings: the courts ruled that neither “Self-Realization” nor his name could be trademarked, and in 2002 a jury found Ananda had infringed SRF’s copyrights, awarding about $29,000 for sound recordings. Claims, based on a mortuary director’s notarised letter, that his body showed no decay after death are disputed, since the same letter says it was embalmed.
Yogananda conducts a wedding, Los Angeles, 1931
Frequently asked questions about Paramahansa Yogananda’s books
How many books did Paramahansa Yogananda write?
He published only a few books in his lifetime, among them Songs of the Soul (1923), The Science of Religion, Scientific Healing Affirmations (1924), Whispers from Eternity (1929), Metaphysical Meditations (1932), Cosmic Chants (1938) and Autobiography of a Yogi (1946). Most other titles were compiled after his death in 1952 by Self-Realization Fellowship from his talks and manuscripts, including four volumes of collected talks and long commentaries on the Bhagavad Gita and the Gospels, so counts of twenty or more books include these posthumous editions.
What was Paramahansa Yogananda’s first book?
Songs of the Soul, a book of devotional poems published in Boston in 1923. The Science of Religion, an expanded version of his first American speech of October 1920, was published as a book in the 1920s.
What is the newest Paramahansa Yogananda book?
Solving the Mystery of Life, volume IV of his collected talks and essays, released by Self-Realization Fellowship in June 2025. It was SRF’s first major new Yogananda title since The Second Coming of Christ in 2004.
What is Paramahansa Yogananda’s most famous book?
Autobiography of a Yogi, first published in December 1946 by the Philosophical Library in New York. Self-Realization Fellowship has published it since 1953 in more than fifty languages, and in 1999 a HarperCollins panel named it one of the 100 most important spiritual books of the twentieth century.
Did Steve Jobs give away Autobiography of a Yogi at his memorial?
Yes. At Steve Jobs’s memorial service in 2011 guests were handed a small brown box containing a copy of Autobiography of a Yogi, as Salesforce chief executive Marc Benioff described in 2013. According to Walter Isaacson’s biography, Jobs first read the book as a teenager and reread it once a year.
Which edition of Autobiography of a Yogi should I read?
Self-Realization Fellowship publishes the current edition, which includes changes made after 1946; the original 1946 first edition is in the public domain in the United States and is reprinted by other publishers and available free online. The story is the same; the differences are in wording and in material Yogananda and, later, SRF added to subsequent editions.
Which books did Yogananda publish himself, and which came after his death?
Songs of the Soul, The Science of Religion, Whispers from Eternity, Metaphysical Meditations and Autobiography of a Yogi appeared in his lifetime. Man’s Eternal Quest (1975), The Divine Romance (1986), Wine of the Mystic (1994), God Talks with Arjuna (1995), Journey to Self-Realization (1997), The Second Coming of Christ (2004), The Yoga of Jesus (2007) and Solving the Mystery of Life (2025) were edited and published by Self-Realization Fellowship after his death.
Who was Paramahansa Yogananda?
An Indian monk and yoga teacher, born Mukunda Lal Ghosh in Gorakhpur on 5 January 1893. A disciple of Swami Sri Yukteswar, he came to the United States in 1920, founded Self-Realization Fellowship in Los Angeles, taught Kriya Yoga meditation to thousands of students and was received at the White House by President Calvin Coolidge in 1927. He died in Los Angeles on 7 March 1952.
Footnotes
- Paramahansa Yogananda — Wikipedia
- Paramahansa Yogananda bibliography — Wikipedia
- Autobiography of a Yogi — Wikipedia
- Autobiography of a Yogi (1946 text) — Project Gutenberg
- Celebrating the 100th anniversary of Yogananda’s arrival in the West — Self-Realization Fellowship
- Paramahansa Yogananda’s first talk in the West — Yogoda Satsanga Society of India
- Yogananda’s books and written lessons — Yogananda Harmony
- Solving the Mystery of Life, new anthology — Religion News Service
- God Talks with Arjuna — Wikipedia
- The Second Coming of Christ (book) — Wikipedia
- SRF uncorks a winner (Wine of the Mystic) — Hinduism Today, October 1994
- Whispers from Eternity (1929 edition) — Ananda
- Steve Jobs’ last gift — CNN Money
- Autobiography of a Yogi: last gift of Steve Jobs — YSS
- Jury: copyrights violated by church — The Union, 2002
- Self-Realization Fellowship — Wikipedia
Bibliography last verified 7 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
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