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The Yoga of Jesus
Understanding the Hidden Teachings of the Gospels
By Paramahansa Yogananda
Author of the Spiritual Classic Autobiography of a Yogi
Jesus went very deep in teachings that appear on the surface to be simple – much deeper thanmost people understand.... In [his teachings] is the whole science of yoga, the transcendental way of divineunion through meditation…. The Good Shepherd of souls opened his arms to all, rejecting none, and with universal lovecoaxed the world to follow him on the path to liberation.
—Paramahansa Yogananda
LOS ANGELES, August 7, 2007—The Yoga of Jesus: Understanding the Hidden Teachings of the Gospel, a groundbreaking new book from the author of the best-selling spiritual classic Autobiography of a Yogi, Paramahansa Yogananda, will be published by Self-Realization Fellowship for release in Fall 2007.
In his exploration of the hidden Yoga of the Gospels, Yogananda, who is widely recognized as the father of Yoga in the West, confirms that Jesus, like the ancient sages and masters of the East, not only knew the principles of Yoga but taught this universal science of God-realization to his disciples.
The150-page book is a selection of material from Yogananda’s widely acclaimed two-volume work, The Second Coming of Christ: The Resurrection of the Christ Within You (Self-
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Realization Fellowship, 2004). Commenting on The Second Coming of Christ, renowned author and scholar Arvind Sharma, Ph.D., Birks Professor of Comparative Religion, McGillUniversity, states:"The significance of such a work as this is twofold. The first reason why it constitutes a landmark consists of the fact that in this work a non-Christian — and a Hindu Swami and a Yogi at that — offers his interpretation of a Christian scripture. The involvement of the Christian West in studying the scriptures of the non-Christian world is so patent as to appear pedestrian, but a role-reversal in this respect, in which a non-Christian offers his own interpretation of a Christian text in such voluminous detail, is so novel as to be revolutionary.
"The second reason why this work constitutes a landmark is even more significant....We are on the threshold of an age in which the scriptures of every tradition are going to become the heritage of the people belonging to all the religious traditions of humanity.... To me Paramahansa Yogananda stands out as the harbinger of such a future."
Yogananda’s new book examines the role of Jesus as yogi and avatar (divine incarnation) and addresses important questions such as: the lost years of Jesus; the true meaning of baptism; the principles and methods of yoga and how they parallel the teachings of the greatest Christian saints and mystics; the meditation experience of communion with the Holy Ghost; the correlation between “to be born again” and reincarnation; and the relationship between the chakras (the seven spiritual centers of life and consciousness in the spine and brain) and the seven seals described by St. John in The Book of Revelation, and how to awaken those cerebrospinal centers to reascend to God.
In the book, Yogananda removes the centuries of dogma and misunderstanding that obscure Christ’s teachings and shows that Jesus’ message is not about sectarian divisiveness, but a unifying path by which seekers of all faith traditions can enter the kingdom of God.
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The Yoga of Jesus will be available in bookstores nationwide and online beginning September 1, 2007. For more information about The Yoga of Jesus or other books by Paramahansa Yogananda, please contact the publisher, Self-Realization Fellowship, 3880 San Rafael Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90065; tel: (323) 225-2471;
Paramahansa Yogananda first arrived in America from his native India in 1920, as a delegate to the International Congress of Religious Liberals convening in Boston. That same year he founded his society, Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF), which for more than 80 years has been headquartered in Los Angeles, California. His in-depth exposition of the deeper meaning of the original teachings of Jesus Christ began in his earliest years in Boston with public classes on the Bible and the Bhagavad Gita, and these expositions continued for more than thirty years in nationwide lecture tours and in weekly talks at SRF temples. In 1932, he began composing written commentaries on the Gospels, which were serialized in SRF’s magazine until the time of his passing twenty years later.
When Yogananda passed away in 1952, he left with Self-Realization Fellowship an extensive body of unpublished writings and lectures, many of which addressed important aspects of the life and teachings of Jesus not included in the magazine series. Sri Daya Mata, current spiritual leader of SRF, and Mrinalini Mata, SRF’s editor-in-chief, who was personally chosen and trained by Yogananda, completed the extensive process of compiling this material for publication in book form according to his instructions, making possible his two-volume work The Second Coming of Christ and the smaller volume of excerpts, The Yoga of Jesus.
The Yoga of Jesus
Understanding the Hidden Teachings of the Gospels
Paramahansa Yogananda
Quality Paperback, 150 pages, $14.00
ISBN: 978-0-87612-556-4
Release Date: September 2007