Autobiography of a Yogi

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 1946

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Chapters 17-20Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 17 Summary: “Sasi and the Three Sapphires”

Sri Yukteswar heals a skeptical veterinary surgeon, Dr. Roy, of diabetes before Roy even knows he has the illness. When the disease manifests, the doctors think he will die. He reluctantly wears an astrological bangle and recovers. Sri Yukteswar then advises him to eat a meatless diet, but he ignores the advice. Six months later, he dies, exactly as Sri Yukteswar predicted. Mukunda is impressed by the incident, which proceeded according to what his master had foreseen. Sri Yukteswar managed to extend Dr. Roy’s life by six months simply because Mukunda earnestly asked him to help the man.

Mukunda brings a college friend, Sasi, to the ashram. Sri Yukteswar tells Sasi that unless he reforms his disorderly life, in one year he will be extremely ill. He tells him to wear a blue sapphire. Sasi says he cannot afford one. The guru replies that in one year, Sasi will bring three sapphires but they will be of no use to him then.

One year passes. Sasi comes to the ashram with three sapphires. He has tuberculosis and the doctors have given him three months to live. Sri Yukteswar tells him to return the sapphires to the jeweler but wear an astrological bangle. He adds that Sasi will then be well in a few weeks. Sasi’s condition worsens, and in a few weeks, he is at death’s door. He then feels the master’s presence in his room and recovers immediately.

Although Mukunda has neglected his college studies, he passes his exams for an intermediate arts diploma. He has two more years of study ahead of him, and Sri Yukteswar tells him to leave Calcutta and pursue the remainder of his degree in Serampore.

Chapter 18 Summary: “A Mohammedan Wonder-Worker”

Sri Yukteswar tells Mukunda a story about Afzal Khan, an Islamic “wonder-worker” who performed miracles (301). He was accompanied by a disembodied spirit named Hazrat, which fulfilled Afzal’s commands. Whatever object Afzal picked up and then replaced would soon disappear. Once, he was in a jewelry store, and soon after he left, the jewelry he touched vanished. Soon the police were after him, but he could make any incriminating evidence disappear. On the occasion that Sri Yukteswar met him, Afzal made a gold watch and chain disappear and demanded 500 rupees before he returned it. He also had the power to manifest whatever objects he desired. He magically supplied Sri Yukteswar and his friends with whatever drinks they wanted and also manifested a magnificent lunch out of thin air.

Sri Yukteswar explains to Mukunda that Afzal misused the powers he was granted because he was not spiritually developed. Later, Afzal was penitent. He made a public statement in which he said he became “drunk with egotism, feeling that I was beyond the ordinary laws of morality” (205). Later, he encountered the Indian saint who had initiated him into yoga, and the saint took his power away. Afzal resolved to go to the mountains and meditate in solitude as a way of atoning for his past actions.

Chapter 19 Summary: “My Master, in Calcutta, Appears in Serampore”

Mukunda takes a college friend, Dijen Babu, to see Sri Yukteswar, as Dijen has doubts about the existence of God. Sri Yukteswar, however, has been called away to Calcutta. Mukunda receives a postcard from him, saying he will be arriving by train in Serampore at 9:00 am Wednesday. On Wednesday, Mukunda gets a telepathic message from Sri Yukteswar; he has been delayed and won’t be on that train. Dijen doesn’t believe in Mukunda’s intuition and goes to meet the train. Mukunda’s guru then appears to Mukunda, materializing in a blaze of light and saying he will be on the 10 o’clock train.

Dijen returns disappointed, and he and Mukunda go to meet the later train. Dijen is skeptical, but the master appears, just as he said he would. He is preceded by another passenger, a small boy carrying a jug, just as Sri Yukteswar had predicted. Sri Yukteswar tells Dijen that he sent the message to him, too, but he was unable to receive it. Dijen gradually realizes that he was not sufficiently spiritually attuned to receive the message. Now that he knows the extent of the master’s powers, Dijen remarks, university seems no more than a kindergarten.

Chapter 20 Summary: “We Do Not Visit Kashmir”

Mukunda plans a trip to Kashmir with his master and several friends. However, Sri Yukteswar persuades Mukunda to stay with him a little longer, while his friends take the train to Calcutta. After they leave, Mukunda experiences painful symptoms of Asiatic cholera. Sri Yukteswar points out that it would not have been good for him to have those symptoms at the train station in Calcutta. The master has been protecting Mukunda.

Mukunda recovers when Sri Yukteswar tells him he is already healed. The doctor arrives and takes some specimens for testing. The next day, he returns and says that that he had expected to find his patient near death, given that the illness was Asiatic cholera.

Chapters 17-20 Analysis

In both Chapters 17 and 19 (as he had earlier done in Chapter 11), Yogananda includes a skeptical character who acts as a dramatic foil to offset the guru’s wisdom and foreknowledge. From a rhetorical perspective, the difficulty of Visions, Miracles, Foreknowledge, and Healing as evidence of divinity is that they are as likely to inspire skepticism as faith. Yogananda seems to anticipate this, and the skeptical figures in such stories are in part stand-ins for the skeptical reader. The miracle is all the more convincing for having been done for the benefit of a nonbeliever.

In Chapter 17, both Dr. Roy and Sasi undergo miraculous healings that follow a similar template: The skeptic ignores the guru’s advice at first, becomes much sicker, and only then is willing to listen. This narrative structure allows the healer’s power to be demonstrated twice, and the initial refusal acts as a kind of experimental control—showing that the miraculous recovery was not a coincidence and would not have occurred had the guru’s advice not been followed.

This chapter also continues the characterization of Mukunda as a poor student who does not devote much time to his studies. This seems to amuse Yogananda, as he never expresses any regret about it and writes about himself in a wry, self-deprecating manner:

My classroom attendance had been very spasmodic; what little studying I did was only to keep peace with my family. My two private tutors came regularly to my house; I was regularly absent: I can discern at least this one regularity in my scholastic career! (197).

Chapter 18 relates a straightforward case of fraud and misuse of spiritual powers. It provides a sharp contrast with the previous chapter, in which such power was used for healing. There is a right use of power and a wrong use of it.

Chapter 19 returns to the format of telling a little story that features a skeptic. The presence of Mukunda’s friend Dijen is the engine of the story because it supplies dramatic conflict in what is otherwise a rather trivial event. The fact that the chapter begins with Dijen’s “atheistic doubts” telegraphs to the reader that Dijen is about to learn a spiritual lesson (207). This time, unlike in Chapter 17, the skeptic shows humility and absorbs the significance of what has just happened.

The anecdote in Chapter 20 follows a similar pattern to those above, providing further evidence of Sri Yukteswar’s benevolent power. Several cholera epidemics swept through India in the 19th and early 20th centuries, resulting in millions of deaths. Sri Yukteswar’s ability to prevail over this particularly dreaded disease would have been an especially powerful proof of his holiness.