Books: Here Comes the Yogiman

Here is an interesting review of the Autobiography of a Yogi from the TIME magazine archives 1947:

Here Comes the Yogiman

...One trouble is that there are. no bar associations or synods to set standards among swamis (holy men, monks)—almost anyone in the U.S. can set up shop as a swami if he can find any followers. As a result there are devout swamis who lead the good life and there are swamis who simply enjoy a good life. Few of either kind write their autobiographies, so this life story by California's Paramhansa Yogananda (a Bengali pseudonym meaning approximately Swami-Bliss-through-Divine-Union) is something of a document. It is not likely to give the uninitiated much insight into India's ancient teachings. It does show exceedingly well how an alien culture may change when transplanted by a businesslike nurseryman from the tough soil of religious asceticism into hothouses of financial wealth and spiritual despair.

Swami Yogananda belongs outside the most publicized U.S. Indian movement—the Vedanta—which includes Huxley, Isherwood, et al. He is also scorned by them. Yogananda, born plain Mukunda Lai Ghosh 46 years ago, is the son of the vice president of the Bengal-Nagpur Railway. Father Ghosh scorned money, food and sex, spent his free hours meditating, with his legs crossed. Both father & mother Ghosh were devout practitioners of the basic tenet of yoga: absolute discipline of the body and senses through concentration on the idea of union with God. "Your father and myself," said Mrs. Ghosh, "live together as man and wife only once a year, for the purpose of having children" (they had eight)...

Time Article