Whispers From Eternity.

YOGANANDA, Paramhansa .

Item Number: 138491

Los Angeles, California: Self-Realization Publishing House, 1944.

Paramhansa Yogananda’s classic collection of mantras, or prayer-demands, with a full page inscription, fourth edition. Octavo, original cloth with gilt titles to the spine and front panel, frontispiece portrait of the author. Presentation copy, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, “To Mari Yinishiau on her birthday with unceasing blessings & best wishes that your birth on earth be worthwhile to yourself and all. Paramhansa Yogananda. Commingle your whispers with these of mine and offer them in the temple of Silence and activity, until you can hear His whispers in the dance of rhythm in your life. P.Y. July 18th 1946 L.A.” In near fine condition. An exceptional inscription, books signed by Paramhansa Yogananda are scarce.

Indian Hindu monk, yogi and guru Paramhansa Yogananda introduced millions to the teachings of meditation and yoga through his spiritual organization The Self-Realization Fellowship, founded in Los Angeles in 1920. A chief disciple of the Bengali yoga guru Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri, Yogananda was sent by his lineage to spread the teachings of yoga to the West, to prove the unity between Eastern and Western religions and to preach a balance between Western material growth and Indian spirituality. His long-standing influence in the American yoga movement, and especially the yoga culture of Los Angeles, led him to be considered by yoga experts as the "Father of Yoga in the West." Yogananda was the first major Indian teacher to settle in America, and the first prominent Indian to be hosted in the White House (by President Calvin Coolidge in 1927). His early acclaim led to him being dubbed "the 20th century's first superstar guru" by the Los Angeles Times and he remains "the best known and most beloved of all Indian spiritual teachers who have come to the West....through the strength of his character and his skillful transmission of perennial wisdom, he showed the way for millions to transcend barriers to the liberation of the soul" (Philip Goldberg).