Autobiography of a Yogi

Born in India in 1893, Mukunda Lal Ghosh wanted one thing from childhood: to find God, preferably with a teacher who had already made the trip. His autobiography recounts that search with disarming humor, the saints and sages he sought out across India, the schoolboy escapades, the meeting with his guru Sri Yukteswar that reshaped his life, and his eventual journey west, where as Paramahansa Yogananda he became one of the first teachers to bring yoga and meditation to America.

Published in 1946, the book became a spiritual classic read far beyond any single tradition. Famously, it was the one book Steve Jobs is said to have kept on his iPad. Whether you read it as testimony, as travelogue, or as one of the great personality-driven memoirs of the century, Yogananda is marvelous company: warm, funny, and utterly certain that the universe is stranger and kinder than it looks.

At roughly 163,800 words, Autobiography of a Yogi runs about 18 hours at 1x narration speed. That figure is an estimate based on a typical narration pace. The exact length depends on the voice and the playback speed you choose.

The edition linked here is available from Project Gutenberg under its US public-domain listing. Check the edition, translation, completeness and copyright rules where you live. LoudReader lets you browse and download Gutenberg books; they are not all stored on installation. To listen:

1. Install LoudReader on iPhone or iPad, or its iPad app on a compatible Apple Silicon Mac.
2. Search for “Autobiography of a Yogi” in the built-in catalog and add it to your library.
3. Press play. A natural offline voice reads the book while each word highlights on screen, and your place is saved between sessions.

Speech is generated locally without uploading the book for narration. Download the book and check your chosen voice before travelling offline. Available voices depend on your device; check the in-app voice list. Try every available voice for your first 8 hours of listening. Afterwards, keep a free English voice selection and unlimited book listening. No LoudReader account or word quota.