In 2009 I was inspired to interview devotees of Paramahansa Yogananda to find out how and why they became devotees, and to learn how their 'knowing' has improved over the years. It was my privilege to personally listen to their stories and then transcribe and edit them into a readable format, while maintaining the conversational style to reflect the sincerity of the storytellers themselves.

The stories then eventually evolved into this website, Awakening To The Guru, www.awakeningtotheguru.com, and has been continually online since this project began in 2009. In that same year, those of us involved discussed a book format but chose to begin with a website. Eleven years later, in 2020, we think it is the right timing to share this book, available on amazon.com, with the world. It includes never before published stories. It's as if the additional stories were waiting in my digital files until our Guru wanted them to be published in this special Centennial book! Paramahansa Yogananda is known worldwide to the general public as the author of the unprecedented Autobiography of a Yogi, available on amazon.com or through yogananda.org, and remains today one of the top five bestselling autobiographies ever written in the world.

Yogananda is considered by many as a "dispeller of darkness" as a Guru is known to be, whose mission on earth was to bring the techniques of Kriya Yoga to the world at large to assist a person in Self-Realization. From all walks of life, there are countless millions of admirers of Yogananda who hold him and his teachings in great respect and honor.

In his time he associated with the greats: Mahatma Gandhi, Therese Neumann, Luther Burbank, many heads of states and world leaders, including President Calvin Coolidge who welcomed him as the first dignitary from India to be hosted in the White House. Later followers included George Harrison, Elvis Presley and Steve Jobs, who ordered over 500 copies of Autobiography of a Yogi to be given as gifts at his memorial service. Jobs said he knew that intuition was his greatest asset in success, and that intuition can be enhanced through meditation. He credits the teachings of Yogananda for helping him to understand and use his intuition, and thus succeed in this life.

In 2014 the stirring and acclaimed documentary, Awake: The Life of Yogananda, (amazon.com, or yogananda.org) became a multiple award-winning film, hailed many times over as the best documentary ever made of a yogi in modern times.

To be sure, if there are millions of devotees around the world, there are millions of unique stories of how they awakened to the Guru. Some are dramatic, some less so.

However, what connects all of them is the notion that the Guru's teachings ring a bell of truth, thus taking folks to this same place: If it rings true within you, it is Truth.

People aspire to experience and know the Truth within, so as to glean an understanding of who and why they are. Truth is revealed through advanced techniques of superconscious meditation, as taught by Yogananda as a way to Self-Realization, so that one can experience the Guru within, as well as in human form.

Yogananda is an avatar and a Guru to millions of people worldwide. His message was timeless: enlighten yourself, actualize yourself, and become Self-Realized as a part of the God-Self behind and within creation.

Searching can take many avenues and lead down many paths. It is the path of Light by following a person, saint, guru, or teacher that can inform people of teachings and techniques to advance a spiritual goal. As part of the family of humans, it seems that most are really searching for that place of happiness within that is permanent. Since it is a fact that we never arrive at a place on the physical plane that seems to be 'it', as in 'making it', we realize that wherever we arrive is really only just the next starting point of a new adventure, or desire.

Each new desire which demands to be fulfilled is like beginning all over again, just at a different starting line. It is like trying to find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and the thing about rainbows is they just keep moving the goal of fulfillment ahead out of reach. However, the good news is that there IS a place where the journey is completed, and that place is within, at the highest place of consciousness.

Awakening to the Guru is a process and a journey of a lifetime, and of many lifetimes.

Yet, there does seem to come a time in that process when something magical happens, and that is when we see, recognize, and understand that we have this fascinating and enduring relationship with a spiritual teacher that is at once mystifying yet completely understood, and that at an inner level we experience the Guru as ourselves.

Finding the Guru in a teacher, as well as within ourselves, is the goal.

In the interview process, I came up with a set of questions that I used uniformly for all of the stories. I include the questions here in the front matter so that the interview process can be understood and what questions the devotees were answering.

Other than my name as the project coordinator, interviewer and Editor, we share the stories with anonymous bylines mainly because they are very personal and private, and because it is not important to attach an identity to the stories. It doesn't matter.

The intent and focus is to be solely inspirational, and anonymity allows them to be so.

In honor of Yogananda's 100th Arrival Anniversary we offer you these thoughts herein, with the hope that these experiences might be inspirational to folks who are searching.

For more information about Paramahansa Yogananda, Self-Realization Fellowship, temples and meditation centers, to learn how to meditate with guided meditations, and to inquire about the lessons, please visit the official website of Self-Realization Fellowship at yogananda.org. Proceeds from the sale of this book assist in free distribution to libraries.