“In the West, Yogananda needed to emphasize that the teachings of yoga were in harmony with the teachings of Christ — and so there is a lot of Biblical theology in the Autobiography. This baffled me when I first read the book, since yoga is a much older branch of spirituality than Christianity (or Judaism), and you really don’t need to learn anything about Christ to learn about yoga. However, it makes sense when you put it in context — Yogananda’s life task was to convince a skeptical Western audience that the teachings of an eccentric (by Western standards, at least) yoga from India were aligned with and not opposed to the dominant religion in the West. Today, that appetite has changed in the West. The reason many in the West turn to Eastern traditions is not because they want to reaffirm the tenets of the religion they grew up with but because they are looking for a more personal experience of the Divine and believe that yoga can provide that.”