The Edited Autobiography of a Yogi
The number of changes in this 7th edition is impressive: one finds over 850 paragraphs and footnotes changed: many grammatical changes (the ones an English teacher would make), text additions, text deletions, word changes, rearrangements, and also important changes in content. The list is long. Hardly a page is left untouched.
The reader finds two explanations in the publisher’s note:
1) It first states that this 7th edition contains revisions made by Paramhansa Yogananda in 1949 for the London (Rider) edition. It is true: One finds that 127 of the 495 earlier “Rider-changes,” are included in this 7th edition. The mystery is: but why did Yogananda include only a tiny handful of these “London-changes” in his 3rd American edition, in 1951 (only 24 of 495)? He easily could have included them all. Interestingly, one of these Rider-changes was included already in both the 5th and 6th editions.
2) Then the publisher’s note states that Yogananda’s later revisions, made in 1951, had not been incorporated into the 5th and 6th editions, because during those years other duties prevented the SRF editorial department from undertaking the formidable task of incorporating the author’s revisions on the electrotype plates, and that the work has been accomplished in time for the seventh edition.
A word-for word study has been done to see what these changes in this 7th edition are about, apart from the grammatical corrections. However, it seems advisable not to list them here, as this wouldn’t help to create harmony amongst Yogananda’s various disciples – it hasn’t in the past. Discussions have been going on if these changes are really Yogananda’s. Let’s avoid that dispute here.
Next chapter: 8th edition