An amplification by Paramahansa Yogananda of his maiden speech in America—the historic talk that introduced his teachings to the Western world. He points out the universality of the world's religions and explains why the answers to the ultimate questions of life lie in the direct personal experience of a Higher Reality. Includes a detailed discussion of the scientific basis of yoga meditation. Updated in 2020 on the 100th anniversary of Paramahansa Yogananda's arrival in America and the founding of Self-Realization Fellowship. Includes a new Foreword with additional historical detail about Yogananda's arrival in America and the 1920 Congress of Religions in Boston.Born in India on January 5, 1893, Paramahansa Yogananda devoted his life to helping people of all races and creeds to realize and express more fully in their lives the true beauty, nobility, and divinity of the human spirit. After graduating from Calcutta University in 1915, Sri Yogananda took formal vows as a monk of India's venerable monastic Swami Order. Two years later, he began his life's work with the founding of a how-to-live school since grown to twenty-one educational institutions throughout India where traditional academic subjects were offered together with yoga training and instruction in spiritual ideals. In 1920, he was invited to serve as India's delegate to an International Congress of Religious Liberals in Boston. His address to the Congress and subsequent lectures on the East Coast were enthusiastically received, and in 1924 he embarked on a cross-continental speaking tour. Over the next three decades, Paramahansa Yogananda contributed in far-reaching ways to a greater awareness and appreciation in the West of the spiritual wisdom of the East. In Los Angeles, he established an international headquarters for Self-Realization Fellowship, the nonsectarian religious society he had founded in 1920. Through his writings, extensive lecture tours, and the creation of Self-Realization Fellowship temples and meditation centers, he introduced hundreds of thousands of truth-seekers to the ancient science and philosophy of Yoga and its universally applicable methods of meditation. In addition to publishing his writings, lectures and informal talks (including a comprehensive series of Self-Realization Fellowship Lessons for home study), the society also oversees temples, retreats, and centers around the world.