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Therese Neumann Pilgrimage

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Brief overview

Recalled to India in 1935, Yogananda visits Bavarian stigmatist Therese Neumann, who lives without food.

  1. A guru's call decided the 1935 journeyThe inner message of fifteen years waiting sent Yogananda from Mount Washington back to India via Europe.
  2. Therese Neumann lived without foodFrom 1923 she took only one consecrated wafer daily, and told Yogananda she lived by God's light.
  3. The Friday trance was witnessed, not reportedYogananda saw the bleeding eyelids, crown-of-thorns cloth and side wound himself, with the bishop's permit.
Executive Summary AI
  • Sitting in meditation at his Mount Washington headquarters in 1935, Yogananda hears his guru's inner call after fifteen years of spreading his teachings in America, and disciples donate the money for the journey.
  • In March 1935 he charters the Self-Realization Fellowship in California as a non-profit corporation to receive all donations and book, magazine and course revenue, then sails from New York on June 9, 1935 with his secretary Mr. C. Richard Wright and Miss Etty Blatch.
  • After London, where he speaks at Caxton Hall, and a day with Sir Harry Lauder in Scotland, he detours to Bavaria to meet the Catholic mystic Therese Neumann, born 1898, blinded and paralyzed at 20, healed in 1923, and marked with the stigmata in 1926.
  • Found at Professor Wurz's house in Eichstadt, eighty miles from her closed cottage, the thirty-seven-year-old Therese tells him she takes nothing but a paper-thin consecrated rice-flour wafer at six each morning and that she lives by God's light.
  • On Friday, with the bishop's free permit and about twenty other visitors, he watches her trance of Christ's Passion — blood streaming an inch wide from her eyelids, her weight dropping ten pounds from 121 — during which Mr. Wright faints and cuts his cheek.
Key Quote
“Though the bishop has asked me to see no one without his permission, I will receive the man of God from India.”
— Therese Neumann
Key Quote
“No, except a consecrated rice-flour wafer, once every morning at six o'clock.”
— Therese Neumann
Key Quote
“I live by God's light.”
— Therese Neumann

Transcript

0:00 Chapter 39 of Autobiography of a Yogi. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings
0:08 are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org.
0:16 Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda. Therese Neumann the catholic stigmatist of bavaria return to india i have waited for you patiently for fifteen years soon i shall swim out of the body and on to the shining abode yogananda come in my inner ear as I sat in meditation at my Mount Washington headquarters. Traversing ten
0:47 thousand miles in the twinkling of an eye, his message penetrated my being like a flash of
0:52 lightning. Fifteen years. Yes, I realized. Now it is 1935. I have spent fifteen years in spreading
1:01 my guru's teachings in America. Now he recalls me. That afternoon I recounted my
1:07 experience to a visiting disciple. His spiritual development under Kriya Yoga was so remarkable
1:14 that I often called him saint, remembering Babaji's prophecy that America too would produce
1:20 men and women of divine realization through the ancient yogic path. This disciple and a number
1:27 of others generously insisted on making a donation for my travels. The financial problem thus solved,
1:33 I made arrangements to sail via Europe for India. Busy weeks of preparations at Mount Washington.
1:40 In March 1935, I had the Self-Realization Fellowship chartered under the laws of the
1:46 State of California as a non-profit corporation. To this educational institution go all public
1:52 donations as well as the revenue from the sale of my books, magazine, written courses, class tuition,
1:59 and every other source of income. I shall be back, I told my students, never shall I forget America. At a farewell
2:07 banquet given to me in Los Angeles by loving friends, I looked long at their faces and thought
2:14 gratefully, Lord, he who remembers thee as the sole giver will never lack the sweetness of
2:19 friendship among mortals. I sailed from New York on June 9, 1935.
2:27 Footnote 1.
2:34 The remarkable inclusion here of a complete date is due to the fact that my secretary, Mr. Wright, kept a travel diary.
2:35 End of footnote.
2:47 In the Europa, two students accompanied me, my secretary, Mr. C. Richard Wright, and an elderly lady from Cincinnati, Miss Etty Blatch. We enjoyed the days of ocean peace, a welcome contrast to the past hurried weeks. Our period of leisure was short-lived.
2:54 The speed of modern boats has some regrettable features. Like any other group of inquisitive
3:00 tourists, we walked around the huge and ancient city of London. The following day I was invited to address a large meeting in Caxton Hall,
3:10 at which I was introduced to the London audience by Sir Francis' young husband.
3:15 Our party spent a pleasant day as guests of Sir Harry Lauder at his estate in Scotland.
3:20 We soon crossed the English Channel to the continent,
3:23 for I wanted to make a special pilgrimage to bavaria this would be my only chance i felt to visit the great catholic mystic therese neumann of conerswit 1. Thérèse, born in 1898, had been injured in an accident at the age of 20.
3:47 She became blind and paralyzed.
3:49 2. She miraculously regained her sight in 1923 through prayers to Saint Teresa, the little flower.
3:57 Later, Thérèse Neumann's limbs were instantaneously healed. 3. From 1923 onward, Thérèse has abstained completely from food and drink,
4:08 except for the daily swallowing of one small, consecrated wafer.
4:13 4. The stigmata, or sacred wounds of Christ, appeared in 1926 on Thérèse's head, breast,
4:20 hands, and feet. On Friday of every week thereafter thereafter she has passed through the passion of christ suffering in her own body all his historic agonies
4:30 five knowing ordinarily only the simple german of her village during her friday trances thrse utters phrases which scholars have identified as ancient Aramaic. At appropriate times in her vision, she speaks Hebrew or Greek.
4:47 6. By ecclesiastical permission, Therese has several times been under close scientific
4:52 observation. Dr. Fritz Gellick, editor of a Protestant German newspaper, went to Connoisseur
4:59 to, quote, expose the Catholic fraud, end quote, but ended up by reverently writing her biography footnote two other books on her life are therese neumann a stigmaticed as our little party entered on july sixteenth the quaint village of conisreuth
5:32 the bavarian peasants exhibited lively interest in our ford automobile brought with us from america and its assorted group an american young man an elderly lady and an olive-hued oriental with long hair tucked under his coat collar therese's little cottage clean and neat with geraniums blooming by a primitive well was alas silently closed information. Rain began to fall. My companions suggested that we leave. No, I said stubbornly.
6:07 I will stay here until I find some clue leading to Therese. Two hours later we were still sitting

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