Chapters 46-47 Summary and Analysis

Yogananda and his companions pay a visit to a woman who lives on air alone, by the name of Giri Bala. The woman has been investigated and tested, and lives without any food. She does not feel it is her place to teach people how to do the yogic exercise she performs in order to not require food, since it would interfere with the flow of farming and consuming. She is nourished from the finer energies of air and sunlight, and from the cosmic powers that recharge her through the medulla oblongata. She tells them she was a greedy eater as a child, and was so shamed by her mother and her husband that she was given a method of kriya yoga, a mantra and breathing exercise, that ended her dependence upon food. Her goal is to prove that...