A book of answered prayers
What this book is, why Yogananda called it the supreme spiritual contribution of his life, and why Swami Kriyananda re-edited it.
"When I am only a dream, Read my Whispers from Eternity; Eternally through it I will talk to you."
Eternity whispered, and he listened
The book opens with Yogananda's own account of how it came to be: "I was deaf, but Eternity whispered to me unceasingly. My wisdom's hearing-power slowly woke, and I heard the Whispers of Eternity becoming ever clearer in response to my sacred demands."
In his footnote he explains that "Eternity" here means God as manifested in nature and in human souls. The whispers were not literary inspiration; they were answers. That is why this edition carries the subtitle "A Book of Answered Prayers."
Eternity's reply came with an assignment: "Wake all thy brothers!" Yogananda accepted it, promising to keep speaking through these pages when his earthly voice could no longer be heard.
Why a disciple edited it
Swami Kriyananda, Yogananda's direct disciple, writes in the Preamble that he considers this book "the supreme contribution, spiritually speaking," of his own life's work. His Guru had asked him, at twenty-three, to edit his writings.
What he did, he says, was "without changing a single concept, to give the expression of it a more concise poetic flow." The inspiration in this book, he notes, "might almost be described as a lava overflow" — so dense that he had to weigh each word so as not to lose a single nuance.
So the prayers you read here are the same demands of 1929, clarified. Every text in this app comes from that 2008 edition.
A handbook, not an anthology
Kriyananda's summary of the book's design is worth memorizing: Yogananda "took every conceivable situation in which the sincere God-seeker might find himself, and showed him the best possible attitude with which to cope spiritually."
That is the reason for 227 numbered demands rather than a handful of general prayers. There is one for the sickbed, one for an immediate need, one for anger, one for criticism, one for children, one for the moment between sleeping and waking.
Amelita Galli-Gurci, in the Foreword, adds the warning: do not pass by "with hurried intellectual reading, the mines of realization hidden in the soil" of these pages.
Watch this teaching
Introductory material written by Yogananda for early editions of Whispers from Eternity, on the science of prayer.
Check your understanding
1. Who edited the 2008 edition of Whispers from Eternity?
2. What does Yogananda say the word "Eternity" symbolizes in his title?
3. According to the Preamble, what did the editor change?