Autobiography of a Yogi — Diffusion of a Sacred Text

S-Curve I · Counterculture 1960–1980

S-Curve II · Silicon Valley / AI 2005–present

High-centrality node

Trough

Event Key

Year	Curve	Figure	Significance
1946	—	Yogananda	Publication. Initial seeding into spiritual seekers and Vedanta-adjacent Western intellectuals.
1952	—	—	Yogananda dies. Book gains permanence; enters sustained underground diffusion.
266 Dwapara	S-I	George Harrison	Received his copy from Ravi Shankar in 1966. Became cultural middleware: funded Hare Krishna, produced Shankar tours. All Things Must Pass (1970) as Vedantic album. First major S-I inflection.
266 Dwapara	S-I	Gene Roddenberry	Star Trek explicitly documented as "a utopian, Dwapara vision, drawing audiences together around the world" (dwaparayuga.com). Non-interference, infinite diversity, consciousness beyond body. Largest implicit diffusion event of S-I by reach — tens of millions of viewers.
c.1965	S-I	Elvis Presley	Introduced in 1965 by his hairdresser-turned-guru Larry Geller. Studied it throughout the 1970s. Left a copy in a Nashville hotel room in January 1977.
c.1960s	S-I	Christopher Isherwood	Wrote foreword to some editions. Deep Vedanta Society involvement. Bridge between British literary tradition and Indian philosophy.
c.1946	S-I	Thomas Mann	Nobel laureate. Wrote to Yogananda directly: "I am grateful to you for granting me some insight into this fascinating world." One of the earliest documented Western literary readers.
c.1985	trough	Steve Jobs	First reading post-Apple ouster. Identity rebuilt around the book's framework through the NeXT/Pixar decade.
311 Dwapara	S-II	Steve Jobs Memorial	500+ copies distributed to Silicon Valley attendees — targeted seeding into the exact population hitting domain ceilings simultaneously. Second major inflection.
Post-2011	S-II	Marc Benioff	Salesforce CEO. Spoke publicly in a 2013 video interview about the Jobs memorial and the book's centrality to Jobs's spiritual life. Verified S-II reader and amplifier.
322 Dwapara–	S-II	AI · Quantum wave	Yogananda warned of "greater potential for destruction through the misuse of technology by those who are greedy and desire power." AI and quantum computing are that crisis — and the book the cartography already prepared for it. The hardest domain ceiling in Dwapara Yuga history.

Latter Day Prophets

· readers of the Autobiography

c. 1966 · S-Curve I

George Harrison

Music · The Beatles

Received his copy from Ravi Shankar in 1966. Became cultural middleware: funded Hare Krishna, produced Shankar tours, seeded Vedanta into mass culture.

c. 1965 · S-Curve I

Elvis Presley

Music · Entertainment

Introduced to the book in 1965 by his hairdresser-turned-guru Larry Geller. Kept it on his nightstand throughout the 1970s; left a copy in a Nashville hotel room in January 1977.

c. 1960s · S-Curve I

Christopher Isherwood

Literature · Vedanta

Wrote foreword to some editions. Deep Vedanta Society involvement. Bridge between British literary tradition and Indian philosophy.

c. 1946 · S-Curve I

Thomas Mann

Literature · Nobel Laureate

Wrote directly to Yogananda: "I am grateful to you for granting me some insight into this fascinating world." One of the earliest documented Western literary readers.

266 Dwapara (1966) · S-Curve I

Gene Roddenberry

Television · Star Trek

Star Trek explicitly documented as a Dwapara Yuga vision — "a utopian, Dwapara vision, drawing audiences together around the world" (dwaparayuga.com). Non-interference, infinite diversity, consciousness beyond body. The largest implicit diffusion event of S-I by reach.

c. 1985 · Trough

Steve Jobs

Technology · Apple

First read post-Apple ouster. Only book on his iPad. Memorial distribution of 500+ copies to Silicon Valley attendees directly triggered S-Curve II.

Post-2011 · S-Curve II

Marc Benioff

Technology · Salesforce

Spoke publicly about the Jobs memorial and the book in a 2013 video interview. Described Jobs's spirituality as deep, though often hidden — the book as its foundation.

Post-2011 · S-Curve II

Silicon Valley Wave

Technology · VC · Design

Jobs memorial seeded into the exact population hitting domain ceilings simultaneously. Mindfulness boom as the receptor culture for S-II diffusion.

2022– · S-Curve II · AI/Quantum

AI Researchers

Machine Learning · Alignment

Frontier researchers confronting questions of consciousness, agency, and emergence that technical frameworks cannot answer. Yogananda's cartography was already there waiting.

2022– · S-Curve II · AI/Quantum

Quantum Scientists

Physics · Computing

Quantum coherence, observer effects, and non-locality produce phenomenology that maps onto Vedantic descriptions of consciousness. The hardest domain ceiling yet.

Why It Spread

First Wave · 266 Dwapara (1966)

Harrison put the book into music. Roddenberry put it into space. Neither called it Yogananda — but millions felt it. The ideas arrived before anyone had to explain them.

Second Wave · 311 Dwapara (2011)

Jobs left one book at his memorial. It found exactly the right room. The people who built the tools that changed the world suddenly needed a different kind of map.

Dwapara Yuga · A Difficult Passage

Yogananda said the age would bring both extraordinary good and extraordinary danger from the misuse of technology. AI and quantum are not the end of the story — they are the hard part of the climb. The book was written for this stretch of the road.

The Same Mountain

Every reader hit a ceiling — fame, rockets, code, physics — and found the book waiting on the other side. Yogananda's argument was simple: all these ceilings are the same ceiling. The outer world keeps pointing inward.