Autobiography of a YOGI

The characteristic features of Indian culture have long been a search
for ultimate verities and the concomitant disciple-guru ^1-2
relationship. My own path led me to a Christlike sage whose beautiful
life was chiseled for the ages. He was one of the great masters who
are India’s sole remaining wealth. Emerging in every generation, they
have bulwarked their land against the fate of Babylon and Egypt.

I find my earliest memories covering the anachronistic features of a
previous incarnation. Clear recollections came to me of a distant
life, a yogi ^1-3 amidst the Himalayan snows. These glimpses of the
past, by some dimensionless link, also afforded me a glimpse of the
future.

The helpless humiliations of infancy are not banished from my mind. I
was resentfully conscious of not being able to walk or express myself
freely. Prayerful surges arose within me as I realized my bodily
impotence. My strong emotional life took silent form as words in many
languages. Among the inward confusion of tongues, my ear gradually
accustomed itself to the circumambient Bengali syllables of my people.
The beguiling scope of an infant’s mind! adultly considered limited to
toys and toes.

Psychological ferment and my unresponsive body brought me to many
obstinate crying-spells. I recall the general family bewilderment at
my distress. Happier memories, too, crowd in on me: my mother’s
caresses, and my first attempts at lisping phrase and toddling step.
These early triumphs, usually forgotten quickly, are yet a natural
basis of self-confidence.

My far-reaching memories are not unique. Many yogis are known to have
retained their self-consciousness without interruption by the dramatic
transition to and from “life” and “death.” If man be solely a body,
its loss indeed places the final period to identity. But if prophets
down the millenniums spake with truth, man is essentially of
incorporeal nature. The persistent core of human egoity is only
temporarily allied with sense perception.

Although odd, clear memories of infancy are not extremely rare. During
travels in numerous lands, I have listened to early recollections from
the lips of veracious men and women.

I was born in the last decade of the nineteenth century, and passed my
first eight years at Gorakhpur. This was my birthplace in the United
Provinces of northeastern India. We were eight children: four boys and
four girls. I, Mukunda Lal Ghosh ^1-4, was the second son and the
fourth child.

Father and Mother were Bengalis, of the kshatriya caste. ^1-5 Both
were blessed with saintly nature. Their mutual love, tranquil and
dignified, never expressed itself frivolously. A perfect parental
harmony was the calm center for the revolving tumult of eight young
lives.

Father, Bhagabati Charan Ghosh, was kind, grave, at times stern.
Loving him dearly, we children yet observed a certain reverential
distance. An outstanding mathematician and logician, he was guided
principally by his intellect. But Mother was a queen of hearts, and
taught us only through love. After her death, Father displayed more of
his inner tenderness. I noticed then that his gaze often metamorphosed
into my mother’s.

In Mother’s presence we tasted our earliest bitter-sweet acquaintance
with the scriptures. Tales from the mahabharata and ramayana ^1-6
were resourcefully summoned to meet the exigencies of discipline.
Instruction and chastisement went hand in hand.

A daily gesture of respect to Father was given by Mother’s dressing us
carefully in the afternoons to welcome him home from the office. His
position was similar to that of a vice-president, in the Bengal-Nagpur
Railway, one of India’s large companies. His work involved traveling,
and our family lived in several cities during my childhood.

Mother held an open hand toward the needy. Father was also kindly
disposed, but his respect for law and order extended to the budget.
One fortnight Mother spent, in feeding the poor, more than Father’s
monthly income.

“All I ask, please, is to keep your charities within a reasonable
limit.” Even a gentle rebuke from her husband was grievous to Mother.
She ordered a hackney carriage, not hinting to the children at any
disagreement.

“Good-by; I am going away to my mother’s home.” Ancient ultimatum!

We broke into astounded lamentations. Our maternal uncle arrived
opportunely; he whispered to Father some sage counsel, garnered no
doubt from the ages. After Father had made a few conciliatory remarks,
Mother happily dismissed the cab. Thus ended the only trouble I ever
noticed between my parents. But I recall a characteristic discussion.

“Please give me ten rupees for a hapless woman who has just arrived at
the house.” Mother’s smile had its own persuasion.

“Why ten rupees? One is enough.” Father added a justification: “When
my father and grandparents died suddenly, I had my first taste of
poverty. My only breakfast, before walking miles to my school, was a
small banana. Later, at the university, I was in such need that I
applied to a wealthy judge for aid of one rupee per month. He
declined, remarking that even a rupee is important.”

“How bitterly you recall the denial of that rupee!” Mother’s heart had
an instant logic. “Do you want this woman also to remember painfully
your refusal of ten rupees which she needs urgently?”

“You win!” With the immemorial gesture of vanquished husbands, he
opened his wallet. “Here is a ten-rupee note. Give it to her with my
good will.”

Father tended to first say “No” to any new proposal. His attitude
toward the strange woman who so readily enlisted Mother’s sympathy was
an example of his customary caution. Aversion to instant acceptance-

typical of the French mind in the West-is really only honoring the
principle of “due reflection.” I always found Father reasonable and
evenly balanced in his judgments. If I could bolster up my numerous
requests with one or two good arguments, he invariably put the coveted
goal within my reach, whether it were a vacation trip or a new
motorcycle.

Father was a strict disciplinarian to his children in their early
years, but his attitude toward himself was truly Spartan. He never
visited the theater, for instance, but sought his recreation in
various spiritual practices and in reading the bhagavad gita. ^1-7
Shunning all luxuries, he would cling to one old pair of shoes until
they were useless. His sons bought automobiles after they came into
popular use, but Father was always content with the trolley car for
his daily ride to the office. The accumulation of money for the sake
of power was alien to his nature. Once, after organizing the Calcutta
Urban Bank, he refused to benefit himself by holding any of its
shares. He had simply wished to perform a civic duty in his spare
time.

Several years after Father had retired on a pension, an English
accountant arrived to examine the books of the Bengal-Nagpur Railway
Company. The amazed investigator discovered that Father had never
applied for overdue bonuses.

“He did the work of three men!” the accountant told the company. “He
has rupees 125,000 (about $41,250.) owing to him as back
compensation.” The officials presented Father with a check for this
amount. He thought so little about it that he overlooked any mention
to the family. Much later he was questioned by my youngest brother
Bishnu, who noticed the large deposit on a bank statement.

“Why be elated by material profit?” Father replied. “The one who
pursues a goal of evenmindedness is neither jubilant with gain nor
depressed by loss. He knows that man arrives penniless in this world,
and departs without a single rupee.”

Early in their married life, my parents became disciples of a great
master, Lahiri Mahasaya of Benares. This contact strengthened Father’s
naturally ascetical temperament. Mother made a remarkable admission to
my eldest sister Roma: “Your father and myself live together as man
and wife only once a year, for the purpose of having children.”

Father first met Lahiri Mahasaya through Abinash Babu, ^1-8 an
employee in the Gorakhpur office of the Bengal-Nagpur Railway. Abinash
instructed my young ears with engrossing tales of many Indian saints.
He invariably concluded with a tribute to the superior glories of his
own guru.

“Did you ever hear of the extraordinary circumstances under which your
father became a disciple of Lahiri Mahasaya?”

It was on a lazy summer afternoon, as Abinash and I sat together in
the compound of my home, that he put this intriguing question. I shook
my head with a smile of anticipation.

“Years ago, before you were born, I asked my superior officer-your
father-to give me a week’s leave from my Gorakhpur duties in order to
visit my guru in Benares. Your father ridiculed my plan.

“‘Are you going to become a religious fanatic?’ he inquired.
‘Concentrate on your office work if you want to forge ahead.’

“Sadly walking home along a woodland path that day, I met your father
in a palanquin. He dismissed his servants and conveyance, and fell
into step beside me. Seeking to console me, he pointed out the
advantages of striving for worldly success. But I heard him
listlessly. My heart was repeating: ‘Lahiri Mahasaya! I cannot live
without seeing you!’

“Our path took us to the edge of a tranquil field, where the rays of
the late afternoon sun were still crowning the tall ripple of the wild
grass. We paused in admiration. There in the field, only a few yards
from us, the form of my great guru suddenly appeared! ^1-9

“‘Bhagabati, you are too hard on your employee!’ His voice was
resonant in our astounded ears. He vanished as mysteriously as he had
come. On my knees I was exclaiming, ‘Lahiri Mahasaya! Lahiri
Mahasaya!’ Your father was motionless with stupefaction for a few
moments.

“‘Abinash, not only do I give you leave, but I give myself leave to
start for Benares tomorrow. I must know this great Lahiri Mahasaya,
who is able to materialize himself at will in order to intercede for
you! I will take my wife and ask this master to initiate us in his
spiritual path. Will you guide us to him?’

“‘Of course.’ Joy filled me at the miraculous answer to my prayer, and
the quick, favorable turn of events.

“The next evening your parents and I entrained for Benares. We took a
horse cart the following day, and then had to walk through narrow
lanes to my guru’s secluded home. Entering his little parlor, we bowed
before the master, enlocked in his habitual lotus posture. He blinked
his piercing eyes and leveled them on your father.

“‘Bhagabati, you are too hard on your employee!’ His words were the
same as those he had used two days before in the Gorakhpur field. He
added, ‘I am glad that you have allowed Abinash to visit me, and that
you and your wife have accompanied him.’

“To their joy, he initiated your parents in the spiritual practice of Kriya Yoga. ^1-10 Your father and I, as brother disciples, have been
close friends since the memorable day of the vision. Lahiri Mahasaya
took a definite interest in your own birth. Your life shall surely be
linked with his own: the master’s blessing never fails.”

Lahiri Mahasaya left this world shortly after I had entered it. His
picture, in an ornate frame, always graced our family altar in the
various cities to which Father was transferred by his office. Many a
morning and evening found Mother and me meditating before an
improvised shrine, offering flowers dipped in fragrant sandalwood
paste. With frankincense and myrrh as well as our united devotions, we
honored the divinity which had found full expression in Lahiri
Mahasaya.

His picture had a surpassing influence over my life. As I grew, the
thought of the master grew with me. In meditation I would often see
his photographic image emerge from its small frame and, taking a
living form, sit before me. When I attempted to touch the feet of his
luminous body, it would change and again become the picture. As
childhood slipped into boyhood, I found Lahiri Mahasaya transformed in
my mind from a little image, cribbed in a frame, to a living,
enlightening presence. I frequently prayed to him in moments of trial
or confusion, finding within me his solacing direction. At first I
grieved because he was no longer physically living. As I began to
discover his secret omnipresence, I lamented no more. He had often
written to those of his disciples who were over-anxious to see him:
“Why come to view my bones and flesh, when I am ever within range of
your kutastha (spiritual sight)?”

I was blessed about the age of eight with a wonderful healing through
the photograph of Lahiri Mahasaya. This experience gave
intensification to my love. While at our family estate in Ichapur,
Bengal, I was stricken with Asiatic cholera. My life was despaired of;
the doctors could do nothing. At my bedside, Mother frantically
motioned me to look at Lahiri Mahasaya’s picture on the wall above my
head.

“Bow to him mentally!” She knew I was too feeble even to lift my hands
in salutation. “If you really show your devotion and inwardly kneel
before him, your life will be spared!”

I gazed at his photograph and saw there a blinding light, enveloping
my body and the entire room. My nausea and other uncontrollable
symptoms disappeared; I was well. At once I felt strong enough to bend
over and touch Mother’s feet in appreciation of her immeasurable faith
in her guru. Mother pressed her head repeatedly against the little
picture.

“O Omnipresent Master, I thank thee that thy light hath healed my
son!”

I realized that she too had witnessed the luminous blaze through which
I had instantly recovered from a usually fatal disease.

One of my most precious possessions is that same photograph. Given to
Father by Lahiri Mahasaya himself, it carries a holy vibration. The
picture had a miraculous origin. I heard the story from Father’s
brother disciple, Kali Kumar Roy.

It appears that the master had an aversion to being photographed. Over
his protest, a group picture was once taken of him and a cluster of
devotees, including Kali Kumar Roy. It was an amazed photographer who
discovered that the plate which had clear images of all the disciples,
revealed nothing more than a blank space in the center where he had
reasonably expected to find the outlines of Lahiri Mahasaya. The
phenomenon was widely discussed.

A certain student and expert photographer, Ganga Dhar Babu, boasted
that the fugitive figure would not escape him. The next morning, as
the guru sat in lotus posture on a wooden bench with a screen behind
him, Ganga Dhar Babu arrived with his equipment. Taking every
precaution for success, he greedily exposed twelve plates. On each one
he soon found the imprint of the wooden bench and screen, but once
again the master’s form was missing.

With tears and shattered pride, Ganga Dhar Babu sought out his guru.
It was many hours before Lahiri Mahasaya broke his silence with a
pregnant comment:

“I am Spirit. Can your camera reflect the omnipresent Invisible?”

“I see it cannot! But, Holy Sir, I lovingly desire a picture of the
bodily temple where alone, to my narrow vision, that Spirit appears
fully to dwell.”

“Come, then, tomorrow morning. I will pose for you.”

Again the photographer focused his camera. This time the sacred
figure, not cloaked with mysterious imperceptibility, was sharp on the
plate. The master never posed for another picture; at least, I have
seen none.

The photograph is reproduced in this book. Lahiri Mahasaya’s fair
features, of a universal cast, hardly suggest to what race he
belonged. His intense joy of God-communion is slightly revealed in a
somewhat enigmatic smile. His eyes, half open to denote a nominal
direction on the outer world, are half closed also. Completely
oblivious to the poor lures of the earth, he was fully awake at all
times to the spiritual problems of seekers who approached for his
bounty.

Shortly after my healing through the potency of the guru’s picture, I
had an influential spiritual vision. Sitting on my bed one morning, I
fell into a deep reverie.

“What is behind the darkness of closed eyes?” This probing thought
came powerfully into my mind. An immense flash of light at once
manifested to my inward gaze. Divine shapes of saints, sitting in
meditation posture in mountain caves, formed like miniature cinema
pictures on the large screen of radiance within my forehead.

“Who are you?” I spoke aloud.

“We are the Himalayan yogis.” The celestial response is difficult to
describe; my heart was thrilled.

“Ah, I long to go to the Himalayas and become like you!” The vision
vanished, but the silvery beams expanded in ever-widening circles to
infinity.

“What is this wondrous glow?”

“I am Iswara.^1-11 I am Light.” The voice was as murmuring clouds.

“I want to be one with Thee!”

Out of the slow dwindling of my divine ecstasy, I salvaged a permanent
legacy of inspiration to seek God. “He is eternal, ever-new Joy!” This
memory persisted long after the day of rapture.

Another early recollection is outstanding; and literally so, for I
bear the scar to this day. My elder sister Uma and I were seated in
the early morning under a neem tree in our Gorakhpur compound. She was
helping me with a Bengali primer, what time I could spare my gaze from
the near-by parrots eating ripe margosa fruit. Uma complained of a
boil on her leg, and fetched a jar of ointment. I smeared a bit of the
salve on my forearm.

“Why do you use medicine on a healthy arm?”

“Well, Sis, I feel I am going to have a boil tomorrow. I am testing
your ointment on the spot where the boil will appear.”

“You little liar!”

“Sis, don’t call me a liar until you see what happens in the morning.”
Indignation filled me.

Uma was unimpressed, and thrice repeated her taunt. An adamant
resolution sounded in my voice as I made slow reply.

“By the power of will in me, I say that tomorrow I shall have a fairly
large boil in this exact place on my arm; and your boil shall swell to
twice its present size!”

Morning found me with a stalwart boil on the indicated spot; the
dimensions of Uma’s boil had doubled. With a shriek, my sister rushed
to Mother. “Mukunda has become a necromancer!” Gravely, Mother
instructed me never to use the power of words for doing harm. I have
always remembered her counsel, and followed it.

My boil was surgically treated. A noticeable scar, left by the
doctor’s incision, is present today. On my right forearm is a constant
reminder of the power in man’s sheer word.

Those simple and apparently harmless phrases to Uma, spoken with deep
concentration, had possessed sufficient hidden force to explode like
bombs and produce definite, though injurious, effects. I understood,
later, that the explosive vibratory power in speech could be wisely
directed to free one’s life from difficulties, and thus operate
without scar or rebuke. ^1-12

Our family moved to Lahore in the Punjab. There I acquired a picture
of the Divine Mother in the form of the Goddess Kali. ^1-13 It
sanctified a small informal shrine on the balcony of our home. An
unequivocal conviction came over me that fulfillment would crown any
of my prayers uttered in that sacred spot. Standing there with Uma one
day, I watched two kites flying over the roofs of the buildings on the
opposite side of the very narrow lane.

“Why are you so quiet?” Uma pushed me playfully.

“I am just thinking how wonderful it is that Divine Mother gives me
whatever I ask.”

“I suppose She would give you those two kites!” My sister laughed
derisively.

“Why not?” I began silent prayers for their possession.

Matches are played in India with kites whose strings are covered with
glue and ground glass. Each player attempts to sever the string of his
opponent. A freed kite sails over the roofs; there is great fun in
catching it. Inasmuch as Uma and I were on the balcony, it seemed
impossible that any loosed kite could come into our hands; its string
would naturally dangle over the roofs.

The players across the lane began their match. One string was cut;
immediately the kite floated in my direction. It was stationary for a
moment, through sudden abatement of breeze, which sufficed to firmly
entangle the string with a cactus plant on top of the opposite house.
A perfect loop was formed for my seizure. I handed the prize to Uma.

“It was just an extraordinary accident, and not an answer to your
prayer. If the other kite comes to you, then I shall believe.”
Sister’s dark eyes conveyed more amazement than her words.

I continued my prayers with a crescendo intensity. A forcible tug by
the other player resulted in the abrupt loss of his kite. It headed
toward me, dancing in the wind. My helpful assistant, the cactus
plant, again secured the kite string in the necessary loop by which I
could grasp it. I presented my second trophy to Uma.

“Indeed, Divine Mother listens to you! This is all too uncanny for
me!” Sister bolted away like a frightened fawn.

My mother’s greatest desire was the marriage of my elder brother. “Ah,
when I behold the face of Ananta’s wife, I shall find heaven on this
earth!” I frequently heard Mother express in these words her strong
Indian sentiment for family continuity.

I was about eleven years old at the time of Ananta’s betrothal. Mother
was in Calcutta, joyously supervising the wedding preparations. Father
and I alone remained at our home in Bareilly in northern India, whence
Father had been transferred after two years at Lahore.

I had previously witnessed the splendor of nuptial rites for my two
elder sisters, Roma and Uma; but for Ananta, as the eldest son, plans
were truly elaborate. Mother was welcoming numerous relatives, daily
arriving in Calcutta from distant homes. She lodged them comfortably
in a large, newly acquired house at 50 Amherst Street. Everything was
in readiness-the banquet delicacies, the gay throne on which Brother
was to be carried to the home of the bride-to-be, the rows of colorful
lights, the mammoth cardboard elephants and camels, the English,
Scottish and Indian orchestras, the professional entertainers, the
priests for the ancient rituals.

Father and I, in gala spirits, were planning to join the family in
time for the ceremony. Shortly before the great day, however, I had an
ominous vision.

It was in Bareilly on a midnight. As I slept beside Father on the
piazza of our bungalow, I was awakened by a peculiar flutter of the
mosquito netting over the bed. The flimsy curtains parted and I saw
the beloved form of my mother.

“Awaken your father!” Her voice was only a whisper. “Take the first
available train, at four o’clock this morning. Rush to Calcutta if you
would see me!” The wraithlike figure vanished.

“Father, Father! Mother is dying!” The terror in my tone aroused him
instantly. I sobbed out the fatal tidings.

“Never mind that hallucination of yours.” Father gave his
characteristic negation to a new situation. “Your mother is in
excellent health. If we get any bad news, we shall leave tomorrow.”

“You shall never forgive yourself for not starting now!” Anguish
caused me to add bitterly, “Nor shall I ever forgive you!”

The melancholy morning came with explicit words: “Mother dangerously
ill; marriage postponed; come at once.”

Father and I left distractedly. One of my uncles met us en route at a
transfer point. A train thundered toward us, looming with telescopic
increase. From my inner tumult, an abrupt determination arose to hurl
myself on the railroad tracks. Already bereft, I felt, of my mother, I
could not endure a world suddenly barren to the bone. I loved Mother
as my dearest friend on earth. Her solacing black eyes had been my
surest refuge in the trifling tragedies of childhood.

“Does she yet live?” I stopped for one last question to my uncle.

“Of course she is alive!” He was not slow to interpret the desperation
in my face. But I scarcely believed him.

When we reached our Calcutta home, it was only to confront the
stunning mystery of death. I collapsed into an almost lifeless state.
Years passed before any reconciliation entered my heart. Storming the
very gates of heaven, my cries at last summoned the Divine Mother. Her
words brought final healing to my suppurating wounds:

“It is I who have watched over thee, life after life, in the
tenderness of many mothers! See in My gaze the two black eyes, the
lost beautiful eyes, thou seekest!”

Father and I returned to Bareilly soon after the crematory rites for
the well-beloved. Early every morning I made a pathetic memorial-
pilgrimage to a large sheoli tree which shaded the smooth, green-gold
lawn before our bungalow. In poetical moments, I thought that the
white sheoli flowers were strewing themselves with a willing devotion
over the grassy altar. Mingling tears with the dew, I often observed a
strange other-worldly light emerging from the dawn. Intense pangs of
longing for God assailed me. I felt powerfully drawn to the Himalayas.

One of my cousins, fresh from a period of travel in the holy hills,
visited us in Bareilly. I listened eagerly to his tales about the high
mountain abode of yogis and swamis. ^2-1

“Let us run away to the Himalayas.” My suggestion one day to Dwarka
Prasad, the young son of our landlord in Bareilly, fell on
unsympathetic ears. He revealed my plan to my elder brother, who had
just arrived to see Father. Instead of laughing lightly over this
impractical scheme of a small boy, Ananta made it a definite point to
ridicule me.

“Where is your orange robe? You can’t be a swami without that!”

But I was inexplicably thrilled by his words. They brought a clear
picture of myself roaming about India as a monk. Perhaps they awakened
memories of a past life; in any case, I began to see with what natural
ease I would wear the garb of that anciently-founded monastic order.

Chatting one morning with Dwarka, I felt a love for God descending
with avalanchic force. My companion was only partly attentive to the
ensuing eloquence, but I was wholeheartedly listening to myself.

I fled that afternoon toward Naini Tal in the Himalayan foothills.
Ananta gave determined chase; I was forced to return sadly to
Bareilly. The only pilgrimage permitted me was the customary one at
dawn to the sheoli tree. My heart wept for the lost Mothers, human and
divine.

The rent left in the family fabric by Mother’s death was irreparable.
Father never remarried during his nearly forty remaining years.
Assuming the difficult role of Father-Mother to his little flock, he
grew noticeably more tender, more approachable. With calmness and
insight, he solved the various family problems. After office hours he
retired like a hermit to the cell of his room, practicing Kriya Yoga
in a sweet serenity. Long after Mother’s death, I attempted to engage
an English nurse to attend to details that would make my parent’s life
more comfortable. But Father shook his head.

“Service to me ended with your mother.” His eyes were remote with a
lifelong devotion. “I will not accept ministrations from any other
woman.”

Fourteen months after Mother’s passing, I learned that she had left me
a momentous message. Ananta was present at her deathbed and had
recorded her words. Although she had asked that the disclosure be made
to me in one year, my brother delayed. He was soon to leave Bareilly
for Calcutta, to marry the girl Mother had chosen for him. ^2-2 One
evening he summoned me to his side.

“Mukunda, I have been reluctant to give you strange tidings.” Ananta’s
tone held a note of resignation. “My fear was to inflame your desire
to leave home. But in any case you are bristling with divine ardor.
When I captured you recently on your way to the Himalayas, I came to a
definite resolve. I must not further postpone the fulfillment of my
solemn promise.” My brother handed me a small box, and delivered

Mother’s message.

“Let these words be my final blessing, my beloved son Mukunda!” Mother
had said. “The hour is here when I must relate a number of phenomenal
events following your birth. I first knew your destined path when you
were but a babe in my arms. I carried you then to the home of my guru
in Benares. Almost hidden behind a throng of disciples, I could barely
see Lahiri Mahasaya as he sat in deep meditation.

“While I patted you, I was praying that the great guru take notice and
bestow a blessing. As my silent devotional demand grew in intensity,
he opened his eyes and beckoned me to approach. The others made a way
for me; I bowed at the sacred feet. My master seated you on his lap,
placing his hand on your forehead by way of spiritually baptizing you.

“‘Little mother, thy son will be a yogi. As a spiritual engine, he
will carry many souls to God’s kingdom.’

“My heart leaped with joy to find my secret prayer granted by the
omniscient guru. Shortly before your birth, he had told me you would
follow his path.

“Later, my son, your vision of the Great Light was known to me and
your sister Roma, as from the next room we observed you motionless on
the bed. Your little face was illuminated; your voice rang with iron
resolve as you spoke of going to the Himalayas in quest of the Divine.

“In these ways, dear son, I came to know that your road lies far from
worldly ambitions. The most singular event in my life brought further

confirmation-an event which now impels my deathbed message.

“It was an interview with a sage in the Punjab. While our family was
living in Lahore, one morning the servant came precipitantly into my
room.

“‘Mistress, a strange sadhu ^2-3 is here. He insists that he ”see
the mother of Mukunda.“’

“These simple words struck a profound chord within me; I went at once
to greet the visitor. Bowing at his feet, I sensed that before me was
a true man of God.

“‘Mother,’ he said, ‘the great masters wish you to know that your stay
on earth will not be long. Your next illness shall prove to be your
last.’ ^2-4 There was a silence, during which I felt no alarm but
only a vibration of great peace. Finally he addressed me again:

“‘You are to be the custodian of a certain silver amulet. I will not
give it to you today; to demonstrate the truth in my words, the
talisman shall materialize in your hands tomorrow as you meditate. On
your deathbed, you must instruct your eldest son Ananta to keep the
amulet for one year and then to hand it over to your second son.
Mukunda will understand the meaning of the talisman from the great
ones. He should receive it about the time he is ready to renounce all
worldly hopes and start his vital search for God. When he has retained
the amulet for some years, and when it has served its purpose, it
shall vanish. Even if kept in the most secret spot, it shall return
whence it came.’

“I proffered alms ^2-5 to the saint, and bowed before him in great
reverence. Not taking the offering, he departed with a blessing. The
next evening, as I sat with folded hands in meditation, a silver
amulet materialized between my palms, even as the sadhu had promised.
It made itself known by a cold, smooth touch. I have jealously guarded
it for more than two years, and now leave it in Ananta’s keeping. Do
not grieve for me, as I shall have been ushered by my great guru into
the arms of the Infinite. Farewell, my child; the Cosmic Mother will
protect you.”

A blaze of illumination came over me with possession of the amulet;
many dormant memories awakened. The talisman, round and anciently
quaint, was covered with Sanskrit characters. I understood that it
came from teachers of past lives, who were invisibly guiding my steps.
A further significance there was, indeed; but one does not reveal
fully the heart of an amulet.

How the talisman finally vanished amidst deeply unhappy circumstances
of my life; and how its loss was a herald of my gain of a guru, cannot
be told in this chapter.

But the small boy, thwarted in his attempts to reach the Himalayas,
daily traveled far on the wings of his amulet.

“Father, if I promise to return home without coercion, may I take a
sight-seeing trip to Benares?”

My keen love of travel was seldom hindered by Father. He permitted me,
even as a mere boy, to visit many cities and pilgrimage spots. Usually
one or more of my friends accompanied me; we would travel comfortably
on first-class passes provided by Father. His position as a railroad
official was fully satisfactory to the nomads in the family.

Father promised to give my request due consideration. The next day he
summoned me and held out a round-trip pass from Bareilly to Benares, a
number of rupee notes, and two letters.

“I have a business matter to propose to a Benares friend, Kedar Nath
Babu. Unfortunately I have lost his address. But I believe you will be
able to get this letter to him through our common friend, Swami
Pranabananda. The swami, my brother disciple, has attained an exalted
spiritual stature. You will benefit by his company; this second note
will serve as your introduction.”

Father’s eyes twinkled as he added, “Mind, no more flights from home!”

I set forth with the zest of my twelve years (though time has never
dimmed my delight in new scenes and strange faces). Reaching Benares,
I proceeded immediately to the swami’s residence. The front door was
open; I made my way to a long, hall-like room on the second floor. A
rather stout man, wearing only a loincloth, was seated in lotus
posture on a slightly raised platform. His head and unwrinkled face
were clean-shaven; a beatific smile played about his lips. To dispel
my thought that I had intruded, he greeted me as an old friend.

“Baba anand (bliss to my dear one).” His welcome was given heartily in
a childlike voice. I knelt and touched his feet.

“Are you Swami Pranabananda?”

He nodded. “Are you Bhagabati’s son?” His words were out before I had
had time to get Father’s letter from my pocket. In astonishment, I
handed him the note of introduction, which now seemed superfluous.

“Of course I will locate Kedar Nath Babu for you.” The saint again
surprised me by his clairvoyance. He glanced at the letter, and made a
few affectionate references to my parent.

“You know, I am enjoying two pensions. One is by the recommendation of
your father, for whom I once worked in the railroad office. The other
is by the recommendation of my Heavenly Father, for whom I have
conscientiously finished my earthly duties in life.”

I found this remark very obscure. “What kind of pension, sir, do you
receive from the Heavenly Father? Does He drop money in your lap?”

He laughed. “I mean a pension of fathomless peace-a reward for many
years of deep meditation. I never crave money now. My few material
needs are amply provided for. Later you will understand the
significance of a second pension.”

Abruptly terminating our conversation, the saint became gravely
motionless. A sphinxlike air enveloped him. At first his eyes
sparkled, as if observing something of interest, then grew dull. I
felt abashed at his pauciloquy; he had not yet told me how I could
meet Father’s friend. A trifle restlessly, I looked about me in the
bare room, empty except for us two. My idle gaze took in his wooden
sandals, lying under the platform seat.

“Little sir, ^3-1 don’t get worried. The man you wish to see will be
with you in half an hour.” The yogi was reading my mind-a feat not too
difficult at the moment!

Again he fell into inscrutable silence. My watch informed me that
thirty minutes had elapsed.

The swami aroused himself. “I think Kedar Nath Babu is nearing the
door.”

I heard somebody coming up the stairs. An amazed incomprehension arose
suddenly; my thoughts raced in confusion: “How is it possible that
Father’s friend has been summoned to this place without the help of a
messenger? The swami has spoken to no one but myself since my
arrival!”

Abruptly I quitted the room and descended the steps. Halfway down I
met a thin, fair-skinned man of medium height. He appeared to be in a
hurry.

“Are you Kedar Nath Babu?” Excitement colored my voice.

“Yes. Are you not Bhagabati’s son who has been waiting here to meet
me?” He smiled in friendly fashion.

“Sir, how do you happen to come here?” I felt baffled resentment over
his inexplicable presence.

“Everything is mysterious today! Less than an hour ago I had just
finished my bath in the Ganges when Swami Pranabananda approached me.
I have no idea how he knew I was there at that time.

“‘Bhagabati’s son is waiting for you in my apartment,’ he said. ‘Will
you come with me?’ I gladly agreed. As we proceeded hand in hand, the
swami in his wooden sandals was strangely able to outpace me, though I
wore these stout walking shoes.

“‘How long will it take you to reach my place?’ Pranabanandaji
suddenly halted to ask me this question.

“‘About half an hour.’

“‘I have something else to do at present.’ He gave me an enigmatical
glance. ‘I must leave you behind. You can join me in my house, where
Bhagabati’s son and I will be awaiting you.’

“Before I could remonstrate, he dashed swiftly past me and disappeared
in the crowd. I walked here as fast as possible.”

This explanation only increased my bewilderment. I inquired how long
he had known the swami.

“We met a few times last year, but not recently. I was very glad to
see him again today at the bathing ghat .”

“I cannot believe my ears! Am I losing my mind? Did you meet him in a
vision, or did you actually see him, touch his hand, and hear the
sound of his feet?”

“I don’t know what you’re driving at!” He flushed angrily. “I am not
lying to you. Can’t you understand that only through the swami could I
have known you were waiting at this place for me?”

“Why, that man, Swami Pranabananda, has not left my sight a moment
since I first came about an hour ago.” I blurted out the whole story.

His eyes opened widely. “Are we living in this material age, or are we
dreaming? I never expected to witness such a miracle in my life! I
thought this swami was just an ordinary man, and now I find he can
materialize an extra body and work through it!” Together we entered
the saint’s room.

“Look, those are the very sandals he was wearing at the ghat ,” Kedar
Nath Babu whispered. “He was clad only in a loincloth, just as I see
him now.”

As the visitor bowed before him, the saint turned to me with a
quizzical smile.

“Why are you stupefied at all this? The subtle unity of the phenomenal
world is not hidden from true yogis. I instantly see and converse with
my disciples in distant Calcutta. They can similarly transcend at will
every obstacle of gross matter.”

It was probably in an effort to stir spiritual ardor in my young
breast that the swami had condescended to tell me of his powers of
astral radio and television. ^3-2 But instead of enthusiasm, I
experienced only an awe-stricken fear. Inasmuch as I was destined to
undertake my divine search through one particular guru-Sri Yukteswar,
whom I had not yet met-I felt no inclination to accept Pranabananda as
my teacher. I glanced at him doubtfully, wondering if it were he or
his counterpart before me.

The master sought to banish my disquietude by bestowing a soul-
awakening gaze, and by some inspiring words about his guru.

“Lahiri Mahasaya was the greatest yogi I ever knew. He was Divinity
Itself in the form of flesh.”

If a disciple, I reflected, could materialize an extra fleshly form at
will, what miracles indeed could be barred to his master?

“I will tell you how priceless is a guru’s help. I used to meditate
with another disciple for eight hours every night. We had to work at
the railroad office during the day. Finding difficulty in carrying on
my clerical duties, I desired to devote my whole time to God. For
eight years I persevered, meditating half the night. I had wonderful
results; tremendous spiritual perceptions illumined my mind. But a
little veil always remained between me and the Infinite. Even with
super-human earnestness, I found the final irrevocable union to be
denied me. One evening I paid a visit to Lahiri Mahasaya and pleaded
for his divine intercession. My importunities continued during the
entire night.

“‘Angelic Guru, my spiritual anguish is such that I can no longer bear
my life without meeting the Great Beloved face to face!’

“‘What can I do? You must meditate more profoundly.’

“‘I am appealing to Thee, O God my Master! I see Thee materialized
before me in a physical body; bless me that I may perceive Thee in
Thine infinite form!’

“Lahiri Mahasaya extended his hand in a benign gesture. ‘You may go
now and meditate. I have interceded for you with Brahma.’ ^3-3

“Immeasurably uplifted, I returned to my home. In meditation that
night, the burning Goal of my life was achieved. Now I ceaselessly
enjoy the spiritual pension. Never from that day has the Blissful
Creator remained hidden from my eyes behind any screen of delusion.”

Pranabananda’s face was suffused with divine light. The peace of
another world entered my heart; all fear had fled. The saint made a
further confidence.

“Some months later I returned to Lahiri Mahasaya and tried to thank
him for his bestowal of the infinite gift. Then I mentioned another
matter.

“‘Divine Guru, I can no longer work in the office. Please release me.
Brahma keeps me continuously intoxicated.’

“‘Apply for a pension from your company.’

“‘What reason shall I give, so early in my service?’

“‘Say what you feel.’

“The next day I made my application. The doctor inquired the grounds
for my premature request.

“‘At work, I find an overpowering sensation rising in my spine. ^3-4
It permeates my whole body, unfitting me for the performance of my
duties.’

“Without further questioning the physician recommended me highly for a
pension, which I soon received. I know the divine will of Lahiri

Mahasaya worked through the doctor and the railroad officials,
including your father. Automatically they obeyed the great guru’s
spiritual direction, and freed me for a life of unbroken communion
with the Beloved.“ ^3-5

After this extraordinary revelation, Swami Pranabananda retired into
one of his long silences. As I was taking leave, touching his feet
reverently, he gave me his blessing:

“Your life belongs to the path of renunciation and yoga. I shall see
you again, with your father, later on.” The years brought fulfillment
to both these predictions. ^3-6

Kedar Nath Babu walked by my side in the gathering darkness. I
delivered Father’s letter, which my companion read under a street
lamp.

“Your father suggests that I take a position in the Calcutta office of
his railroad company. How pleasant to look forward to at least one of
the pensions that Swami Pranabananda enjoys! But it is impossible; I
cannot leave Benares. Alas, two bodies are not yet for me!”

“Leave your classroom on some trifling pretext, and engage a hackney
carriage. Stop in the lane where no one in my house can see you.”

These were my final instructions to Amar Mitter, a high school friend
who planned to accompany me to the Himalayas. We had chosen the
following day for our flight. Precautions were necessary, as Ananta
exercised a vigilant eye. He was determined to foil the plans of
escape which he suspected were uppermost in my mind. The amulet, like
a spiritual yeast, was silently at work within me. Amidst the
Himalayan snows, I hoped to find the master whose face often appeared
to me in visions.

The family was living now in Calcutta, where Father had been
permanently transferred. Following the patriarchal Indian custom,
Ananta had brought his bride to live in our home, now at 4 Gurpar
Road. There in a small attic room I engaged in daily meditations and
prepared my mind for the divine search.

The memorable morning arrived with inauspicious rain. Hearing the
wheels of Amar’s carriage in the road, I hastily tied together a
blanket, a pair of sandals, Lahiri Mahasaya’s picture, a copy of the
Bhagavad Gita, a string of prayer beads, and two loincloths. This
bundle I threw from my third-story window. I ran down the steps and
passed my uncle, buying fish at the door.

“What is the excitement?” His gaze roved suspiciously over my person.

I gave him a noncommittal smile and walked to the lane. Retrieving my
bundle, I joined Amar with conspiratorial caution. We drove to Chadni
Chowk, a merchandise center. For months we had been saving our tiffin
money to buy English clothes. Knowing that my clever brother could
easily play the part of a detective, we thought to outwit him by
European garb.

On the way to the station, we stopped for my cousin, Jotin Ghosh, whom
I called Jatinda. He was a new convert, longing for a guru in the
Himalayas. He donned the new suit we had in readiness. Well-
camouflaged, we hoped! A deep elation possessed our hearts.

“All we need now are canvas shoes.” I led my companions to a shop
displaying rubber-soled footwear. “Articles of leather, gotten only
through the slaughter of animals, must be absent on this holy trip.” I
halted on the street to remove the leather cover from my Bhagavad
Gita, and the leather straps from my English-made sola topee (helmet).

At the station we bought tickets to Burdwan, where we planned to
transfer for Hardwar in the Himalayan foothills. As soon as the train,
like ourselves, was in flight, I gave utterance to a few of my
glorious anticipations.

“Just imagine!” I ejaculated. “We shall be initiated by the masters
and experience the trance of cosmic consciousness. Our flesh will be
charged with such magnetism that wild animals of the Himalayas will
come tamely near us. Tigers will be no more than meek house cats
awaiting our caresses!”

This remark-picturing a prospect I considered entrancing, both
metaphorically and literally-brought an enthusiastic smile from Amar.
But Jatinda averted his gaze, directing it through the window at the
scampering landscape.

“Let the money be divided in three portions.” Jatinda broke a long
silence with this suggestion. “Each of us should buy his own ticket at
Burdwan. Thus no one at the station will surmise that we are running
away together.”

I unsuspectingly agreed. At dusk our train stopped at Burdwan. Jatinda
entered the ticket office; Amar and I sat on the platform. We waited
fifteen minutes, then made unavailing inquiries. Searching in all
directions, we shouted Jatinda’s name with the urgency of fright. But
he had faded into the dark unknown surrounding the little station.

I was completely unnerved, shocked to a peculiar numbness. That God
would countenance this depressing episode! The romantic occasion of my
first carefully-planned flight after Him was cruelly marred.

“Amar, we must return home.” I was weeping like a child. “Jatinda’s
callous departure is an ill omen. This trip is doomed to failure.”

“Is this your love for the Lord? Can’t you stand the little test of a
treacherous companion?”

Through Amar’s suggestion of a divine test, my heart steadied itself.
We refreshed ourselves with famous Burdwan sweetmeats, sitabhog (food
for the goddess) and motichur (nuggets of sweet pearl). In a few
hours, we entrained for Hardwar, via Bareilly. Changing trains at
Moghul Serai, we discussed a vital matter as we waited on the
platform.

“Amar, we may soon be closely questioned by railroad officials. I am
not underrating my brother’s ingenuity! No matter what the outcome, I
will not speak untruth.”

“All I ask of you, Mukunda, is to keep still. Don’t laugh or grin
while I am talking.”

At this moment, a European station agent accosted me. He waved a
telegram whose import I immediately grasped.

“Are you running away from home in anger?”

“No!” I was glad his choice of words permitted me to make emphatic
reply. Not anger but “divinest melancholy” was responsible, I knew,
for my unconventional behavior.

The official then turned to Amar. The duel of wits that followed
hardly permitted me to maintain the counseled stoic gravity.

“Where is the third boy?” The man injected a full ring of authority
into his voice. “Come on; speak the truth!”

“Sir, I notice you are wearing eyeglasses. Can’t you see that we are
only two?” Amar smiled impudently. “I am not a magician; I can’t
conjure up a third companion.”

The official, noticeably disconcerted by this impertinence, sought a
new field of attack.

“What is your name?”

“I am called Thomas. I am the son of an English mother and a converted
Christian Indian father.”

“What is your friend’s name?”

“I call him Thompson.”

By this time my inward mirth had reached a zenith; I unceremoniously
made for the train, whistling for departure. Amar followed with the
official, who was credulous and obliging enough to put us into a
European compartment. It evidently pained him to think of two half-
English boys traveling in the section allotted to natives. After his
polite exit, I lay back on the seat and laughed uncontrollably. My
friend wore an expression of blithe satisfaction at having outwitted a
veteran European official.

On the platform I had contrived to read the telegram. From my brother,
it went thus: “Three Bengali boys in English clothes running away from
home toward Hardwar via Moghul Serai. Please detain them until my
arrival. Ample reward for your services.”

“Amar, I told you not to leave marked timetables in your home.” My
glance was reproachful. “Brother must have found one there.”

My friend sheepishly acknowledged the thrust. We halted briefly in
Bareilly, where Dwarka Prasad awaited us with a telegram from Ananta.
My old friend tried valiantly to detain us; I convinced him that our
flight had not been undertaken lightly. As on a previous occasion,
Dwarka refused my invitation to set forth to the Himalayas.

While our train stood in a station that night, and I was half asleep,
Amar was awakened by another questioning official. He, too, fell a
victim to the hybrid charms of “Thomas” and “Thompson.” The train bore
us triumphantly into a dawn arrival at Hardwar. The majestic mountains
loomed invitingly in the distance. We dashed through the station and
entered the freedom of city crowds. Our first act was to change into
native costume, as Ananta had somehow penetrated our European
disguise. A premonition of capture weighed on my mind.

Deeming it advisable to leave Hardwar at once, we bought tickets to
proceed north to Rishikesh, a soil long hallowed by feet of many
masters. I had already boarded the train, while Amar lagged on the
platform. He was brought to an abrupt halt by a shout from a
policeman. Our unwelcome guardian escorted us to a station bungalow
and took charge of our money. He explained courteously that it was his
duty to hold us until my elder brother arrived.

Learning that the truants’ destination had been the Himalayas, the
officer related a strange story.

“I see you are crazy about saints! You will never meet a greater man
of God than the one I saw only yesterday. My brother officer and I
first encountered him five days ago. We were patrolling by the Ganges,
on a sharp lookout for a certain murderer. Our instructions were to
capture him, alive or dead. He was known to be masquerading as a sadhu
in order to rob pilgrims. A short way before us, we spied a figure
which resembled the description of the criminal. He ignored our
command to stop; we ran to overpower him. Approaching his back, I
wielded my ax with tremendous force; the man’s right arm was severed
almost completely from his body.

“Without outcry or any glance at the ghastly wound, the stranger
astonishingly continued his swift pace. As we jumped in front of him,
he spoke quietly.

“‘I am not the murderer you are seeking.’

“I was deeply mortified to see I had injured the person of a divine-
looking sage. Prostrating myself at his feet, I implored his pardon,
and offered my turban-cloth to staunch the heavy spurts of blood.

“‘Son, that was just an understandable mistake on your part.’ The
saint regarded me kindly. ‘Run along, and don’t reproach yourself. The
Beloved Mother is taking care of me.’ He pushed his dangling arm into
its stump and lo! it adhered; the blood inexplicably ceased to flow.

“‘Come to me under yonder tree in three days and you will find me
fully healed. Thus you will feel no remorse.’

“Yesterday my brother officer and I went eagerly to the designated
spot. The sadhu was there and allowed us to examine his arm. It bore
no scar or trace of hurt!

“‘I am going via Rishikesh to the Himalayan solitudes.’ He blessed us
as he departed quickly. I feel that my life has been uplifted through
his sanctity.”

The officer concluded with a pious ejaculation; his experience had
obviously moved him beyond his usual depths. With an impressive
gesture, he handed me a printed clipping about the miracle. In the
usual garbled manner of the sensational type of newspaper (not
missing, alas! even in India), the reporter’s version was slightly
exaggerated: it indicated that the sadhu had been almost decapitated!

Amar and I lamented that we had missed the great yogi who could
forgive his persecutor in such a Christlike way. India, materially
poor for the last two centuries, yet has an inexhaustible fund of
divine wealth; spiritual “skyscrapers” may occasionally be encountered
by the wayside, even by worldly men like this policeman.

We thanked the officer for relieving our tedium with his marvelous
story. He was probably intimating that he was more fortunate than we:
he had met an illumined saint without effort; our earnest search had
ended, not at the feet of a master, but in a coarse police station!

So near the Himalayas and yet, in our captivity, so far, I told Amar I
felt doubly impelled to seek freedom.

“Let us slip away when opportunity offers. We can go on foot to holy
Rishikesh.” I smiled encouragingly.

But my companion had turned pessimist as soon as the stalwart prop of
our money had been taken from us.

“If we started a trek over such dangerous jungle land, we should
finish, not in the city of saints, but in the stomachs of tigers!”

Ananta and Amar’s brother arrived after three days. Amar greeted his
relative with affectionate relief. I was unreconciled; Ananta got no
more from me than a severe upbraiding.

“I understand how you feel.” My brother spoke soothingly. “All I ask
of you is to accompany me to Benares to meet a certain saint, and go
on to Calcutta to visit your grieving father for a few days. Then you
can resume your search here for a master.”

Amar entered the conversation at this point to disclaim any intention
of returning to Hardwar with me. He was enjoying the familial warmth.
But I knew I would never abandon the quest for my guru.

Our party entrained for Benares. There I had a singular and instant
response to my prayers.

A clever scheme had been prearranged by Ananta. Before seeing me at
Hardwar, he had stopped in Benares to ask a certain scriptural
authority to interview me later. Both the pundit and his son had
promised to undertake my dissuasion from the path of a sannyasi . ^4-1

Ananta took me to their home. The son, a young man of ebullient
manner, greeted me in the courtyard. He engaged me in a lengthy
philosophic discourse. Professing to have a clairvoyant knowledge of
my future, he discountenanced my idea of being a monk.

“You will meet continual misfortune, and be unable to find God, if you
insist on deserting your ordinary responsibilities! You cannot work
out your past karma ^4-2 without worldly experiences.”

Krishna’s immortal words rose to my lips in reply: “‘Even he with the
worst of karma who ceaselessly meditates on Me quickly loses the
effects of his past bad actions. Becoming a high-souled being, he soon
attains perennial peace. Arjuna, know this for certain: the devotee
who puts his trust in Me never perishes!’” ^4-3

But the forceful prognostications of the young man had slightly shaken
my confidence. With all the fervor of my heart I prayed silently to
God:

“Please solve my bewilderment and answer me, right here and now, if
Thou dost desire me to lead the life of a renunciate or a worldly
man!”

I noticed a sadhu of noble countenance standing just outside the
compound of the pundit’s house. Evidently he had overheard the
spirited conversation between the self-styled clairvoyant and myself,
for the stranger called me to his side. I felt a tremendous power
flowing from his calm eyes.

“Son, don’t listen to that ignoramus. In response to your prayer, the
Lord tells me to assure you that your sole path in this life is that
of the renunciate.”

With astonishment as well as gratitude, I smiled happily at this
decisive message.

“Come away from that man!” The “ignoramus” was calling me from the
courtyard. My saintly guide raised his hand in blessing and slowly
departed.

“That sadhu is just as crazy as you are.” It was the hoary-headed
pundit who made this charming observation. He and his son were gazing
at me lugubriously. “I heard that he too has left his home in a vague
search for God.”

I turned away. To Ananta I remarked that I would not engage in further

discussion with our hosts. My brother agreed to an immediate
departure; we soon entrained for Calcutta.

“Mr. Detective, how did you discover I had fled with two companions?”
I vented my lively curiosity to Ananta during our homeward journey. He
smiled mischievously.

“At your school, I found that Amar had left his classroom and had not
returned. I went to his home the next morning and unearthed a marked
timetable. Amar’s father was just leaving by carriage and was talking
to the coachman.

“‘My son will not ride with me to his school this morning. He has
disappeared!’ the father moaned.

“‘I heard from a brother coachman that your son and two others,
dressed in European suits, boarded the train at Howrah Station,’ the
man stated. ‘They made a present of their leather shoes to the cab
driver.’

“Thus I had three clues-the timetable, the trio of boys, and the
English clothing.”

I was listening to Ananta’s disclosures with mingled mirth and
vexation. Our generosity to the coachman had been slightly misplaced!

“Of course I rushed to send telegrams to station officials in all the

cities which Amar had underlined in the timetable. He had checked
Bareilly, so I wired your friend Dwarka there. After inquiries in our
Calcutta neighborhood, I learned that cousin Jatinda had been absent
one night but had arrived home the following morning in European garb.
I sought him out and invited him to dinner. He accepted, quite
disarmed by my friendly manner. On the way I led him unsuspectingly to
a police station. He was surrounded by several officers whom I had
previously selected for their ferocious appearance. Under their
formidable gaze, Jatinda agreed to account for his mysterious conduct.

“‘I started for the Himalayas in a buoyant spiritual mood,’ he
explained. ‘Inspiration filled me at the prospect of meeting the
masters. But as soon as Mukunda said, ”During our ecstasies in the
Himalayan caves, tigers will be spellbound and sit around us like tame
pussies,“ my spirits froze; beads of perspiration formed on my brow.
”What then?“ I thought. ”If the vicious nature of the tigers be not
changed through the power of our spiritual trance, shall they treat us
with the kindness of house cats?“ In my mind’s eye, I already saw
myself the compulsory inmate of some tiger’s stomach-entering there
not at once with the whole body, but by installments of its several
parts!’”

My anger at Jatinda’s vanishment was evaporated in laughter. The
hilarious sequel on the train was worth all the anguish he had caused
me. I must confess to a slight feeling of satisfaction: Jatinda too
had not escaped an encounter with the police!

“Ananta, ^4-4 you are a born sleuthhound!” My glance of amusement was
not without some exasperation. “And I shall tell Jatinda I am glad he
was prompted by no mood of treachery, as it appeared, but only by the
prudent instinct of self-preservation!”

At home in Calcutta, Father touchingly requested me to curb my roving
feet until, at least, the completion of my high school studies. In my
absence, he had lovingly hatched a plot by arranging for a saintly
pundit, Swami Kebalananda, ^4-5 to come regularly to the house.

“The sage will be your Sanskrit tutor,” my parent announced
confidently.

Father hoped to satisfy my religious yearnings by instructions from a
learned philosopher. But the tables were subtly turned: my new
teacher, far from offering intellectual aridities, fanned the embers
of my God-aspiration. Unknown to Father, Swami Kebalananda was an
exalted disciple of Lahiri Mahasaya. The peerless guru had possessed
thousands of disciples, silently drawn to him by the irresistibility
of his divine magnetism. I learned later that Lahiri Mahasaya had
often characterized Kebalananda as rishi or illumined sage.

Luxuriant curls framed my tutor’s handsome face. His dark eyes were
guileless, with the transparency of a child’s. All the movements of
his slight body were marked by a restful deliberation. Ever gentle and
loving, he was firmly established in the infinite consciousness. Many
of our happy hours together were spent in deep Kriya meditation.

Kebalananda was a noted authority on the ancient shastras or sacred
books: his erudition had earned him the title of “Shastri Mahasaya,”
by which he was usually addressed. But my progress in Sanskrit
scholarship was unnoteworthy. I sought every opportunity to forsake
prosaic grammar and to talk of yoga and Lahiri Mahasaya. My tutor
obliged me one day by telling me something of his own life with the
master.

“Rarely fortunate, I was able to remain near Lahiri Mahasaya for ten
years. His Benares home was my nightly goal of pilgrimage. The guru
was always present in a small front parlor on the first floor. As he
sat in lotus posture on a backless wooden seat, his disciples
garlanded him in a semicircle. His eyes sparkled and danced with the
joy of the Divine. They were ever half closed, peering through the
inner telescopic orb into a sphere of eternal bliss. He seldom spoke
at length. Occasionally his gaze would focus on a student in need of
help; healing words poured then like an avalanche of light.

“An indescribable peace blossomed within me at the master’s glance. I
was permeated with his fragrance, as though from a lotus of infinity.
To be with him, even without exchanging a word for days, was
experience which changed my entire being. If any invisible barrier
rose in the path of my concentration, I would meditate at the guru’s
feet. There the most tenuous states came easily within my grasp. Such
perceptions eluded me in the presence of lesser teachers. The master
was a living temple of God whose secret doors were open to all
disciples through devotion.

“Lahiri Mahasaya was no bookish interpreter of the scriptures.
Effortlessly he dipped into the ‘divine library.’ Foam of words and
spray of thoughts gushed from the fountain of his omniscience. He had
the wondrous clavis which unlocked the profound philosophical science
embedded ages ago in the Vedas. ^4-6 If asked to explain the
different planes of consciousness mentioned in the ancient texts, he
would smilingly assent.

“‘I will undergo those states, and presently tell you what I
perceive.’ He was thus diametrically unlike the teachers who commit
scripture to memory and then give forth unrealized abstractions.

“‘Please expound the holy stanzas as the meaning occurs to you.’ The
taciturn guru often gave this instruction to a near-by disciple. ‘I
will guide your thoughts, that the right interpretation be uttered.’
In this way many of Lahiri Mahasaya’s perceptions came to be recorded,
with voluminous commentaries by various students.

“The master never counseled slavish belief. ‘Words are only shells,’
he said. ‘Win conviction of God’s presence through your own joyous
contact in meditation.’

“No matter what the disciple’s problem, the guru advised Kriya Yoga
for its solution.

“‘The yogic key will not lose its efficiency when I am no longer
present in the body to guide you. This technique cannot be bound,
filed, and forgotten, in the manner of theoretical inspirations.
Continue ceaselessly on your path to liberation through Kriya, whose
power lies in practice.’

“I myself consider Kriya the most effective device of salvation
through self-effort ever to be evolved in man’s search for the
Infinite.” Kebalananda concluded with this earnest testimony. “Through
its use, the omnipotent God, hidden in all men, became visibly
incarnated in the flesh of Lahiri Mahasaya and a number of his
disciples.”

A Christlike miracle by Lahiri Mahasaya took place in Kebalananda’s
presence. My saintly tutor recounted the story one day, his eyes
remote from the Sanskrit texts before us.

“A blind disciple, Ramu, aroused my active pity. Should he have no
light in his eyes, when he faithfully served our master, in whom the
Divine was fully blazing? One morning I sought to speak to Ramu, but
he sat for patient hours fanning the guru with a hand-made palm-leaf
punkha. When the devotee finally left the room, I followed him.

“‘Ramu, how long have you been blind?’

“‘From my birth, sir! Never have my eyes been blessed with a glimpse
of the sun.’

“‘Our omnipotent guru can help you. Please make a supplication.’

“The following day Ramu diffidently approached Lahiri Mahasaya. The
disciple felt almost ashamed to ask that physical wealth be added to
his spiritual superabundance.

“‘Master, the Illuminator of the cosmos is in you. I pray you to bring
His light into my eyes, that I perceive the sun’s lesser glow.’

“‘Ramu, someone has connived to put me in a difficult position. I have
no healing power.’

“‘Sir, the Infinite One within you can certainly heal.’

“‘That is indeed different, Ramu. God’s limit is nowhere! He who
ignites the stars and the cells of flesh with mysterious life-
effulgence can surely bring luster of vision into your eyes.’

“The master touched Ramu’s forehead at the point between the
eyebrows. ^4-7 ”‘Keep your mind concentrated there, and frequently
chant the name of the prophet Rama ^4-8 for seven days. The splendor
of the sun shall have a special dawn for you.’

“Lo! in one week it was so. For the first time, Ramu beheld the fair
face of nature. The Omniscient One had unerringly directed his
disciple to repeat the name of Rama, adored by him above all other
saints. Ramu’s faith was the devotionally ploughed soil in which the
guru’s powerful seed of permanent healing sprouted.” Kebalananda was
silent for a moment, then paid a further tribute to his guru.

“It was evident in all miracles performed by Lahiri Mahasaya that he
never allowed the ego-principle ^4-9 to consider itself a causative
force. By perfection of resistless surrender, the master enabled the
Prime Healing Power to flow freely through him.

“The numerous bodies which were spectacularly healed through Lahiri
Mahasaya eventually had to feed the flames of cremation. But the
silent spiritual awakenings he effected, the Christlike disciples he
fashioned, are his imperishable miracles.”

I never became a Sanskrit scholar; Kebalananda taught me a diviner
syntax.

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under
the heaven.”

I did not have this wisdom of Solomon to comfort me; I gazed
searchingly about me, on any excursion from home, for the face of my
destined guru. But my path did not cross his own until after the
completion of my high school studies.

Two years elapsed between my flight with Amar toward the Himalayas,
and the great day of Sri Yukteswar’s arrival into my life. During that
interim I met a number of sages-the “Perfume Saint,” the “Tiger
Swami,” Nagendra Nath Bhaduri, Master Mahasaya, and the famous Bengali
scientist, Jagadis Chandra Bose.

My encounter with the “Perfume Saint” had two preambles, one
harmonious and the other humorous.

“God is simple. Everything else is complex. Do not seek absolute
values in the relative world of nature.”

These philosophical finalities gently entered my ear as I stood
silently before a temple image of Kali. Turning, I confronted a tall
man whose garb, or lack of it, revealed him a wandering sadhu.

“You have indeed penetrated the bewilderment of my thoughts!” I smiled
gratefully. “The confusion of benign and terrible aspects in nature,
as symbolized by Kali, ^5-1 has puzzled wiser heads than mine!”

“Few there be who solve her mystery! Good and evil is the challenging
riddle which life places sphinxlike before every intelligence.
Attempting no solution, most men pay forfeit with their lives, penalty
now even as in the days of Thebes. Here and there, a towering lonely
figure never cries defeat. From the maya ^5-2 of duality he plucks
the cleaveless truth of unity.”

“You speak with conviction, sir.”

“I have long exercised an honest introspection, the exquisitely
painful approach to wisdom. Self-scrutiny, relentless observance of
one’s thoughts, is a stark and shattering experience. It pulverizes
the stoutest ego. But true self-analysis mathematically operates to
produce seers. The way of ‘self-expression,’ individual
acknowledgments, results in egotists, sure of the right to their
private interpretations of God and the universe.”

“Truth humbly retires, no doubt, before such arrogant originality.” I
was enjoying the discussion.

“Man can understand no eternal verity until he has freed himself from
pretensions. The human mind, bared to a centuried slime, is teeming
with repulsive life of countless world-delusions. Struggles of the
battlefields pale into insignificance here, when man first contends
with inward enemies! No mortal foes these, to be overcome by harrowing
array of might! Omnipresent, unresting, pursuing man even in sleep,
subtly equipped with a miasmic weapon, these soldiers of ignorant
lusts seek to slay us all. Thoughtless is the man who buries his
ideals, surrendering to the common fate. Can he seem other than
impotent, wooden, ignominious?”

“Respected Sir, have you no sympathy for the bewildered masses?”

The sage was silent for a moment, then answered obliquely.

“To love both the invisible God, Repository of All Virtues, and
visible man, apparently possessed of none, is often baffling! But
ingenuity is equal to the maze. Inner research soon exposes a unity in
all human minds-the stalwart kinship of selfish motive. In one sense
at least, the brotherhood of man stands revealed. An aghast humility
follows this leveling discovery. It ripens into compassion for one’s
fellows, blind to the healing potencies of the soul awaiting
exploration.”

“The saints of every age, sir, have felt like yourself for the sorrows
of the world.”

“Only the shallow man loses responsiveness to the woes of others’
lives, as he sinks into narrow suffering of his own.” The SADHU’S
austere face was noticeably softened. “The one who practices a scalpel
self-dissection will know an expansion of universal pity. Release is
given him from the deafening demands of his ego. The love of God
flowers on such soil. The creature finally turns to his Creator, if
for no other reason than to ask in anguish: ‘Why, Lord, why?’ By
ignoble whips of pain, man is driven at last into the Infinite
Presence, whose beauty alone should lure him.”

The sage and I were present in Calcutta’s Kalighat Temple, whither I
had gone to view its famed magnificence. With a sweeping gesture, my
chance companion dismissed the ornate dignity.

“Bricks and mortar sing us no audible tune; the heart opens only to
the human chant of being.”

We strolled to the inviting sunshine at the entrance, where throngs of
devotees were passing to and fro.

“You are young.” The sage surveyed me thoughtfully. “India too is
young. The ancient rishis ^5-3 laid down ineradicable patterns of
spiritual living. Their hoary dictums suffice for this day and land.
Not outmoded, not unsophisticated against the guiles of materialism,
the disciplinary precepts mold India still. By millenniums-more than
embarrassed scholars care to compute!-the skeptic Time has validated
Vedic worth. Take it for your heritage.”

As I was reverently bidding farewell to the eloquent sadhu, he
revealed a clairvoyant perception:

“After you leave here today, an unusual experience will come your
way.”

I quitted the temple precincts and wandered along aimlessly. Turning a
corner, I ran into an old acquaintance-one of those long-winded
fellows whose conversational powers ignore time and embrace eternity.

“I will let you go in a very short while, if you will tell me all that
has happened during the six years of our separation.”

“What a paradox! I must leave you now.”

But he held me by the hand, forcing out tidbits of information. He was
like a ravenous wolf, I thought in amusement; the longer I spoke, the
more hungrily he sniffed for news. Inwardly I petitioned the Goddess
Kali to devise a graceful means of escape.

My companion left me abruptly. I sighed with relief and doubled my
pace, dreading any relapse into the garrulous fever. Hearing rapid
footsteps behind me, I quickened my speed. I dared not look back. But
with a bound, the youth rejoined me, jovially clasping my shoulder.

“I forgot to tell you of Gandha Baba (Perfume Saint), who is gracing
yonder house.” He pointed to a dwelling a few yards distant. “Do meet
him; he is interesting. You may have an unusual experience. Good-by,”
and he actually left me.

The similarly worded prediction of the sadhu at Kalighat Temple
flashed to my mind. Definitely intrigued, I entered the house and was
ushered into a commodious parlor. A crowd of people were sitting,
Orient-wise, here and there on a thick orange-colored carpet. An awed
whisper reached my ear:

“Behold Gandha Baba on the leopard skin. He can give the natural
perfume of any flower to a scentless one, or revive a wilted blossom,
or make a person’s skin exude delightful fragrance.”

I looked directly at the saint; his quick gaze rested on mine. He was
plump and bearded, with dark skin and large, gleaming eyes.

“Son, I am glad to see you. Say what you want. Would you like some
perfume?”

“What for?” I thought his remark rather childish.

“To experience the miraculous way of enjoying perfumes.”

“Harnessing God to make odors?”

“What of it? God makes perfume anyway.”

“Yes, but He fashions frail bottles of petals for fresh use and
discard. Can you materialize flowers?”

“I materialize perfumes, little friend.”

“Then scent factories will go out of business.”

“I will permit them to keep their trade! My own purpose is to
demonstrate the power of God.”

“Sir, is it necessary to prove God? Isn’t He performing miracles in
everything, everywhere?”

“Yes, but we too should manifest some of His infinite creative
variety.”

“How long did it take to master your art?”

“Twelve years.”

“For manufacturing scents by astral means! It seems, my honored saint,
you have been wasting a dozen years for fragrances which you can
obtain with a few rupees from a florist’s shop.”

“Perfumes fade with flowers.”

“Perfumes fade with death. Why should I desire that which pleases the
body only?”

“Mr. Philosopher, you please my mind. Now, stretch forth your right
hand.” He made a gesture of blessing.

I was a few feet away from Gandha Baba; no one else was near enough to
contact my body. I extended my hand, which the yogi did not touch.

“What perfume do you want?”

“Rose.”

“Be it so.”

To my great surprise, the charming fragrance of rose was wafted
strongly from the center of my palm. I smilingly took a large white
scentless flower from a near-by vase.

“Can this odorless blossom be permeated with jasmine?”

“Be it so.”

A jasmine fragrance instantly shot from the petals. I thanked the
wonder-worker and seated myself by one of his students. He informed me
that Gandha Baba, whose proper name was Vishudhananda, had learned
many astonishing yoga secrets from a master in Tibet. The Tibetan
yogi, I was assured, had attained the age of over a thousand years.

“His disciple Gandha Baba does not always perform his perfume-feats in
the simple verbal manner you have just witnessed.” The student spoke
with obvious pride in his master. “His procedure differs widely, to
accord with diversity in temperaments. He is marvelous! Many members
of the Calcutta intelligentsia are among his followers.”

I inwardly resolved not to add myself to their number. A guru too
literally “marvelous” was not to my liking. With polite thanks to
Gandha Baba, I departed. Sauntering home, I reflected on the three
varied encounters the day had brought forth.

My sister Uma met me as I entered our Gurpar Road door.

“You are getting quite stylish, using perfumes!”

Without a word, I motioned her to smell my hand.

“What an attractive rose fragrance! It is unusually strong!”

Thinking it was “strongly unusual,” I silently placed the astrally
scented blossom under her nostrils.

“Oh, I love jasmine!” She seized the flower. A ludicrous bafflement
passed over her face as she repeatedly sniffed the odor of jasmine
from a type of flower she well knew to be scentless. Her reactions
disarmed my suspicion that Gandha Baba had induced an auto-suggestive
state whereby I alone could detect the fragrances.

Later I heard from a friend, Alakananda, that the “Perfume Saint” had
a power which I wish were possessed by the starving millions of Asia
and, today, of Europe as well.

“I was present with a hundred other guests at Gandha Baba’s home in
Burdwan,” Alakananda told me. “It was a gala occasion. Because the
yogi was reputed to have the power of extracting objects out of thin
air, I laughingly requested him to materialize some out-of-season
tangerines. Immediately the luchis ^5-4 which were present on all the
banana-leaf plates became puffed up. Each of the bread-envelopes
proved to contain a peeled tangerine. I bit into my own with some
trepidation, but found it delicious.”

Years later I understood by inner realization how Gandha Baba
accomplished his materializations. The method, alas! is beyond the
reach of the world’s hungry hordes.

The different sensory stimuli to which man reacts-tactual, visual,
gustatory, auditory, and olfactory-are produced by vibratory
variations in electrons and protons. The vibrations in turn are
regulated by “lifetrons,” subtle life forces or finer-than-atomic
energies intelligently charged with the five distinctive sensory idea-
substances.

Gandha Baba, tuning himself with the cosmic force by certain yogic
practices, was able to guide the lifetrons to rearrange their
vibratory structure and objectivize the desired result. His perfume,
fruit and other miracles were actual materializations of mundane
vibrations, and not inner sensations hypnotically produced. ^5-5

Performances of miracles such as shown by the “Perfume Saint” are
spectacular but spiritually useless. Having little purpose beyond
entertainment, they are digressions from a serious search for God.

Hypnotism has been used by physicians in minor operations as a sort of
psychical chloroform for persons who might be endangered by an
anesthetic. But a hypnotic state is harmful to those often subjected
to it; a negative psychological effect ensues which in time deranges
the brain cells. Hypnotism is trespass into the territory of another’s
consciousness. Its temporary phenomena have nothing in common with the
miracles performed by men of divine realization. Awake in God, true
saints effect changes in this dream-world by means of a will
harmoniously attuned to the Creative Cosmic Dreamer.

Ostentatious display of unusual powers are decried by masters. The
Persian mystic, Abu Said, once laughed at certain fakirs who were
proud of their miraculous powers over water, air, and space.

“A frog is also at home in the water!” Abu Said pointed out in gentle
scorn. “The crow and the vulture easily fly in the air; the Devil is
simultaneously present in the East and in the West! A true man is he
who dwells in righteousness among his fellow men, who buys and sells,
yet is never for a single instant forgetful of God!” On another
occasion the great Persian teacher gave his views on the religious
life thus: “To lay aside what you have in your head (selfish desires
and ambitions); to freely bestow what you have in your hand; and never
to flinch from the blows of adversity!”

Neither the impartial sage at Kalighat Temple nor the Tibetan-trained
yogi had satisfied my yearning for a guru. My heart needed no tutor
for its recognitions, and cried its own “Bravos!” the more
resoundingly because unoften summoned from silence. When I finally met
my master, he taught me by sublimity of example alone the measure of a
true man.

“I have discovered the Tiger Swami’s address. Let us visit him
tomorrow.”

This welcome suggestion came from Chandi, one of my high school
friends. I was eager to meet the saint who, in his premonastic life,
had caught and fought tigers with his naked hands. A boyish enthusiasm
over such remarkable feats was strong within me.

The next day dawned wintry cold, but Chandi and I sallied forth gaily.
After much vain hunting in Bhowanipur, outside Calcutta, we arrived at
the right house. The door held two iron rings, which I sounded
piercingly. Notwithstanding the clamor, a servant approached with
leisurely gait. His ironical smile implied that visitors, despite
their noise, were powerless to disturb the calmness of a saint’s home.

Feeling the silent rebuke, my companion and I were thankful to be
invited into the parlor. Our long wait there caused uncomfortable
misgivings. India’s unwritten law for the truth seeker is patience; a
master may purposely make a test of one’s eagerness to meet him. This
psychological ruse is freely employed in the West by doctors and
dentists!

Finally summoned by the servant, Chandi and I entered a sleeping
apartment. The famous Sohong ^6-1 Swami was seated on his bed. The
sight of his tremendous body affected us strangely. With bulging eyes,
we stood speechless. We had never before seen such a chest or such
football-like biceps. On an immense neck, the swami’s fierce yet calm
face was adorned with flowing locks, beard and moustache. A hint of
dovelike and tigerlike qualities shone in his dark eyes. He was
unclothed, save for a tiger skin about his muscular waist.

Finding our voices, my friend and I greeted the monk, expressing our
admiration for his prowess in the extraordinary feline arena.

“Will you not tell us, please, how it is possible to subdue with bare
fists the most ferocious of jungle beasts, the royal Bengals?”

“My sons, it is nothing to me to fight tigers. I could do it today if
necessary.” He gave a childlike laugh. “You look upon tigers as
tigers; I know them as pussycats.”

“Swamiji, I think I could impress my subconsciousness with the thought
that tigers are pussycats, but could I make tigers believe it?”

“Of course strength also is necessary! One cannot expect victory from
a baby who imagines a tiger to be a house cat! Powerful hands are my
sufficient weapon.”

He asked us to follow him to the patio, where he struck the edge of a
wall. A brick crashed to the floor; the sky peered boldly through the
gaping lost tooth of the wall. I fairly staggered in astonishment; he
who can remove mortared bricks from a solid wall with one blow, I
thought, must surely be able to displace the teeth of tigers!

“A number of men have physical power such as mine, but still lack in
cool confidence. Those who are bodily but not mentally stalwart may
find themselves fainting at mere sight of a wild beast bounding freely
in the jungle. The tiger in its natural ferocity and habitat is vastly
different from the opium-fed circus animal!

“Many a man with herculean strength has nonetheless been terrorized
into abject helplessness before the onslaught of a royal Bengal. Thus
the tiger has converted the man, in his own mind, to a state as
nerveless as the pussycat’s. It is possible for a man, owning a fairly
strong body and an immensely strong determination, to turn the tables
on the tiger, and force it to a conviction of pussycat
defenselessness. How often I have done just that!”

I was quite willing to believe that the titan before me was able to
perform the tiger-pussycat metamorphosis. He seemed in a didactic
mood; Chandi and I listened respectfully.

“Mind is the wielder of muscles. The force of a hammer blow depends on
the energy applied; the power expressed by a man’s bodily instrument
depends on his aggressive will and courage. The body is literally
manufactured and sustained by mind. Through pressure of instincts from
past lives, strengths or weaknesses percolate gradually into human
consciousness. They express as habits, which in turn ossify into a
desirable or an undesirable body. Outward frailty has mental origin;
in a vicious circle, the habit-bound body thwarts the mind. If the
master allows himself to be commanded by a servant, the latter becomes
autocratic; the mind is similarly enslaved by submitting to bodily
dictation.”

At our entreaty, the impressive swami consented to tell us something
of his own life.

“My earliest ambition was to fight tigers. My will was mighty, but my
body was feeble.”

An ejaculation of surprise broke from me. It appeared incredible that
this man, now “with Atlantean shoulders, fit to bear,” could ever have
known weakness.

“It was by indomitable persistency in thoughts of health and strength
that I overcame my handicap. I have every reason to extol the
compelling mental vigor which I found to be the real subduer of royal
Bengals.”

“Do you think, revered swami, that I could ever fight tigers?” This
was the first, and the last, time that the bizarre ambition ever
visited my mind!

“Yes.” He was smiling. “But there are many kinds of tigers; some roam
in jungles of human desires. No spiritual benefit accrues by knocking
beasts unconscious. Rather be victor over the inner prowlers.”

“May we hear, sir, how you changed from a tamer of wild tigers to a
tamer of wild passions?”

The Tiger Swami fell into silence. Remoteness came into his gaze,
summoning visions of bygone years. I discerned his slight mental
struggle to decide whether to grant my request. Finally he smiled in
acquiescence.

“When my fame reached a zenith, it brought the intoxication of pride.
I decided not only to fight tigers but to display them in various
tricks. My ambition was to force savage beasts to behave like
domesticated ones. I began to perform my feats publicly, with
gratifying success.

“One evening my father entered my room in pensive mood.

“‘Son, I have words of warning. I would save you from coming ills,
produced by the grinding wheels of cause and effect.’

“‘Are you a fatalist, Father? Should superstition be allowed to
discolor the powerful waters or my activities?’

“‘I am no fatalist, son. But I believe in the just law of retribution,
as taught in the holy scriptures. There is resentment against you in
the jungle family; sometime it may act to your cost.’

“‘Father, you astonish me! You well know what tigers are-beautiful but
merciless! Even immediately after an enormous meal of some hapless
creature, a tiger is fired with fresh lust at sight of new prey. It
may be a joyous gazelle, frisking over the jungle grass. Capturing it
and biting an opening in the soft throat, the malevolent beast tastes
only a little of the mutely crying blood, and goes its wanton way.

“‘Tigers are the most contemptible of the jungle breed! Who knows? my
blows may inject some slight sanity of consideration into their thick
heads. I am headmaster in a forest finishing school, to teach them
gentle manners!

“‘Please, Father, think of me as tiger tamer and never as tiger
killer. How could my good actions bring ill upon me? I beg you not to
impose any command that I change my way of life.’”

Chandi and I were all attention, understanding the past dilemma. In
India a child does not lightly disobey his parents’ wishes.

“In stoic silence Father listened to my explanation. He followed it
with a disclosure which he uttered gravely.

“‘Son, you compel me to relate an ominous prediction from the lips of
a saint. He approached me yesterday as I sat on the veranda in my
daily meditation.

“’”Dear friend, I come with a message for your belligerent son. Let
him cease his savage activities. Otherwise, his next tiger-encounter
shall result in his severe wounds, followed by six months of deathly
sickness. He shall then forsake his former ways and become a monk.“’

“This tale did not impress me. I considered that Father had been the
credulous victim of a deluded fanatic.”

The Tiger Swami made this confession with an impatient gesture, as
though at some stupidity. Grimly silent for a long time, he seemed
oblivious of our presence. When he took up the dangling thread of his
narrative, it was suddenly, with subdued voice.

“Not long after Father’s warning, I visited the capital city of Cooch
Behar. The picturesque territory was new to me, and I expected a
restful change. As usual everywhere, a curious crowd followed me on
the streets. I would catch bits of whispered comment:

“‘This is the man who fights wild tigers.’

“‘Has he legs, or tree-trunks?’

“‘Look at his face! He must be an incarnation of the king of tigers
himself!’

“You know how village urchins function like final editions of a
newspaper! With what speed do the even-later speech-bulletins of the
women circulate from house to house! Within a few hours, the whole
city was in a state of excitement over my presence.

“I was relaxing quietly in the evening, when I heard the hoofbeats of
galloping horses. They stopped in front of my dwelling place. In came
a number of tall, turbaned policemen.

“I was taken aback. ‘All things are possible unto these creatures of
human law,’ I thought. ‘I wonder if they are going to take me to task
about matters utterly unknown to me.’ But the officers bowed with
unwonted courtesy.

“‘Honored Sir, we are sent to welcome you on behalf of the Prince of
Cooch Behar. He is pleased to invite you to his palace tomorrow
morning.’

“I speculated awhile on the prospect. For some obscure reason I felt
sharp regret at this interruption in my quiet trip. But the suppliant
manner of the policemen moved me; I agreed to go.

“I was bewildered the next day to be obsequiously escorted from my
door into a magnificent coach drawn by four horses. A servant held an
ornate umbrella to protect me from the scorching sunlight. I enjoyed
the pleasant ride through the city and its woodland outskirts. The
royal scion himself was at the palace door to welcome me. He proffered
his own gold-brocaded seat, smilingly placing himself in a chair of
simpler design.

“‘All this politeness is certainly going to cost me something!’ I
thought in mounting astonishment. The prince’s motive emerged after a
few casual remarks.

“‘My city is filled with the rumor that you can fight wild tigers with
nothing more than your naked hands. Is it a fact?’

“‘It is quite true.’

“‘I can scarcely believe it! You are a Calcutta Bengali, nurtured on
the white rice of city folk. Be frank, please; have you not been
fighting only spineless, opium-fed animals?’ His voice was loud and
sarcastic, tinged with provincial accent.

“I vouchsafed no reply to his insulting question.

“‘I challenge you to fight my newly-caught tiger, Raja Begum. ^6-2 If
you can successfully resist him, bind him with a chain, and leave his
cage in a conscious state, you shall have this royal Bengal! Several
thousand rupees and many other gifts shall also be bestowed. If you
refuse to meet him in combat, I shall blazon your name throughout the
state as an impostor!’

“His insolent words struck me like a volley of bullets. I shot an
angry acceptance. Half risen from the chair in his excitement, the
prince sank back with a sadistic smile. I was reminded of the Roman
emperors who delighted in setting Christians in bestial arenas.

“‘The match will be set for a week hence. I regret that I cannot give
you permission to view the tiger in advance.’

“Whether the prince feared I might seek to hypnotize the beast, or
secretly feed him opium, I know not!

“I left the palace, noting with amusement that the royal umbrella and
panoplied coach were now missing.

“The following week I methodically prepared my mind and body for the
coming ordeal. Through my servant I learned of fantastic tales. The
saint’s direful prediction to my father had somehow got abroad,
enlarging as it ran. Many simple villagers believed that an evil
spirit, cursed by the gods, had reincarnated as a tiger which took
various demoniac forms at night, but remained a striped animal during
the day. This demon-tiger was supposed to be the one sent to humble
me.

“Another imaginative version was that animal prayers to Tiger Heaven
had achieved a response in the shape of Raja Begum. He was to be the
instrument to punish me-the audacious biped, so insulting to the
entire tiger species! A furless, fangless man daring to challenge a
claw-armed, sturdy-limbed tiger! The concentrated venom of all
humiliated tigers-the villagers declared-had gathered momentum
sufficient to operate hidden laws and bring about the fall of the
proud tiger tamer.

“My servant further apprized me that the prince was in his element as
manager of the bout between man and beast. He had supervised the
erection of a storm-proof pavilion, designed to accommodate thousands.
Its center held Raja Begum in an enormous iron cage, surrounded by an
outer safety room. The captive emitted a ceaseless series of blood-
curdling roars. He was fed sparingly, to kindle a wrathful appetite.
Perhaps the prince expected me to be the meal of reward!

“Crowds from the city and suburbs bought tickets eagerly in response
to the beat of drums announcing the unique contest. The day of battle
saw hundreds turned away for lack of seats. Many men broke through the
tent openings, or crowded any space below the galleries.”

As the Tiger Swami’s story approached a climax, my excitement mounted
with it; Chandi also was raptly mute.

“Amidst piercing sound-explosions from Raja Begum, and the hubbub of
the somewhat terrified crowd, I quietly made my appearance. Scantily
clad around the waist, I was otherwise unprotected by clothing. I
opened the bolt on the door of the safety room and calmly locked it
behind me. The tiger sensed blood. Leaping with a thunderous crash on
his bars, he sent forth a fearsome welcome. The audience was hushed
with pitiful fear; I seemed a meek lamb before the raging beast.

“In a trice I was within the cage; but as I slammed the door, Raja
Begum was headlong upon me. My right hand was desperately torn. Human
blood, the greatest treat a tiger can know, fell in appalling streams.
The prophecy of the saint seemed about to be fulfilled.

“I rallied instantly from the shock of the first serious injury I had
ever received. Banishing the sight of my gory fingers by thrusting
them beneath my waist cloth, I swung my left arm in a bone-cracking
blow. The beast reeled back, swirled around the rear of the cage, and
sprang forward convulsively. My famous fistic punishment rained on his
head.

“But Raja Begum’s taste of blood had acted like the maddening first
sip of wine to a dipsomaniac long-deprived. Punctuated by deafening
roar, the brute’s assaults grew in fury. My inadequate defense of only
one hand left me vulnerable before claws and fangs. But I dealt out
dazing retribution. Mutually ensanguined, we struggled as to the
death. The cage was pandemonium, as blood splashed in all directions,

and blasts of pain and lethal lust came from the bestial throat.

“‘Shoot him!’ ‘Kill the tiger!’ Shrieks arose from the audience. So
fast did man and beast move, that a guard’s bullet went amiss. I
mustered all my will force, bellowed fiercely, and landed a final
concussive blow. The tiger collapsed and lay quietly.

“Like a pussycat!” I interjected.

The swami laughed in hearty appreciation, then continued the
engrossing tale.

“Raja Begum was vanquished at last. His royal pride was further
humbled: with my lacerated hands, I audaciously forced open his jaws.
For a dramatic moment, I held my head within the yawning deathtrap. I
looked around for a chain. Pulling one from a pile on the floor, I
bound the tiger by his neck to the cage bars. In triumph I moved
toward the door.

“But that fiend incarnate, Raja Begum, had stamina worthy of his
supposed demoniac origin. With an incredible lunge, he snapped the
chain and leaped on my back. My shoulder fast in his jaws, I fell
violently. But in a trice I had him pinned beneath me. Under merciless
blows, the treacherous animal sank into semiconsciousness. This time I
secured him more carefully. Slowly I left the cage.

“I found myself in a new uproar, this time one of delight. The crowd’s
cheer broke as though from a single gigantic throat. Disastrously
mauled, I had yet fulfilled the three conditions of the fight-stunning
the tiger, binding him with a chain, and leaving him without requiring
assistance for myself. In addition, I had so drastically injured and
frightened the aggressive beast that he had been content to overlook
the opportune prize of my head in his mouth!

“After my wounds were treated, I was honored and garlanded; hundreds
of gold pieces showered at my feet. The whole city entered a holiday
period. Endless discussions were heard on all sides about my victory
over one of the largest and most savage tigers ever seen. Raja Begum
was presented to me, as promised, but I felt no elation. A spiritual
change had entered my heart. It seemed that with my final exit from
the cage I had also closed the door on my worldly ambitions.

“A woeful period followed. For six months I lay near death from blood

poisoning. As soon as I was well enough to leave Cooch Behar, I
returned to my native town.

“‘I know now that my teacher is the holy man who gave the wise
warning.’ I humbly made this confession to my father. ‘Oh, if I could
only find him!’ My longing was sincere, for one day the saint arrived
unheralded.

“‘Enough of tiger taming.’ He spoke with calm assurance. ‘Come with
me; I will teach you to subdue the beasts of ignorance roaming in
jungles of the human mind. You are used to an audience: let it be a
galaxy of angels, entertained by your thrilling mastery of yoga!’

“I was initiated into the spiritual path by my saintly guru. He opened
my soul-doors, rusty and resistant with long disuse. Hand in hand, we
soon set out for my training in the Himalayas.”

Chandi and I bowed at the swami’s feet, grateful for his vivid outline
of a life truly cyclonic. I felt amply repaid for the long
probationary wait in the cold parlor!

“I saw a yogi remain in the air, several feet above the ground, last
night at a group meeting.” My friend, Upendra Mohun Chowdhury, spoke
impressively.

I gave him an enthusiastic smile. “Perhaps I can guess his name. Was
it Bhaduri Mahasaya, of Upper Circular Road?”

Upendra nodded, a little crestfallen not to be a news-bearer. My
inquisitiveness about saints was well-known among my friends; they
delighted in setting me on a fresh track.

“The yogi lives so close to my home that I often visit him.” My words
brought keen interest to Upendra’s face, and I made a further
confidence.

“I have seen him in remarkable feats. He has expertly mastered the
various pranayamas ^7-1 of the ancient eightfold yoga outlined by
Patanjali. ^7-2 Once Bhaduri Mahasaya performed the Bhastrika Pranayama before me with such amazing force that it seemed an actual
storm had arisen in the room! Then he extinguished the thundering
breath and remained motionless in a high state of
superconsciousness. ^7-3 The aura of peace after the storm was vivid
beyond forgetting.”

“I heard that the saint never leaves his home.” Upendra’s tone was a
trifle incredulous.

“Indeed it is true! He has lived indoors for the past twenty years. He
slightly relaxes his self-imposed rule at the times of our holy
festivals, when he goes as far as his front sidewalk! The beggars
gather there, because Saint Bhaduri is known for his tender heart.”

“How does he remain in the air, defying the law of gravitation?”

“A yogi’s body loses its grossness after use of certain pranayamas.
Then it will levitate or hop about like a leaping frog. Even saints
who do not practice a formal yoga ^7-4 have been known to levitate
during a state of intense devotion to God.”

“I would like to know more of this sage. Do you attend his evening
meetings?” Upendra’s eyes were sparkling with curiosity.

“Yes, I go often. I am vastly entertained by the wit in his wisdom.
Occasionally my prolonged laughter mars the solemnity of his
gatherings. The saint is not displeased, but his disciples look
daggers!”

On my way home from school that afternoon, I passed Bhaduri Mahasaya’s
cloister and decided on a visit. The yogi was inaccessible to the
general public. A lone disciple, occupying the ground floor, guarded
his master’s privacy. The student was something of a martinet; he now
inquired formally if I had an “engagement.” His guru put in an
appearance just in time to save me from summary ejection.

“Let Mukunda come when he will.” The sage’s eyes twinkled. “My rule of
seclusion is not for my own comfort, but for that of others. Worldly
people do not like the candor which shatters their delusions. Saints
are not only rare but disconcerting. Even in scripture, they are often
found embarrassing!”

I followed Bhaduri Mahasaya to his austere quarters on the top floor,
from which he seldom stirred. Masters often ignore the panorama of the
world’s ado, out of focus till centered in the ages. The
contemporaries of a sage are not alone those of the narrow present.

“Maharishi, ^7-5 you are the first yogi I have known who always stays
indoors.”

“God plants his saints sometimes in unexpected soil, lest we think we
may reduce Him to a rule!”

The sage locked his vibrant body in the lotus posture. In his
seventies, he displayed no unpleasing signs of age or sedentary life.
Stalwart and straight, he was ideal in every respect. His face was
that of a rishi, as described in the ancient texts. Noble-headed,
abundantly bearded, he always sat firmly upright, his quiet eyes fixed
on Omnipresence.

The saint and I entered the meditative state. After an hour, his
gentle voice roused me.

“You go often into the silence, but have you developed
anubhava?” ^7-6 He was reminding me to love God more than meditation.
“Do not mistake the technique for the Goal.”

He offered me some mangoes. With that good-humored wit that I found so
delightful in his grave nature, he remarked, “People in general are
more fond of Jala Yoga (union with food) than of Dhyana Yoga (union
with God).”

His yogic pun affected me uproariously.

“What a laugh you have!” An affectionate gleam came into his gaze. His
own face was always serious, yet touched with an ecstatic smile. His
large, lotus eyes held a hidden divine laughter.

“Those letters come from far-off America.” The sage indicated several
thick envelopes on a table. “I correspond with a few societies there
whose members are interested in yoga. They are discovering India anew,
with a better sense of direction than Columbus! I am glad to help
them. The knowledge of yoga is free to all who will receive, like the
ungarnishable daylight.

“What rishis perceived as essential for human salvation need not be
diluted for the West. Alike in soul though diverse in outer
experience, neither West nor East will flourish if some form of
disciplinary yoga be not practiced.”

The saint held me with his tranquil eyes. I did not realize that his
speech was a veiled prophetic guidance. It is only now, as I write
these words, that I understand the full meaning in the casual
intimations he often gave me that someday I would carry India’s
teachings to America.

“Maharishi, I wish you would write a book on yoga for the benefit of
the world.”

“I am training disciples. They and their students will be living
volumes, proof against the natural disintegrations of time and the
unnatural interpretations of the critics.” Bhaduri’s wit put me into
another gale of laughter.

I remained alone with the yogi until his disciples arrived in the
evening. Bhaduri Mahasaya entered one of his inimitable discourses.
Like a peaceful flood, he swept away the mental debris of his
listeners, floating them Godward. His striking parables were expressed
in a flawless Bengali.

This evening Bhaduri expounded various philosophical points connected
with the life of Mirabai, a medieval Rajputani princess who abandoned
her court life to seek the company of sadhus. One great-sannyasi
refused to receive her because she was a woman; her reply brought him
humbly to her feet.

“Tell the master,” she had said, “that I did not know there was any
Male in the universe save God; are we all not females before Him?” (A
scriptural conception of the Lord as the only Positive Creative
Principle, His creation being naught but a passive maya.)

Mirabai composed many ecstatic songs which are still treasured in
India; I translate one of them here:

Several students put rupees in Bhaduri’s slippers which lay by his
side as he sat in yoga posture. This respectful offering, customary in
India, indicates that the disciple places his material goods at the
guru’s feet. Grateful friends are only the Lord in disguise, looking
after His own.

“Master, you are wonderful!” A student, taking his leave, gazed
ardently at the patriarchal sage. “You have renounced riches and
comforts to seek God and teach us wisdom!” It was well-known that
Bhaduri Mahasaya had forsaken great family wealth in his early
childhood, when single-mindedly he entered the yogic path.

“You are reversing the case!” The saint’s face held a mild rebuke. “I
have left a few paltry rupees, a few petty pleasures, for a cosmic
empire of endless bliss. How then have I denied myself anything? I
know the joy of sharing the treasure. Is that a sacrifice? The
shortsighted worldly folk are verily the real renunciates! They
relinquish an unparalleled divine possession for a poor handful of
earthly toys!”

I chuckled over this paradoxical view of renunciation-one which puts
the cap of Croesus on any saintly beggar, whilst transforming all
proud millionaires into unconscious martyrs.

“The divine order arranges our future more wisely than any insurance
company.” The master’s concluding words were the realized creed of his
faith. “The world is full of uneasy believers in an outward security.
Their bitter thoughts are like scars on their foreheads. The One who
gave us air and milk from our first breath knows how to provide day by
day for His devotees.”

I continued my after-school pilgrimages to the saint’s door. With
silent zeal he aided me to attain anubhava. One day he moved to Ram
Mohan Roy Road, away from the neighborhood of my Gurpar Road home. His
loving disciples had built him a new hermitage, known as “Nagendra
Math.” ^7-7

Although it throws me ahead of my story by a number of years, I will
recount here the last words given to me by Bhaduri Mahasaya. Shortly
before I embarked for the West, I sought him out and humbly knelt for
his farewell blessing:

“Son, go to America. Take the dignity of hoary India for your shield.
Victory is written on your brow; the noble distant people will well
receive you.”

“Jagadis Chandra Bose’s wireless inventions antedated those of
Marconi.”

Overhearing this provocative remark, I walked closer to a sidewalk
group of professors engaged in scientific discussion. If my motive in
joining them was racial pride, I regret it. I cannot deny my keen
interest in evidence that India can play a leading part in physics,
and not metaphysics alone.

“What do you mean, sir?”

The professor obligingly explained. “Bose was the first one to invent
a wireless coherer and an instrument for indicating the refraction of
electric waves. But the Indian scientist did not exploit his
inventions commercially. He soon turned his attention from the
inorganic to the organic world. His revolutionary discoveries as a
plant physiologist are outpacing even his radical achievements as a
physicist.”

I politely thanked my mentor. He added, “The great scientist is one of
my brother professors at Presidency College.”

I paid a visit the next day to the sage at his home, which was close
to mine on Gurpar Road. I had long admired him from a respectful
distance. The grave and retiring botanist greeted me graciously. He
was a handsome, robust man in his fifties, with thick hair, broad
forehead, and the abstracted eyes of a dreamer. The precision in his
tones revealed the lifelong scientific habit.

“I have recently returned from an expedition to scientific societies
of the West. Their members exhibited intense interest in delicate
instruments of my invention which demonstrate the indivisible unity of
all life. ^8-1 The Bose crescograph has the enormity of ten million
magnifications. The microscope enlarges only a few thousand times; yet
it brought vital impetus to biological science. The crescograph opens
incalculable vistas.”

“You have done much, sir, to hasten the embrace of East and West in
the impersonal arms of science.”

“I was educated at Cambridge. How admirable is the Western method of
submitting all theory to scrupulous experimental verification! That
empirical procedure has gone hand in hand with the gift for
introspection which is my Eastern heritage. Together they have enabled
me to sunder the silences of natural realms long uncommunicative. The
telltale charts of my crescograph ^8-2 are evidence for the most
skeptical that plants have a sensitive nervous system and a varied
emotional life. Love, hate, joy, fear, pleasure, pain, excitability,
stupor, and countless appropriate responses to stimuli are as
universal in plants as in animals.”

“The unique throb of life in all creation could seem only poetic
imagery before your advent, Professor! A saint I once knew would never
pluck flowers. ‘Shall I rob the rosebush of its pride in beauty? Shall
I cruelly affront its dignity by my rude divestment?’ His sympathetic
words are verified literally through your discoveries!”

“The poet is intimate with truth, while the scientist approaches
awkwardly. Come someday to my laboratory and see the unequivocable
testimony of the crescograph.”

Gratefully I accepted the invitation, and took my departure. I heard
later that the botanist had left Presidency College, and was planning
a research center in Calcutta.

When the Bose Institute was opened, I attended the dedicatory
services. Enthusiastic hundreds strolled over the premises. I was
charmed with the artistry and spiritual symbolism of the new home of
science. Its front gate, I noted, was a centuried relic from a distant
shrine. Behind the lotus ^8-3 fountain, a sculptured female figure
with a torch conveyed the Indian respect for woman as the immortal
light-bearer. The garden held a small temple consecrated to the
Noumenon beyond phenomena. Thought of the divine incorporeity was
suggested by absence of any altar-image.

Bose’s speech on this great occasion might have issued from the lips
of one of the inspired ancient rishis.

“I dedicate today this Institute as not merely a laboratory but a
temple.” His reverent solemnity stole like an unseen cloak over the
crowded auditorium. “In the pursuit of my investigations I was
unconsciously led into the border region of physics and physiology. To
my amazement, I found boundary lines vanishing, and points of contact
emerging, between the realms of the living and the non-living.
Inorganic matter was perceived as anything but inert; it was athrill
under the action of multitudinous forces.

“A universal reaction seemed to bring metal, plant and animal under a
common law. They all exhibited essentially the same phenomena of
fatigue and depression, with possibilities of recovery and of
exaltation, as well as the permanent irresponsiveness associated with
death. Filled with awe at this stupendous generalization, it was with
great hope that I announced my results before the Royal Society-
results demonstrated by experiments. But the physiologists present
advised me to confine myself to physical investigations, in which my
success had been assured, rather than encroach on their preserves. I
had unwittingly strayed into the domain of an unfamiliar caste system
and so offended its etiquette.

“An unconscious theological bias was also present, which confounds
ignorance with faith. It is often forgotten that He who surrounded us
with this ever-evolving mystery of creation has also implanted in us
the desire to question and understand. Through many years of
miscomprehension, I came to know that the life of a devotee of science
is inevitably filled with unending struggle. It is for him to cast his
life as an ardent offering-regarding gain and loss, success and
failure, as one.

“In time the leading scientific societies of the world accepted my
theories and results, and recognized the importance of the Indian
contribution to science. ^8-4 Can anything small or circumscribed
ever satisfy the mind of India? By a continuous living tradition, and
a vital power of rejuvenescence, this land has readjusted itself
through unnumbered transformations. Indians have always arisen who,
discarding the immediate and absorbing prize of the hour, have sought
for the realization of the highest ideals in life-not through passive
renunciation, but through active struggle. The weakling who has
refused the conflict, acquiring nothing, has had nothing to renounce.
He alone who has striven and won can enrich the world by bestowing the
fruits of his victorious experience.

“The work already carried out in the Bose laboratory on the response
of matter, and the unexpected revelations in plant life, have opened
out very extended regions of inquiry in physics, in physiology, in
medicine, in agriculture, and even in psychology. Problems hitherto
regarded as insoluble have now been brought within the sphere of
experimental investigation.

“But high success is not to be obtained without rigid exactitude.
Hence the long battery of super-sensitive instruments and apparatus of
my design, which stand before you today in their cases in the entrance
hall. They tell you of the protracted efforts to get behind the
deceptive seeming into the reality that remains unseen, of the
continuous toil and persistence and resourcefulness called forth to
overcome human limitations. All creative scientists know that the true
laboratory is the mind, where behind illusions they uncover the laws
of truth.

“The lectures given here will not be mere repetitions of second-hand
knowledge. They will announce new discoveries, demonstrated for the
first time in these halls. Through regular publication of the work of
the Institute, these Indian contributions will reach the whole world.
They will become public property. No patents will ever be taken. The
spirit of our national culture demands that we should forever be free
from the desecration of utilizing knowledge only for personal gain.

“It is my further wish that the facilities of this Institute be
available, so far as possible, to workers from all countries. In this
I am attempting to carry on the traditions of my country. So far back
as twenty-five centuries, India welcomed to its ancient universities,
at Nalanda and Taxila, scholars from all parts of the world.

“Although science is neither of the East nor of the West but rather
international in its universality, yet India is specially fitted to
make great contributions. ^8-5 The burning Indian imagination, which
can extort new order out of a mass of apparently contradictory facts,
is held in check by the habit of concentration. This restraint confers
the power to hold the mind to the pursuit of truth with an infinite
patience.”

Tears stood in my eyes at the scientist’s concluding words. Is
“patience” not indeed a synonym of India, confounding Time and the
historians alike?

I visited the research center again, soon after the day of opening.
The great botanist, mindful of his promise, took me to his quiet
laboratory.

“I will attach the crescograph to this fern; the magnification is
tremendous. If a snail’s crawl were enlarged in the same proportion,
the creature would appear to be traveling like an express train!”

My gaze was fixed eagerly on the screen which reflected the magnified
fern-shadow. Minute life-movements were now clearly perceptible; the
plant was growing very slowly before my fascinated eyes. The scientist
touched the tip of the fern with a small metal bar. The developing
pantomime came to an abrupt halt, resuming the eloquent rhythms as
soon as the rod was withdrawn.

“You saw how any slight outside interference is detrimental to the
sensitive tissues,” Bose remarked. “Watch; I will now administer
chloroform, and then give an antidote.”

The effect of the chloroform discontinued all growth; the antidote was
revivifying. The evolutionary gestures on the screen held me more
raptly than a “movie” plot. My companion (here in the role of villain)
thrust a sharp instrument through a part of the fern; pain was
indicated by spasmodic flutters. When he passed a razor partially
through the stem, the shadow was violently agitated, then stilled
itself with the final punctuation of death.

“By first chloroforming a huge tree, I achieved a successful
transplantation. Usually, such monarchs of the forest die very quickly
after being moved.” Jagadis smiled happily as he recounted the life-
saving maneuver. “Graphs of my delicate apparatus have proved that
trees possess a circulatory system; their sap movements correspond to
the blood pressure of animal bodies. The ascent of sap is not
explicable on the mechanical grounds ordinarily advanced, such as
capillary attraction. The phenomenon has been solved through the
crescograph as the activity of living cells. Peristaltic waves issue
from a cylindrical tube which extends down a tree and serves as an
actual heart! The more deeply we perceive, the more striking becomes
the evidence that a uniform plan links every form in manifold nature.”

The great scientist pointed to another Bose instrument.

“I will show you experiments on a piece of tin. The life-force in
metals responds adversely or beneficially to stimuli. Ink markings
will register the various reactions.”

Deeply engrossed, I watched the graph which recorded the
characteristic waves of atomic structure. When the professor applied
chloroform to the tin, the vibratory writings stopped. They
recommenced as the metal slowly regained its normal state. My
companion dispensed a poisonous chemical. Simultaneous with the
quivering end of the tin, the needle dramatically wrote on the chart a
death-notice.

“Bose instruments have demonstrated that metals, such as the steel
used in scissors and machinery, are subject to fatigue, and regain
efficiency by periodic rest. The life-pulse in metals is seriously
harmed or even extinguished through the application of electric
currents or heavy pressure.”

I looked around the room at the numerous inventions, eloquent
testimony of a tireless ingenuity.

“Sir, it is lamentable that mass agricultural development is not
speeded by fuller use of your marvelous mechanisms. Would it not be
easily possible to employ some of them in quick laboratory experiments
to indicate the influence of various types of fertilizers on plant
growth?”

“You are right. Countless uses of Bose instruments will be made by
future generations. The scientist seldom knows contemporaneous reward;
it is enough to possess the joy of creative service.”

With expressions of unreserved gratitude to the indefatigable sage, I
took my leave. “Can the astonishing fertility of his genius ever be
exhausted?” I thought.

No diminution came with the years. Inventing an intricate instrument,
the “Resonant Cardiograph,” Bose then pursued extensive researches on
innumerable Indian plants. An enormous unsuspected pharmacopoeia of

useful drugs was revealed. The cardiograph is constructed with an
unerring accuracy by which a one-hundredth part of a second is
indicated on a graph. Resonant records measure infinitesimal
pulsations in plant, animal and human structure. The great botanist
predicted that use of his cardiograph will lead to vivisection on
plants instead of animals.

“Side by side recordings of the effects of a medicine given
simultaneously to a plant and an animal have shown astounding
unanimity in result,” he pointed out. “Everything in man has been
foreshadowed in the plant. Experimentation on vegetation will
contribute to lessening of human suffering.”

Years later Bose’s pioneer plant findings were substantiated by other
scientists. Work done in 1938 at Columbia University was reported by
The New York Times as follows:

It has been determined within the past few years that when the nerves
transmit messages between the brain and other parts of the body, tiny
electrical impulses are being generated. These impulses have been
measured by delicate galvanometers and magnified millions of times by
modern amplifying apparatus. Until now no satisfactory method had been
found to study the passages of the impulses along the nerve fibers in
living animals or man because of the great speed with which these
impulses travel.

Drs. K. S. Cole and H. J. Curtis reported having discovered that the
long single cells of the fresh-water plant nitella, used frequently in
goldfish bowls, are virtually identical with those of single nerve
fibers. Furthermore, they found that nitella fibers, on being excited,
propagate electrical waves that are similar in every way, except
velocity, to those of the nerve fibers in animals and man. The
electrical nerve impulses in the plant were found to be much slower
than those in animals. This discovery was therefore seized upon by the
Columbia workers as a means for taking slow motion pictures of the
passage of the electrical impulses in nerves.

The nitella plant thus may become a sort of Rosetta stone for
deciphering the closely guarded secrets close to the very borderland
of mind and matter.

The poet Rabindranath Tagore was a stalwart friend of India’s
idealistic scientist. To him, the sweet Bengali singer addressed the
following lines: ^8-6

“Little sir, please be seated. I am talking to my Divine Mother.”

Silently I had entered the room in great awe. The angelic appearance
of Master Mahasaya fairly dazzled me. With silky white beard and large
lustrous eyes, he seemed an incarnation of purity. His upraised chin
and folded hands apprized me that my first visit had disturbed him in
the midst of his devotions.

His simple words of greeting produced the most violent effect my
nature had so far experienced. The bitter separation of my mother’s
death I had thought the measure of all anguish. Now an agony at
separation from my Divine Mother was an indescribable torture of the
spirit. I fell moaning to the floor.

“Little sir, quiet yourself!” The saint was sympathetically
distressed.

Abandoned in some oceanic desolation, I clutched his feet as the sole
raft of my rescue.

“Holy sir, thy intercession! Ask Divine Mother if I find any favor in
Her sight!”

This promise is one not easily bestowed; the master was constrained to
silence.

Beyond reach of doubt, I was convinced that Master Mahasaya was in
intimate converse with the Universal Mother. It was deep humiliation
to realize that my eyes were blind to Her who even at this moment was
perceptible to the faultless gaze of the saint. Shamelessly gripping
his feet, deaf to his gentle remonstrances, I besought him again and
again for his intervening grace.

“I will make your plea to the Beloved.” The master’s capitulation came
with a slow, compassionate smile.

What power in those few words, that my being should know release from
its stormy exile?

“Sir, remember your pledge! I shall return soon for Her message!”
Joyful anticipation rang in my voice that only a moment ago had been
sobbing in sorrow.

Descending the long stairway, I was overwhelmed by memories. This
house at 50 Amherst Street, now the residence of Master Mahasaya, had
once been my family home, scene of my mother’s death. Here my human
heart had broken for the vanished mother; and here today my spirit had
been as though crucified by absence of the Divine Mother. Hallowed
walls, silent witness of my grievous hurts and final healing!

My steps were eager as I returned to my Gurpar Road home. Seeking the
seclusion of my small attic, I remained in meditation until ten
o’clock. The darkness of the warm Indian night was suddenly lit with a
wondrous vision.

Haloed in splendor, the Divine Mother stood before me. Her face,
tenderly smiling, was beauty itself.

“Always have I loved thee! Ever shall I love thee!”

The celestial tones still ringing in the air, She disappeared.

The sun on the following morning had hardly risen to an angle of
decorum when I paid my second visit to Master Mahasaya. Climbing the
staircase in the house of poignant memories, I reached his fourth-
floor room. The knob of the closed door was wrapped around with a
cloth; a hint, I felt, that the saint desired privacy. As I stood
irresolutely on the landing, the door was opened by the master’s
welcoming hand. I knelt at his holy feet. In a playful mood, I wore a
solemn mask over my face, hiding the divine elation.

“Sir, I have come-very early, I confess!-for your message. Did the
Beloved Mother say anything about me?”

“Mischievous little sir!”

Not another remark would he make. Apparently my assumed gravity was
unimpressive.

“Why so mysterious, so evasive? Do saints never speak plainly?”
Perhaps I was a little provoked.

“Must you test me?” His calm eyes were full of understanding. “Could I
add a single word this morning to the assurance you received last
night at ten o’clock from the Beautiful Mother Herself?”

Master Mahasaya possessed control over the flood-gates of my soul:
again I plunged prostrate at his feet. But this time my tears welled
from a bliss, and not a pain, past bearing.

“Think you that your devotion did not touch the Infinite Mercy? The
Motherhood of God, that you have worshiped in forms both human and
divine, could never fail to answer your forsaken cry.”

Who was this simple saint, whose least request to the Universal Spirit
met with sweet acquiescence? His role in the world was humble, as
befitted the greatest man of humility I ever knew. In this Amherst
Street house, Master Mahasaya ^9-1 conducted a small high school for
boys. No words of chastisement passed his lips; no rule and ferule
maintained his discipline. Higher mathematics indeed were taught in
these modest classrooms, and a chemistry of love absent from the
textbooks. He spread his wisdom by spiritual contagion rather than
impermeable precept. Consumed by an unsophisticated passion for the
Divine Mother, the saint no more demanded the outward forms of respect
than a child.

“I am not your guru; he shall come a little later,” he told me.
“Through his guidance, your experiences of the Divine in terms of love
and devotion shall be translated into his terms of fathomless wisdom.”

Every late afternoon, I betook myself to Amherst Street. I sought
Master Mahasaya’s divine cup, so full that its drops daily overflowed
on my being. Never before had I bowed in utter reverence; now I felt
it an immeasurable privilege even to tread the same ground which
Master Mahasaya sanctified.

“Sir, please wear this champak garland I have fashioned especially for
you.” I arrived one evening, holding my chain of flowers. But shyly he
drew away, repeatedly refusing the honor. Perceiving my hurt, he
finally smiled consent.

“Since we are both devotees of the Mother, you may put the garland on
this bodily temple, as offering to Her who dwells within.” His vast
nature lacked space in which any egotistical consideration could gain
foothold.

“Let us go tomorrow to the Dakshineswar Temple, forever hallowed by my
guru.” Master Mahasaya was a disciple of a Christlike master, Sri
Ramakrishna Paramhansa.

The four-mile journey on the following morning was taken by boat on
the Ganges. We entered the nine-domed Temple of Kali, where the
figures of the Divine Mother and Shiva rest on a burnished silver
lotus, its thousand petals meticulously chiseled. Master Mahasaya
beamed in enchantment. He was engaged in his inexhaustible romance
with the Beloved. As he chanted Her name, my enraptured heart seemed
shattered into a thousand pieces.

We strolled later through the sacred precincts, halting in a tamarisk
grove. The manna characteristically exuded by this tree was symbolic
of the heavenly food Master Mahasaya was bestowing. His divine
invocations continued. I sat rigidly motionless on the grass amid the
pink feathery tamarisk flowers. Temporarily absent from the body, I
soared in a supernal visit.

This was the first of many pilgrimages to Dakshineswar with the holy
teacher. From him I learned the sweetness of God in the aspect of
Mother, or Divine Mercy. The childlike saint found little appeal in
the Father aspect, or Divine Justice. Stern, exacting, mathematical
judgment was alien to his gentle nature.

“He can serve as an earthly prototype for the very angels of heaven!”
I thought fondly, watching him one day at his prayers. Without a
breath of censure or criticism, he surveyed the world with eyes long
familiar with the Primal Purity. His body, mind, speech, and actions
were effortlessly harmonized with his soul’s simplicity.

“My Master told me so.” Shrinking from personal assertion, the saint
ended any sage counsel with this invariable tribute. So deep was his
identity with Sri Ramakrishna that Master Mahasaya no longer
considered his thoughts as his own.

Hand in hand, the saint and I walked one evening on the block of his
school. My joy was dimmed by the arrival of a conceited acquaintance
who burdened us with a lengthy discourse.

“I see this man doesn’t please you.” The saint’s whisper to me was
unheard by the egotist, spellbound by his own monologue. “I have
spoken to Divine Mother about it; She realizes our sad predicament. As
soon as we get to yonder red house, She has promised to remind him of
more urgent business.”

My eyes were glued to the site of salvation. Reaching its red gate,
the man unaccountably turned and departed, neither finishing his
sentence nor saying good-by. The assaulted air was comforted with
peace.

Another day found me walking alone near the Howrah railway station. I
stood for a moment by a temple, silently criticizing a small group of
men with drum and cymbals who were violently reciting a chant.

“How undevotionally they use the Lord’s divine name in mechanical
repetition,” I reflected. My gaze was astonished by the rapid approach
of Master Mahasaya. “Sir, how come you here?”

The saint, ignoring my question, answered my thought. “Isn’t it true,
little sir, that the Beloved’s name sounds sweet from all lips,
ignorant or wise?” He passed his arm around me affectionately; I found
myself carried on his magic carpet to the Merciful Presence.

“Would you like to see some bioscopes?” This question one afternoon
from Master Mahasaya was mystifying; the term was then used in India
to signify motion pictures. I agreed, glad to be in his company in any
circumstances. A brisk walk brought us to the garden fronting Calcutta
University. My companion indicated a bench near the goldighi or pond.

“Let us sit here for a few minutes. My Master always asked me to
meditate whenever I saw an expanse of water. Here its placidity
reminds us of the vast calmness of God. As all things can be reflected
in water, so the whole universe is mirrored in the lake of the Cosmic
Mind. So my gurudeva often said.”

Soon we entered a university hall where a lecture was in progress. It
proved abysmally dull, though varied occasionally by lantern slide
illustrations, equally uninteresting.

“So this is the kind of bioscope the master wanted me to see!” My
thought was impatient, yet I would not hurt the saint by revealing
boredom in my face. But he leaned toward me confidentially.

“I see, little sir, that you don’t like this bioscope. I have
mentioned it to Divine Mother; She is in full sympathy with us both.
She tells me that the electric lights will now go out, and won’t be
relit until we have a chance to leave the room.”

As his whisper ended, the hall was plunged into darkness. The
professor’s strident voice was stilled in astonishment, then remarked,
“The electrical system of this hall appears to be defective.” By this
time, Master Mahasaya and I were safely across the threshold. Glancing
back from the corridor, I saw that the scene of our martyrdom had
again become illuminated.

“Little sir, you were disappointed in that bioscope, ^9-2 but I
think you will like a different one.” The saint and I were standing
on the sidewalk in front of the university building. He gently slapped
my chest over the heart.

A transforming silence ensued. Just as the modern “talkies” become
inaudible motion pictures when the sound apparatus goes out of order,
so the Divine Hand, by some strange miracle, stifled the earthly
bustle. The pedestrians as well as the passing trolley cars,
automobiles, bullock carts, and iron-wheeled hackney carriages were
all in noiseless transit. As though possessing an omnipresent eye, I
beheld the scenes which were behind me, and to each side, as easily as
those in front. The whole spectacle of activity in that small section
of Calcutta passed before me without a sound. Like a glow of fire
dimly seen beneath a thin coat of ashes, a mellow luminescence
permeated the panoramic view.

My own body seemed nothing more than one of the many shadows, though
it was motionless, while the others flitted mutely to and fro. Several
boys, friends of mine, approached and passed on; though they had
looked directly at me, it was without recognition.

The unique pantomime brought me an inexpressible ecstasy. I drank deep
from some blissful fount. Suddenly my chest received another soft blow
from Master Mahasaya. The pandemonium of the world burst upon my
unwilling ears. I staggered, as though harshly awakened from a
gossamer dream. The transcendental wine removed beyond my reach.

“Little sir, I see you found the second bioscope to your liking.” The
saint was smiling; I started to drop in gratitude on the ground before
him. “You can’t do that to me now; you know God is in your temple
also! I won’t let Divine Mother touch my feet through your hands!”

If anyone observed the unpretentious master and myself as we walked
away from the crowded pavement, the onlooker surely suspected us of
intoxication. I felt that the falling shades of evening were
sympathetically drunk with God. When darkness recovered from its
nightly swoon, I faced the new morning bereft of my ecstatic mood. But
ever enshrined in memory is the seraphic son of Divine Mother-Master
Mahasaya!

Trying with poor words to do justice to his benignity, I wonder if
Master Mahasaya, and others among the deep-visioned saints whose paths
crossed mine, knew that years later, in a Western land, I would be
writing about their lives as divine devotees. Their foreknowledge
would not surprise me nor, I hope, my readers, who have come thus far
with me.

“Faith in God can produce any miracle except one-passing an
examination without study.” Distastefully I closed the book I had
picked up in an idle moment.

“The writer’s exception shows his complete lack of faith,” I thought.
“Poor chap, he has great respect for the midnight oil!”

My promise to Father had been that I would complete my high school
studies. I cannot pretend to diligence. The passing months found me
less frequently in the classroom than in secluded spots along the
Calcutta bathing ghats. The adjoining crematory grounds, especially
gruesome at night, are considered highly attractive by the yogi. He
who would find the Deathless Essence must not be dismayed by a few
unadorned skulls. Human inadequacy becomes clear in the gloomy abode
of miscellaneous bones. My midnight vigils were thus of a different
nature from the scholar’s.

The week of final examinations at the Hindu High School was fast
approaching. This interrogatory period, like the sepulchral haunts,
inspires a well-known terror. My mind was nevertheless at peace.
Braving the ghouls, I was exhuming a knowledge not found in lecture
halls. But it lacked the art of Swami Pranabananda, who easily
appeared in two places at one time. My educational dilemma was plainly
a matter for the Infinite Ingenuity. This was my reasoning, though to
many it seems illogic. The devotee’s irrationality springs from a
thousand inexplicable demonstrations of God’s instancy in trouble.

“Hello, Mukunda! I catch hardly a glimpse of you these days!” A
classmate accosted me one afternoon on Gurpar Road.

“Hello, Nantu! My invisibility at school has actually placed me there
in a decidedly awkward position.” I unburdened myself under his
friendly gaze.

Nantu, who was a brilliant student, laughed heartily; my predicament
was not without a comic aspect.

“You are utterly unprepared for the finals! I suppose it is up to me
to help you!”

The simple words conveyed divine promise to my ears; with alacrity I
visited my friend’s home. He kindly outlined the solutions to various
problems he considered likely to be set by the instructors.

“These questions are the bait which will catch many trusting boys in
the examination trap. Remember my answers, and you will escape without
injury.”

The night was far gone when I departed. Bursting with unseasoned
erudition, I devoutly prayed it would remain for the next few critical
days. Nantu had coached me in my various subjects but, under press of
time, had forgotten my course in Sanskrit. Fervently I reminded God of
the oversight.

I set out on a short walk the next morning, assimilating my new
knowledge to the rhythm of swinging footsteps. As I took a short cut
through the weeds of a corner lot, my eye fell on a few loose printed
sheets. A triumphant pounce proved them to be Sanskrit verse. I sought
out a pundit for aid in my stumbling interpretation. His rich voice
filled the air with the edgeless, honeyed beauty of the ancient
tongue. ^10-1

“These exceptional stanzas cannot possibly be of aid in your Sanskrit
test.” The scholar dismissed them skeptically.

But familiarity with that particular poem enabled me on the following
day to pass the Sanskrit examination. Through the discerning help
Nantu had given, I also attained the minimum grade for success in all
my other subjects.

Father was pleased that I had kept my word and concluded my secondary
school course. My gratitude sped to the Lord, whose sole guidance I
perceived in my visit to Nantu and my walk by the unhabitual route of
the debris-filled lot. Playfully He had given a dual expression to His
timely design for my rescue.

I came across the discarded book whose author had denied God
precedence in the examination halls. I could not restrain a chuckle at
my own silent comment:

“It would only add to this fellow’s confusion, if I were to tell him
that divine meditation among the cadavers is a short cut to a high
school diploma!”

In my new dignity, I was now openly planning to leave home. Together
with a young friend, Jitendra Mazumdar, ^10-2 I decided to join a
Mahamandal hermitage in Benares, and receive its spiritual discipline.

A desolation fell over me one morning at thought of separation from my
family. Since Mother’s death, my affection had grown especially tender
for my two younger brothers, Sananda and Bishnu. I rushed to my
retreat, the little attic which had witnessed so many scenes in my
turbulent sadhana. ^10-3 After a two-hour flood of tears, I felt
singularly transformed, as by some alchemical cleanser. All
attachment ^10-4 disappeared; my resolution to seek God as the Friend
of friends set like granite within me. I quickly completed my travel
preparations.

“I make one last plea.” Father was distressed as I stood before him
for final blessing. “Do not forsake me and your grieving brothers and
sisters.”

“Revered Father, how can I tell my love for you! But even greater is
my love for the Heavenly Father, who has given me the gift of a
perfect father on earth. Let me go, that I someday return with a more
divine understanding.”

With reluctant parental consent, I set out to join Jitendra, already
in Benares at the hermitage. On my arrival the young head swami,
Dyananda, greeted me cordially. Tall and thin, of thoughtful mien, he
impressed me favorably. His fair face had a Buddhalike composure.

I was pleased that my new home possessed an attic, where I managed to
spend the dawn and morning hours. The ashram members, knowing little
of meditation practices, thought I should employ my whole time in
organizational duties. They gave me praise for my afternoon work in
their office.

“Don’t try to catch God so soon!” This ridicule from a fellow resident
accompanied one of my early departures toward the attic. I went to
Dyananda, busy in his small sanctum overlooking the Ganges.

“Swamiji, ^10-5 I don’t understand what is required of me here. I am
seeking direct perception of God. Without Him, I cannot be satisfied
with affiliation or creed or performance of good works.”

The orange-robed ecclesiastic gave me an affectionate pat. Staging a
mock rebuke, he admonished a few near-by disciples. “Don’t bother
Mukunda. He will learn our ways.”

I politely concealed my doubt. The students left the room, not overly
bent with their chastisement. Dyananda had further words for me.

“Mukunda, I see your father is regularly sending you money. Please
return it to him; you require none here. A second injunction for your
discipline concerns food. Even when you feel hunger, don’t mention
it.”

Whether famishment gleamed in my eye, I knew not. That I was hungry, I
knew only too well. The invariable hour for the first hermitage meal
was twelve noon. I had been accustomed in my own home to a large
breakfast at nine o’clock.

The three-hour gap became daily more interminable. Gone were the
Calcutta years when I could rebuke the cook for a ten-minute delay.
Now I tried to control my appetite; one day I undertook a twenty-four
hour fast. With double zest I awaited the following midday.

“Dyanandaji’s train is late; we are not going to eat until he
arrives.” Jitendra brought me this devastating news. As gesture of
welcome to the swami, who had been absent for two weeks, many
delicacies were in readiness. An appetizing aroma filled the air.
Nothing else offering, what else could be swallowed except pride over
yesterday’s achievement of a fast?

“Lord hasten the train!” The Heavenly Provider, I thought, was hardly
included in the interdiction with which Dyananda had silenced me.
Divine Attention was elsewhere, however; the plodding clock covered
the hours. Darkness was descending as our leader entered the door. My
greeting was one of unfeigned joy.

“Dyanandaji will bathe and meditate before we can serve food.”
Jitendra approached me again as a bird of ill omen.

I was in near-collapse. My young stomach, new to deprivation,
protested with gnawing vigor. Pictures I had seen of famine victims
passed wraithlike before me.

“The next Benares death from starvation is due at once in this
hermitage,” I thought. Impending doom averted at nine o’clock.
Ambrosial summons! In memory that meal is vivid as one of life’s
perfect hours.

Intense absorption yet permitted me to observe that Dyananda ate
absent-mindedly. He was apparently above my gross pleasures.

“Swamiji, weren’t you hungry?” Happily surfeited, I was alone with the
leader in his study.

“O yes! I have spent the last four days without food or drink. I never
eat on trains, filled with the heterogenous vibrations of worldly
people. Strictly I observe the shastric ^10-6 rules for monks of my
particular order.

“Certain problems of our organizational work lie on my mind. Tonight
at home I neglected my dinner. What’s the hurry? Tomorrow I’ll make it
a point to have a proper meal.” He laughed merrily.

Shame spread within me like a suffocation. But the past day of my
torture was not easily forgotten; I ventured a further remark.

“Swamiji, I am puzzled. Following your instruction, suppose I never
asked for food, and nobody gives me any. I should starve to death.”

“Die then!” This alarming counsel split the air. “Die if you must
Mukunda! Never admit that you live by the power of food and not by the
power of God! He who has created every form of nourishment, He who has
bestowed appetite, will certainly see that His devotee is sustained!
Do not imagine that rice maintains you, or that money or men support
you! Could they aid if the Lord withdraws your life-breath? They are
His indirect instruments merely. Is it by any skill of yours that food
digests in your stomach? Use the sword of your discrimination,
Mukunda! Cut through the chains of agency and perceive the Single
Cause!”

I found his incisive words entering some deep marrow. Gone was an age-
old delusion by which bodily imperatives outwit the soul. There and
then I tasted the Spirit’s all-sufficiency. In how many strange
cities, in my later life of ceaseless travel, did occasion arise to
prove the serviceability of this lesson in a Benares hermitage!

The sole treasure which had accompanied me from Calcutta was the
SADHU’S silver amulet bequeathed to me by Mother. Guarding it for
years, I now had it carefully hidden in my ashram room. To renew my
joy in the talismanic testimony, one morning I opened the locked box.
The sealed covering untouched, lo! the amulet was gone. Mournfully I
tore open its envelope and made unmistakably sure. It had vanished, in
accordance with the SADHU’S prediction, into the ether whence he had
summoned it.

My relationship with Dyananda’s followers grew steadily worse. The
household was alienated, hurt by my determined aloofness. My strict
adherence to meditation on the very Ideal for which I had left home
and all worldly ambitions called forth shallow criticism on all sides.

Torn by spiritual anguish, I entered the attic one dawn, resolved to
pray until answer was vouchsafed.

“Merciful Mother of the Universe, teach me Thyself through visions, or
through a guru sent by Thee!”

The passing hours found my sobbing pleas without response. Suddenly I
felt lifted as though bodily to a sphere uncircumscribed.

“Thy Master cometh today!” A divine womanly voice came from everywhere
and nowhere.

This supernal experience was pierced by a shout from a definite
locale. A young priest nicknamed Habu was calling me from the
downstairs kitchen.

“Mukunda, enough of meditation! You are needed for an errand.”

Another day I might have replied impatiently; now I wiped my tear-
swollen face and meekly obeyed the summons. Together Habu and I set
out for a distant market place in the Bengali section of Benares. The
ungentle Indian sun was not yet at zenith as we made our purchases in
the bazaars. We pushed our way through the colorful medley of
housewives, guides, priests, simply-clad widows, dignified Brahmins,
and the ubiquitous holy bulls. Passing an inconspicuous lane, I turned
my head and surveyed the narrow length.

A Christlike man in the ocher robes of a swami stood motionless at the
end of the road. Instantly and anciently familiar he seemed; my gaze
fed hungrily for a trice. Then doubt assailed me.

“You are confusing this wandering monk with someone known to you,” I
thought. “Dreamer, walk on.”

After ten minutes, I felt heavy numbness in my feet. As though turned
to stone, they were unable to carry me farther. Laboriously I turned
around; my feet regained normalcy. I faced the opposite direction;
again the curious weight oppressed me.

“The saint is magnetically drawing me to him!” With this thought, I
heaped my parcels into the arms of Habu. He had been observing my
erratic footwork with amazement, and now burst into laughter.

“What ails you? Are you crazy?”

My tumultuous emotion prevented any retort; I sped silently away.

Retracing my steps as though wing-shod, I reached the narrow lane. My
quick glance revealed the quiet figure, steadily gazing in my
direction. A few eager steps and I was at his feet.

“Gurudeva!” ^10-7 The divine face was none other than he of my
thousand visions. These halcyon eyes, in leonine head with pointed
beard and flowing locks, had oft peered through gloom of my nocturnal
reveries, holding a promise I had not fully understood.

“O my own, you have come to me!” My guru uttered the words again and
again in Bengali, his voice tremulous with joy. “How many years I have
waited for you!”

We entered a oneness of silence; words seemed the rankest
superfluities. Eloquence flowed in soundless chant from heart of
master to disciple. With an antenna of irrefragable insight I sensed
that my guru knew God, and would lead me to Him. The obscuration of
this life disappeared in a fragile dawn of prenatal memories. Dramatic
time! Past, present, and future are its cycling scenes. This was not
the first sun to find me at these holy feet!

My hand in his, my guru led me to his temporary residence in the Rana
Mahal section of the city. His athletic figure moved with firm tread.
Tall, erect, about fifty-five at this time, he was active and vigorous
as a young man. His dark eyes were large, beautiful with plumbless
wisdom. Slightly curly hair softened a face of striking power.
Strength mingled subtly with gentleness.

As we made our way to the stone balcony of a house overlooking the
Ganges, he said affectionately:

“I will give you my hermitages and all I possess.”

“Sir, I come for wisdom and God-contact. Those are your treasure-
troves I am after!”

The swift Indian twilight had dropped its half-curtain before my
master spoke again. His eyes held unfathomable tenderness.

“I give you my unconditional love.”

Precious words! A quarter-century elapsed before I had another
auricular proof of his love. His lips were strange to ardor; silence
became his oceanic heart.

“Will you give me the same unconditional love?” He gazed at me with
childlike trust.

“I will love you eternally, Gurudeva!”

“Ordinary love is selfish, darkly rooted in desires and satisfactions.
Divine love is without condition, without boundary, without change.
The flux of the human heart is gone forever at the transfixing touch
of pure love.” He added humbly, “If ever you find me falling from a
state of God-realization, please promise to put my head on your lap
and help to bring me back to the Cosmic Beloved we both worship.”

He rose then in the gathering darkness and guided me to an inner room.
As we ate mangoes and almond sweetmeats, he unobtrusively wove into
his conversation an intimate knowledge of my nature. I was awe-struck
at the grandeur of his wisdom, exquisitely blended with an innate
humility.

“Do not grieve for your amulet. It has served its purpose.” Like a
divine mirror, my guru apparently had caught a reflection of my whole
life.

“The living reality of your presence, Master, is joy beyond any
symbol.”

“It is time for a change, inasmuch as you are unhappily situated in
the hermitage.”

I had made no references to my life; they now seemed superfluous! By
his natural, unemphatic manner, I understood that he wished no
astonished ejaculations at his clairvoyance.

“You should go back to Calcutta. Why exclude relatives from your love
of humanity?”

His suggestion dismayed me. My family was predicting my return, though
I had been unresponsive to many pleas by letter. “Let the young bird
fly in the metaphysical skies,” Ananta had remarked. “His wings will
tire in the heavy atmosphere. We shall yet see him swoop toward home,
fold his pinions, and humbly rest in our family nest.” This
discouraging simile fresh in my mind, I was determined to do no
“swooping” in the direction of Calcutta.

“Sir, I am not returning home. But I will follow you anywhere. Please
give me your address, and your name.”

“Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri. My chief hermitage is in Serampore, on Rai
Ghat Lane. I am visiting my mother here for only a few days.”

I wondered at God’s intricate play with His devotees. Serampore is but
twelve miles from Calcutta, yet in those regions I had never caught a
glimpse of my guru. We had had to travel for our meeting to the
ancient city of Kasi (Benares), hallowed by memories of Lahiri
Mahasaya. Here too the feet of Buddha, Shankaracharya and other Yogi-
Christs had blessed the soil.

“You will come to me in four weeks.” For the first time, Sri
Yukteswar’s voice was stern. “Now I have told my eternal affection,
and have shown my happiness at finding you-that is why you disregard
my request. The next time we meet, you will have to reawaken my
interest: I won’t accept you as a disciple easily. There must be
complete surrender by obedience to my strict training.”

I remained obstinately silent. My guru easily penetrated my
difficulty.

“Do you think your relatives will laugh at you?”

“I will not return.”

“You will return in thirty days.”

“Never.” Bowing reverently at his feet, I departed without lightening
the controversial tension. As I made my way in the midnight darkness,
I wondered why the miraculous meeting had ended on an inharmonious
note. The dual scales of maya, that balance every joy with a grief! My
young heart was not yet malleable to the transforming fingers of my
guru.

The next morning I noticed increased hostility in the attitude of the
hermitage members. My days became spiked with invariable rudeness. In
three weeks, Dyananda left the ashram to attend a conference in
Bombay; pandemonium broke over my hapless head.

“Mukunda is a parasite, accepting hermitage hospitality without making
proper return.” Overhearing this remark, I regretted for the first
time that I had obeyed the request to send back my money to Father.
With heavy heart, I sought out my sole friend, Jitendra.

“I am leaving. Please convey my respectful regrets to Dyanandaji when
he returns.”

“I will leave also! My attempts to meditate here meet with no more
favor than your own.” Jitendra spoke with determination.

“I have met a Christlike saint. Let us visit him in Serampore.”

And so the “bird” prepared to “swoop” perilously close to Calcutta!

“It would serve you right if Father disinherited you, Mukunda! How
foolishly you are throwing away your life!” An elder-brother sermon
was assaulting my ears.

Jitendra and I, fresh from the train (a figure of speech merely; we
were covered with dust), had just arrived at the home of Ananta,
recently transferred from Calcutta to the ancient city of Agra.
Brother was a supervising accountant for the Bengal-Nagpur Railway.

“You well know, Ananta, I seek my inheritance from the Heavenly
Father.”

“Money first; God can come later! Who knows? Life may be too long.”

“God first; money is His slave! Who can tell? Life may be too short.”

My retort was summoned by the exigencies of the moment, and held no
presentiment. Yet the leaves of time unfolded to early finality for
Ananta; a few years later ^11-1 he entered the land where bank notes
avail neither first nor last.

“Wisdom from the hermitage, I suppose! But I see you have left
Benares.” Ananta’s eyes gleamed with satisfaction; he yet hoped to
secure my pinions in the family nest.

“My sojourn in Benares was not in vain! I found there everything my
heart had been longing for! You may be sure it was not your pundit or
his son!”

Ananta joined me in reminiscent laughter; he had had to admit that the
Benares “clairvoyant” he selected was a shortsighted one.

“What are your plans, my wandering brother?”

“Jitendra persuaded me to Agra. We shall view the beauties of the Taj
Mahal ^11-2 here,” I explained. “Then we are going to my newly-found
guru, who has a hermitage in Serampore.”

Ananta hospitably arranged for our comfort. Several times during the
evening I noticed his eyes fixed on me reflectively.

“I know that look!” I thought. “A plot is brewing!”

The denouement took place during our early breakfast.

“So you feel quite independent of Father’s wealth.” Ananta’s gaze was
innocent as he resumed the barbs of yesterday’s conversation.

“I am conscious of my dependence on God.”

“Words are cheap! Life has shielded you thus far! What a plight if you
were forced to look to the Invisible Hand for your food and shelter!
You would soon be begging on the streets!”

“Never! I would not put faith in passers-by rather than God! He can
devise for His devotee a thousand resources besides the begging-bowl!”

“More rhetoric! Suppose I suggest that your vaunted philosophy be put
to a test in this tangible world?”

“I would agree! Do you confine God to a speculative world?”

“We shall see; today you shall have opportunity either to enlarge or
to confirm my own views!” Ananta paused for a dramatic moment; then
spoke slowly and seriously.

“I propose that I send you and your fellow disciple Jitendra this
morning to the near-by city of Brindaban. You must not take a single
rupee; you must not beg, either for food or money; you must not reveal
your predicament to anyone; you must not go without your meals; and
you must not be stranded in Brindaban. If you return to my bungalow
here before twelve o’clock tonight, without having broken any rule of
the test, I shall be the most astonished man in Agra!”

“I accept the challenge.” No hesitation was in my words or in my
heart. Grateful memories flashed of the Instant Beneficence: my
healing of deadly cholera through appeal to Lahiri Mahasaya’s picture;
the playful gift of the two kites on the Lahore roof with Uma; the
opportune amulet amidst my discouragement; the decisive message
through the unknown Benares sadhu outside the compound of the pundit’s
home; the vision of Divine Mother and Her majestic words of love; Her
swift heed through Master Mahasaya to my trifling embarrassments; the
last-minute guidance which materialized my high school diploma; and
the ultimate boon, my living Master from the mist of lifelong dreams.
Never could I admit my “philosophy” unequal to any tussle on the
world’s harsh proving ground!

“Your willingness does you credit. I’ll escort you to the train at
once.” Ananta turned to the openmouthed Jitendra. “You must go along
as a witness and, very likely, a fellow victim!”

A half hour later Jitendra and I were in possession of one-way tickets
for our impromptu trip. We submitted, in a secluded corner of the
station, to a search of our persons. Ananta was quickly satisfied that
we were carrying no hidden hoard; our simple dhotis ^11-3 concealed
nothing more than was necessary.

As faith invaded the serious realms of finance, my friend spoke
protestingly. “Ananta, give me one or two rupees as a safeguard. Then
I can telegraph you in case of misfortune.”

“Jitendra!” My ejaculation was sharply reproachful. “I will not
proceed with the test if you take any money as final security.”

“There is something reassuring about the clink of coins.” Jitendra
said no more as I regarded him sternly.

“Mukunda, I am not heartless.” A hint of humility had crept into
Ananta’s voice. It may be that his conscience was smiting him; perhaps
for sending two insolvent boys to a strange city; perhaps for his own
religious skepticism. “If by any chance or grace you pass successfully
through the Brindaban ordeal, I shall ask you to initiate me as your
disciple.”

This promise had a certain irregularity, in keeping with the
unconventional occasion. The eldest brother in an Indian family seldom
bows before his juniors; he receives respect and obedience second only
to a father. But no time remained for my comment; our train was at
point of departure.

Jitendra maintained a lugubrious silence as our train covered the
miles. Finally he bestirred himself; leaning over, he pinched me
painfully at an awkward spot.

“I see no sign that God is going to supply our next meal!”

“Be quiet, doubting Thomas; the Lord is working with us.”

“Can you also arrange that He hurry? Already I am famished merely at
the prospect before us. I left Benares to view the Taj’s mausoleum,
not to enter my own!”

“Cheer up, Jitendra! Are we not to have our first glimpse of the
sacred wonders of Brindaban? ^11-4 I am in deep joy at thought of
treading the ground hallowed by feet of Lord Krishna.”

The door of our compartment opened; two men seated themselves. The
next train stop would be the last.

“Young lads, do you have friends in Brindaban?” The stranger opposite
me was taking a surprising interest.

“None of your business!” Rudely I averted my gaze.

“You are probably flying away from your families under the enchantment
of the Stealer of Hearts. ^11-5 I am of devotional temperament
myself. I will make it my positive duty to see that you receive food,
and shelter from this overpowering heat.”

“No, sir, let us alone. You are very kind; but you are mistaken in
judging us to be truants from home.”

No further conversation ensued; the train came to a halt. As Jitendra
and I descended to the platform, our chance companions linked arms
with us and summoned a horse cab.

We alit before a stately hermitage, set amidst the evergreen trees of
well-kept grounds. Our benefactors were evidently known here; a
smiling lad led us without comment to a parlor. We were soon joined by
an elderly woman of dignified bearing.

“Gauri Ma, the princes could not come.” One of the men addressed the
ashram hostess. “At the last moment their plans went awry; they send
deep regrets. But we have brought two other guests. As soon as we met
on the train, I felt drawn to them as devotees of Lord Krishna.”

“Good-by, young friends.” Our two acquaintances walked to the door.
“We shall meet again, if God be willing.”

“You are welcome here.” Gauri Ma smiled in motherly fashion on her two
unexpected charges. “You could not have come on a better day. I was
expecting two royal patrons of this hermitage. What a shame if my
cooking had found none to appreciate it!”

These appetizing words had disastrous effect on Jitendra: he burst
into tears. The “prospect” he had feared in Brindaban was turning out
as royal entertainment; his sudden mental adjustment proved too much
for him. Our hostess looked at him with curiosity, but without remark;
perhaps she was familiar with adolescent quirks.

Lunch was announced; Gauri Ma led the way to a dining patio, spicy
with savory odors. She vanished into an adjoining kitchen.

I had been premeditating this moment. Selecting the appropriate spot
on Jitendra’s anatomy, I administered a pinch as resounding as the one
he had given me on the train.

“Doubting Thomas, the Lord works-in a hurry, too!”

The hostess reentered with a punkha. She steadily fanned us in the
Oriental fashion as we squatted on ornate blanket-seats. Ashram
disciples passed to and fro with some thirty courses. Rather than
“meal,” the description can only be “sumptuous repast.” Since arriving
on this planet, Jitendra and I had never before tasted such
delicacies.

“Dishes fit for princes indeed, Honored Mother! What your royal
patrons could have found more urgent than attending this banquet, I
cannot imagine! You have given us a memory for a lifetime!”

Silenced as we were by Ananta’s requirement, we could not explain to
the gracious lady that our thanks held a double significance. Our
sincerity at least was patent. We departed with her blessing and an
attractive invitation to revisit the hermitage.

The heat outdoors was merciless. My friend and I made for the shelter
of a lordly cadamba tree at the ashram gate. Sharp words followed;
once again Jitendra was beset with misgivings.

“A fine mess you have got me into! Our luncheon was only accidental
good fortune! How can we see the sights of this city, without a single
pice between us? And how on earth are you going to take me back to
Ananta’s?”

“You forget God quickly, now that your stomach is filled.” My words,
not bitter, were accusatory. How short is human memory for divine
favors! No man lives who has not seen certain of his prayers granted.

“I am not likely to forget my folly in venturing out with a madcap
like you!”

“Be quiet, Jitendra! The same Lord who fed us will show us Brindaban,
and return us to Agra.”

A slight young man of pleasing countenance approached at rapid pace.
Halting under our tree, he bowed before me.

“Dear friend, you and your companion must be strangers here. Permit me
to be your host and guide.”

It is scarcely possible for an Indian to pale, but Jitendra’s face was
suddenly sickly. I politely declined the offer.

“You are surely not banishing me?” The stranger’s alarm would have
been comic in any other circumstances.

“Why not?”

“You are my guru.” His eyes sought mine trustfully. “During my midday
devotions, the blessed Lord Krishna appeared in a vision. He showed me
two forsaken figures under this very tree. One face was yours, my
master! Often have I seen it in meditation! What joy if you accept my
humble services!”

“I too am glad you have found me. Neither God nor man has forsaken
us!” Though I was motionless, smiling at the eager face before me, an
inward obeisance cast me at the Divine Feet.

“Dear friends, will you not honor my home for a visit?”

“You are kind; but the plan is unfeasible. Already we are guests of my
brother in Agra.”

“At least give me memories of touring Brindaban with you.”

I gladly consented. The young man, who said his name was Pratap
Chatterji, hailed a horse carriage. We visited Madanamohana Temple and
other Krishna shrines. Night descended while we were at our temple
devotions.

“Excuse me while I get sandesh.” ^11-6 Pratap entered a shop near the
railroad station. Jitendra and I sauntered along the wide street,
crowded now in the comparative coolness. Our friend was absent for
some time, but finally returned with gifts of many sweetmeats.

“Please allow me to gain this religious merit.” Pratap smiled
pleadingly as he held out a bundle of rupee notes and two tickets,
just purchased, to Agra.

The reverence of my acceptance was for the Invisible Hand. Scoffed at
by Ananta, had Its bounty not far exceeded necessity?

We sought out a secluded spot near the station.

“Pratap, I will instruct you in the Kriya of Lahiri Mahasaya, the
greatest yogi of modern times. His technique will be your guru.”

The initiation was concluded in a half hour. “Kriya is your
chintamani,” ^11-7 I told the new student. “The technique, which as
you see is simple, embodies the art of quickening man’s spiritual
evolution. Hindu scriptures teach that the incarnating ego requires a
million years to obtain liberation from maya. This natural period is
greatly shortened through Kriya Yoga. Just as Jagadis Chandra Bose has
demonstrated that plant growth can be accelerated far beyond its
normal rate, so man’s psychological development can be also speeded by
an inner science. Be faithful in your practice; you will approach the
Guru of all gurus.”

“I am transported to find this yogic key, long sought!” Pratap spoke
thoughtfully. “Its unshackling effect on my sensory bonds will free me
for higher spheres. The vision today of Lord Krishna could only mean
my highest good.”

We sat awhile in silent understanding, then walked slowly to the
station. Joy was within me as I boarded the train, but this was
Jitendra’s day for tears. My affectionate farewell to Pratap had been
punctuated by stifled sobs from both my companions. The journey once
more found Jitendra in a welter of grief. Not for himself this time,
but against himself.

“How shallow my trust! My heart has been stone! Never in future shall
I doubt God’s protection!”

Midnight was approaching. The two “Cinderellas,” sent forth penniless,
entered Ananta’s bedroom. His face, as he had promised, was a study in
astonishment. Silently I showered the table with rupees.

“Jitendra, the truth!” Ananta’s tone was jocular. “Has not this
youngster been staging a holdup?”

But as the tale was unfolded, my brother turned sober, then solemn.

“The law of demand and supply reaches into subtler realms than I had
supposed.” Ananta spoke with a spiritual enthusiasm never before
noticeable. “I understand for the first time your indifference to the
vaults and vulgar accumulations of the world.”

Late as it was, my brother insisted that he receive diksha ^11-8 into
Kriya Yoga. The “guru” Mukunda had to shoulder the responsibility of
two unsought disciples in one day.

Breakfast the following morning was eaten in a harmony absent the day
before. I smiled at Jitendra.

“You shall not be cheated of the Taj. Let us view it before starting
for Serampore.”

Bidding farewell to Ananta, my friend and I were soon before the glory
of Agra, the Taj Mahal. White marble dazzling in the sun, it stands a
vision of pure symmetry. The perfect setting is dark cypress, glossy
lawn, and tranquil lagoon. The interior is exquisite with lacelike
carvings inlaid with semiprecious stones. Delicate wreaths and scrolls
emerge intricately from marbles, brown and violet. Illumination from
the dome falls on the cenotaphs of Emperor Shah-Jahan and Mumtaz
Mahall, queen of his realm and his heart.

Enough of sight-seeing! I was longing for my guru. Jitendra and I were
shortly traveling south by train toward Bengal.

“Mukunda, I have not seen my family in months. I have changed my mind;
perhaps later I shall visit your master in Serampore.”

My friend, who may mildly be described as vacillating in temperament,
left me in Calcutta. By local train I soon reached Serampore, twelve
miles to the north.

A throb of wonderment stole over me as I realized that twenty-eight
days had elapsed since the Benares meeting with my guru. “You will
come to me in four weeks!” Here I was, heart pounding, standing within
his courtyard on quiet Rai Ghat Lane. I entered for the first time the
hermitage where I was to spend the best part of the next ten years
with India’s Jyanavatar, “incarnation of wisdom.”

“You have come.” Sri Yukteswar greeted me from a tiger skin on the
floor of a balconied sitting room. His voice was cold, his manner
unemotional.

“Yes, dear Master, I am here to follow you.” Kneeling, I touched his
feet.

“How can that be? You ignore my wishes.”

“No longer, Guruji! Your wish shall be my law!”

“That is better! Now I can assume responsibility for your life.”

“I willingly transfer the burden, Master.”

“My first request, then, is that you return home to your family. I
want you to enter college in Calcutta. Your education should be
continued.”

“Very well, sir.” I hid my consternation. Would importunate books
pursue me down the years? First Father, now Sri Yukteswar!

“Someday you will go to the West. Its people will lend ears more
receptive to India’s ancient wisdom if the strange Hindu teacher has a
university degree.”

“You know best, Guruji.” My gloom departed. The reference to the West
I found puzzling, remote; but my opportunity to please Master by
obedience was vitally immediate.

“You will be near in Calcutta; come here whenever you find time.”

“Every day if possible, Master! Gratefully I accept your authority in
every detail of my life-on one condition.”

“Yes?”

“That you promise to reveal God to me!”

An hour-long verbal tussle ensued. A master’s word cannot be
falsified; it is not lightly given. The implications in the pledge
open out vast metaphysical vistas. A guru must be on intimate terms
indeed with the Creator before he can obligate Him to appear! I sensed
Sri Yukteswar’s divine unity, and was determined, as his disciple, to
press my advantage.

“You are of exacting disposition!” Then Master’s consent rang out with
compassionate finality:

“Let your wish be my wish.”

Lifelong shadow lifted from my heart; the vague search, hither and
yon, was over. I had found eternal shelter in a true guru.

“Come; I will show you the hermitage.” Master rose from his tiger mat.
I glanced about me; my gaze fell with astonishment on a wall picture,
garlanded with a spray of jasmine.

“Lahiri Mahasaya!”

“Yes, my divine guru.” Sri Yukteswar’s tone was reverently vibrant.
“Greater he was, as man and yogi, than any other teacher whose life
came within the range of my investigations.”

Silently I bowed before the familiar picture. Soul-homage sped to the
peerless master who, blessing my infancy, had guided my steps to this
hour.

Led by my guru, I strolled over the house and its grounds. Large,
ancient and well-built, the hermitage was surrounded by a massive-
pillared courtyard. Outer walls were moss-covered; pigeons fluttered
over the flat gray roof, unceremoniously sharing the ashram quarters.
A rear garden was pleasant with jackfruit, mango, and plantain trees.
Balustraded balconies of upper rooms in the two-storied building faced
the courtyard from three sides. A spacious ground-floor hall, with
high ceiling supported by colonnades, was used, Master said, chiefly
during the annual festivities of Durgapuja. ^12-1 A narrow stairway
led to Sri Yukteswar’s sitting room, whose small balcony overlooked
the street. The ashram was plainly furnished; everything was simple,
clean, and utilitarian. Several Western styled chairs, benches, and
tables were in evidence.

Master invited me to stay overnight. A supper of vegetable curry was
served by two young disciples who were receiving hermitage training.

“Guruji, please tell me something of your life.” I was squatting on a
straw mat near his tiger skin. The friendly stars were very close, it
seemed, beyond the balcony.

“My family name was Priya Nath Karar. I was born ^12-2 here in
Serampore, where Father was a wealthy businessman. He left me this
ancestral mansion, now my hermitage. My formal schooling was little; I
found it slow and shallow. In early manhood, I undertook the
responsibilities of a householder, and have one daughter, now married.
My middle life was blessed with the guidance of Lahiri Mahasaya. After
my wife died, I joined the Swami Order and received the new name of
Sri Yukteswar Giri. ^12-3 Such are my simple annals.”

Master smiled at my eager face. Like all biographical sketches, his
words had given the outward facts without revealing the inner man.

“Guruji, I would like to hear some stories of your childhood.”

“I will tell you a few-each one with a moral!” Sri Yukteswar’s eyes
twinkled with his warning. “My mother once tried to frighten me with
an appalling story of a ghost in a dark chamber. I went there
immediately, and expressed my disappointment at having missed the
ghost. Mother never told me another horror-tale. Moral: Look fear in
the face and it will cease to trouble you.

“Another early memory is my wish for an ugly dog belonging to a
neighbor. I kept my household in turmoil for weeks to get that dog. My
ears were deaf to offers of pets with more prepossessing appearance.
Moral: Attachment is blinding; it lends an imaginary halo of
attractiveness to the object of desire.

“A third story concerns the plasticity of the youthful mind. I heard
my mother remark occasionally: ‘A man who accepts a job under anyone
is a slave.’ That impression became so indelibly fixed that even after
my marriage I refused all positions. I met expenses by investing my
family endowment in land. Moral: Good and positive suggestions should
instruct the sensitive ears of children. Their early ideas long remain
sharply etched.”

Master fell into tranquil silence. Around midnight he led me to a
narrow cot. Sleep was sound and sweet the first night under my guru’s
roof.

Sri Yukteswar chose the following morning to grant me his Kriya Yoga
initiation. The technique I had already received from two disciples of
Lahiri Mahasaya-Father and my tutor, Swami Kebalananda-but in Master’s
presence I felt transforming power. At his touch, a great light broke
upon my being, like glory of countless suns blazing together. A flood
of ineffable bliss, overwhelming my heart to an innermost core,
continued during the following day. It was late that afternoon before
I could bring myself to leave the hermitage.

“You will return in thirty days.” As I reached my Calcutta home, the
fulfillment of Master’s prediction entered with me. None of my
relatives made the pointed remarks I had feared about the reappearance
of the “soaring bird.”

I climbed to my little attic and bestowed affectionate glances, as
though on a living presence. “You have witnessed my meditations, and
the tears and storms of my sadhana. Now I have reached the harbor of
my divine teacher.”

“Son, I am happy for us both.” Father and I sat together in the
evening calm. “You have found your guru, as in miraculous fashion I
once found my own. The holy hand of Lahiri Mahasaya is guarding our
lives. Your master has proved no inaccessible Himalayan saint, but one
near-by. My prayers have been answered: you have not in your search
for God been permanently removed from my sight.”

Father was also pleased that my formal studies would be resumed; he
made suitable arrangements. I was enrolled the following day at the
Scottish Church College in Calcutta.

Happy months sped by. My readers have doubtless made the perspicacious
surmise that I was little seen in the college classrooms. The
Serampore hermitage held a lure too irresistible. Master accepted my
ubiquitous presence without comment. To my relief, he seldom referred
to the halls of learning. Though it was plain to all that I was never
cut out for a scholar, I managed to attain minimum passing grades from
time to time.

Daily life at the ashram flowed smoothly, infrequently varied. My guru
awoke before dawn. Lying down, or sometimes sitting on the bed, he
entered a state of samadhi. ^12-4 It was simplicity itself to
discover when Master had awakened: abrupt halt of stupendous
snores. ^12-5 A sigh or two; perhaps a bodily movement. Then a
soundless state of breathlessness: he was in deep yogic joy.

Breakfast did not follow; first came a long walk by the Ganges. Those
morning strolls with my guru-how real and vivid still! In the easy
resurrection of memory, I often find myself by his side: the early sun
is warming the river. His voice rings out, rich with the authenticity
of wisdom.

A bath; then the midday meal. Its preparation, according to Master’s
daily directions, had been the careful task of young disciples. My
guru was a vegetarian. Before embracing monkhood, however, he had
eaten eggs and fish. His advice to students was to follow any simple
diet which proved suited to one’s constitution.

Master ate little; often rice, colored with turmeric or juice of beets
or spinach and lightly sprinkled with buffalo ghee or melted butter.
Another day he might have lentil-dhal or channa ^12-6 curry with
vegetables. For dessert, mangoes or oranges with rice pudding, or
jackfruit juice.

Visitors appeared in the afternoons. A steady stream poured from the
world into the hermitage tranquillity. Everyone found in Master an
equal courtesy and kindness. To a man who has realized himself as a
soul, not the body or the ego, the rest of humanity assumes a striking
similarity of aspect.

The impartiality of saints is rooted in wisdom. Masters have escaped
maya; its alternating faces of intellect and idiocy no longer cast an
influential glance. Sri Yukteswar showed no special consideration to
those who happened to be powerful or accomplished; neither did he
slight others for their poverty or illiteracy. He would listen
respectfully to words of truth from a child, and openly ignore a
conceited pundit.

Eight o’clock was the supper hour, and sometimes found lingering
guests. My guru would not excuse himself to eat alone; none left his
ashram hungry or dissatisfied. Sri Yukteswar was never at a loss,
never dismayed by unexpected visitors; scanty food would emerge a
banquet under his resourceful direction. Yet he was economical; his
modest funds went far. “Be comfortable within your purse,” he often
said. “Extravagance will buy you discomfort.” Whether in the details
of hermitage entertainment, or his building and repair work, or other
practical concerns, Master manifested the originality of a creative
spirit.

Quiet evening hours often brought one of my guru’s discourses,
treasures against time. His every utterance was measured and chiseled
by wisdom. A sublime self-assurance marked his mode of expression: it
was unique. He spoke as none other in my experience ever spoke. His
thoughts were weighed in a delicate balance of discrimination before
he permitted them an outward garb. The essence of truth, all-pervasive
with even a physiological aspect, came from him like a fragrant
exudation of the soul. I was conscious always that I was in the
presence of a living manifestation of God. The weight of his divinity
automatically bowed my head before him.

If late guests detected that Sri Yukteswar was becoming engrossed with
the Infinite, he quickly engaged them in conversation. He was
incapable of striking a pose, or of flaunting his inner withdrawal.
Always one with the Lord, he needed no separate time for communion. A
self-realized master has already left behind the stepping stone of
meditation. “The flower falls when the fruit appears.” But saints
often cling to spiritual forms for the encouragement of disciples.

As midnight approached, my guru might fall into a doze with the
naturalness of a child. There was no fuss about bedding. He often lay
down, without even a pillow, on a narrow davenport which was the
background for his customary tiger-skin seat.

A night-long philosophical discussion was not rare; any disciple could
summon it by intensity of interest. I felt no tiredness then, no
desire for sleep; Master’s living words were sufficient. “Oh, it is
dawn! Let us walk by the Ganges.” So ended many of my periods of
nocturnal edification.

My early months with Sri Yukteswar culminated in a useful lesson-“How
to Outwit a Mosquito.” At home my family always used protective
curtains at night. I was dismayed to discover that in the Serampore
hermitage this prudent custom was honored in the breach. Yet the
insects were in full residency; I was bitten from head to foot. My
guru took pity on me.

“Buy yourself a curtain, and also one for me.” He laughed and added,
“If you buy only one, for yourself, all mosquitoes will concentrate on
me!”

I was more than thankful to comply. Every night that I spent in
Serampore, my guru would ask me to arrange the bedtime curtains.

The mosquitoes one evening were especially virulent. But Master failed
to issue his usual instructions. I listened nervously to the

anticipatory hum of the insects. Getting into bed, I threw a
propitiatory prayer in their general direction. A half hour later, I
coughed pretentiously to attract my guru’s attention. I thought I
would go mad with the bites and especially the singing drone as the
mosquitoes celebrated bloodthirsty rites.

No responsive stir from Master; I approached him cautiously. He was
not breathing. This was my first observation of him in the yogic
trance; it filled me with fright.

“His heart must have failed!” I placed a mirror under his nose; no
breath-vapor appeared. To make doubly certain, for minutes I closed
his mouth and nostrils with my fingers. His body was cold and
motionless. In a daze, I turned toward the door to summon help.

“So! A budding experimentalist! My poor nose!” Master’s voice was
shaky with laughter. “Why don’t you go to bed? Is the whole world
going to change for you? Change yourself: be rid of the mosquito
consciousness.”

Meekly I returned to my bed. Not one insect ventured near. I realized
that my guru had previously agreed to the curtains only to please me;
he had no fear of mosquitoes. His yogic power was such that he either
could will them not to bite, or could escape to an inner
invulnerability.

“He was giving me a demonstration,” I thought. “That is the yogic
state I must strive to attain.” A yogi must be able to pass into, and
continue in, the superconsciousness, regardless of multitudinous
distractions never absent from this earth. Whether in the buzz of
insects or the pervasive glare of daylight, the testimony of the
senses must be barred. Sound and sight come then indeed, but to worlds
fairer than the banished Eden. ^12-7

The instructive mosquitoes served for another early lesson at the
ashram. It was the gentle hour of dusk. My guru was matchlessly
interpreting the ancient texts. At his feet, I was in perfect peace. A
rude mosquito entered the idyl and competed for my attention. As it
dug a poisonous hypodermic needle into my thigh, I automatically
raised an avenging hand. Reprieve from impending execution! An
opportune memory came to me of one of Patanjali’s yoga aphorisms-that
on ahimsa (harmlessness).

“Why didn’t you finish the job?”

“Master! Do you advocate taking life?”

“No; but the deathblow already had been struck in your mind.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Patanjali’s meaning was the removal of desire to kill.” Sri Yukteswar
had found my mental processes an open book. “This world is
inconveniently arranged for a literal practice of ahimsa. Man may be
compelled to exterminate harmful creatures. He is not under similar
compulsion to feel anger or animosity. All forms of life have equal
right to the air of maya. The saint who uncovers the secret of
creation will be in harmony with its countless bewildering
expressions. All men may approach that understanding who curb the
inner passion for destruction.”

“Guruji, should one offer himself a sacrifice rather than kill a wild
beast?”

“No; man’s body is precious. It has the highest evolutionary value
because of unique brain and spinal centers. These enable the advanced
devotee to fully grasp and express the loftiest aspects of divinity.
No lower form is so equipped. It is true that one incurs the debt of a
minor sin if he is forced to kill an animal or any living thing. But
the Vedas teach that wanton loss of a human body is a serious
transgression against the karmic law.”

I sighed in relief; scriptural reinforcement of one’s natural
instincts is not always forthcoming.

It so happened that I never saw Master at close quarters with a
leopard or a tiger. But a deadly cobra once confronted him, only to be
conquered by my guru’s love. This variety of snake is much feared in
India, where it causes more than five thousand deaths annually. The
dangerous encounter took place at Puri, where Sri Yukteswar had a
second hermitage, charmingly situated near the Bay of Bengal.
Prafulla, a young disciple of later years, was with Master on this
occasion.

“We were seated outdoors near the ashram,” Prafulla told me. “A cobra
appeared near-by, a four-foot length of sheer terror. Its hood was
angrily expanded as it raced toward us. My guru gave a welcoming
chuckle, as though to a child. I was beside myself with consternation
to see Master engage in a rhythmical clapping of hands. ^12-8 He was
entertaining the dread visitor! I remained absolutely quiet, inwardly
ejaculating what fervent prayers I could muster. The serpent, very
close to my guru, was now motionless, seemingly magnetized by his
caressing attitude. The frightful hood gradually contracted; the snake
slithered between Master’s feet and disappeared into the bushes.

“Why my guru would move his hands, and why the cobra would not strike
them, were inexplicable to me then,” Prafulla concluded. “I have since
come to realize that my divine master is beyond fear of hurt from any
living creature.”

One afternoon during my early months at the ashram, found Sri
Yukteswar’s eyes fixed on me piercingly.

“You are too thin, Mukunda.”

His remark struck a sensitive point. That my sunken eyes and emaciated
appearance were far from my liking was testified to by rows of tonics
in my room at Calcutta. Nothing availed; chronic dyspepsia had pursued
me since childhood. My despair reached an occasional zenith when I
asked myself if it were worth-while to carry on this life with a body
so unsound.

“Medicines have limitations; the creative life-force has none. Believe
that: you shall be well and strong.”

Sri Yukteswar’s words aroused a conviction of personally-applicable
truth which no other healer-and I had tried many!-had been able to
summon within me.

Day by day, behold! I waxed. Two weeks after Master’s hidden blessing,
I had accumulated the invigorating weight which eluded me in the past.
My persistent stomach ailments vanished with a lifelong permanency. On
later occasions I witnessed my guru’s instantaneous divine healings of
persons suffering from ominous disease-tuberculosis, diabetes,
epilepsy, or paralysis. Not one could have been more grateful for his
cure than I was at sudden freedom from my cadaverous aspect.

“Years ago, I too was anxious to put on weight,” Sri Yukteswar told
me. “During convalescence after a severe illness, I visited Lahiri
Mahasaya in Benares.

“‘Sir, I have been very sick and lost many pounds.’

“‘I see, Yukteswar, ^12-9 you made yourself unwell, and now you think
you are thin.’

“This reply was far from the one I had expected; my guru, however,
added encouragingly:

“‘Let me see; I am sure you ought to feel better tomorrow.’

“Taking his words as a gesture of secret healing toward my receptive
mind, I was not surprised the next morning at a welcome accession of
strength. I sought out my master and exclaimed exultingly, ‘Sir, I
feel much better today.’

“‘Indeed! Today you invigorate yourself.’

“‘No, master!’ I protested. ‘It was you who helped me; this is the
first time in weeks that I have had any energy.’

“‘O yes! Your malady has been quite serious. Your body is frail yet;
who can say how it will be tomorrow?’

“The thought of possible return of my weakness brought me a shudder of
cold fear. The following morning I could hardly drag myself to Lahiri
Mahasaya’s home.

“‘Sir, I am ailing again.’

“My guru’s glance was quizzical. ‘So! Once more you indispose
yourself.’

“‘Gurudeva, I realize now that day by day you have been ridiculing
me.’ My patience was exhausted. ‘I don’t understand why you disbelieve
my truthful reports.’

“‘Really, it has been your thoughts that have made you feel
alternately weak and strong.’ My master looked at me affectionately.
‘You have seen how your health has exactly followed your expectations.
Thought is a force, even as electricity or gravitation. The human mind
is a spark of the almighty consciousness of God. I could show you that
whatever your powerful mind believes very intensely would instantly
come to pass.’

“Knowing that Lahiri Mahasaya never spoke idly, I addressed him with
great awe and gratitude: ‘Master, if I think I am well and have
regained my former weight, shall that happen?’

“‘It is so, even at this moment.’ My guru spoke gravely, his gaze
concentrated on my eyes.

“Lo! I felt an increase not alone of strength but of weight. Lahiri
Mahasaya retreated into silence. After a few hours at his feet, I
returned to my mother’s home, where I stayed during my visits to
Benares.

“‘My son! What is the matter? Are you swelling with dropsy?’ Mother
could hardly believe her eyes. My body was now of the same robust
dimensions it had possessed before my illness.

“I weighed myself and found that in one day I had gained fifty pounds;
they remained with me permanently. Friends and acquaintances who had
seen my thin figure were aghast with wonderment. A number of them
changed their mode of life and became disciples of Lahiri Mahasaya as
a result of this miracle.

“My guru, awake in God, knew this world to be nothing but an
objectivized dream of the Creator. Because he was completely aware of
his unity with the Divine Dreamer, Lahiri Mahasaya could materialize
or dematerialize or make any change he wished in the cosmic
vision. ^12-10

“All creation is governed by law,” Sri Yukteswar concluded. “The ones
which manifest in the outer universe, discoverable by scientists, are
called natural laws. But there are subtler laws ruling the realms of
consciousness which can be known only through the inner science of
yoga. The hidden spiritual planes also have their natural and lawful
principles of operation. It is not the physical scientist but the
fully self-realized master who comprehends the true nature of matter.
Thus Christ was able to restore the servant’s ear after it had been
severed by one of the disciples.” ^12-11

Sri Yukteswar was a peerless interpreter of the scriptures. Many of my
happiest memories are centered in his discourses. But his jeweled
thoughts were not cast into ashes of heedlessness or stupidity. One
restless movement of my body, or my slight lapse into absent-
mindedness, sufficed to put an abrupt period to Master’s exposition.

“You are not here.” Master interrupted himself one afternoon with this
disclosure. As usual, he was keeping track of my attention with a
devastating immediacy.

“Guruji!” My tone was a protest. “I have not stirred; my eyelids have
not moved; I can repeat each word you have uttered!”

“Nevertheless you were not fully with me. Your objection forces me to
remark that in your mental background you were creating three
institutions. One was a sylvan retreat on a plain, another on a
hilltop, a third by the ocean.”

Those vaguely formulated thoughts had indeed been present almost
subconsciously. I glanced at him apologetically.

“What can I do with such a master, who penetrates my random musings?”

“You have given me that right. The subtle truths I am expounding
cannot be grasped without your complete concentration. Unless
necessary I do not invade the seclusion of others’ minds. Man has the
natural privilege of roaming secretly among his thoughts. The unbidden
Lord does not enter there; neither do I venture intrusion.”

“You are ever welcome, Master!”

“Your architectural dreams will materialize later. Now is the time for
study!”

Thus incidentally my guru revealed in his simple way the coming of
three great events in my life. Since early youth I had had enigmatic
glimpses of three buildings, each in a different setting. In the exact
sequence Sri Yukteswar had indicated, these visions took ultimate
form. First came my founding of a boys’ yoga school on a Ranchi plain,
then my American headquarters on a Los Angeles hilltop, finally a
hermitage in southern California by the vast Pacific.

Master never arrogantly asserted: “I prophesy that such and such an
event shall occur!” He would rather hint: “Don’t you think it may
happen?” But his simple speech hid vatic power. There was no
recanting; never did his slightly veiled words prove false.

Sri Yukteswar was reserved and matter-of-fact in demeanor. There was
naught of the vague or daft visionary about him. His feet were firm on
the earth, his head in the haven of heaven. Practical people aroused
his admiration. “Saintliness is not dumbness! Divine perceptions are
not incapacitating!” he would say. “The active expression of virtue
gives rise to the keenest intelligence.”

In Master’s life I fully discovered the cleavage between spiritual
realism and the obscure mysticism that spuriously passes as a
counterpart. My guru was reluctant to discuss the superphysical
realms. His only “marvelous” aura was one of perfect simplicity. In
conversation he avoided startling references; in action he was freely
expressive. Others talked of miracles but could manifest nothing; Sri
Yukteswar seldom mentioned the subtle laws but secretly operated them
at will.

“A man of realization does not perform any miracle until he receives
an inward sanction,” Master explained. “God does not wish the secrets
of His creation revealed promiscuously. ^12-12 Also, every individual
in the world has inalienable right to his free will. A saint will not
encroach upon that independence.”

The silence habitual to Sri Yukteswar was caused by his deep
perceptions of the Infinite. No time remained for the interminable
“revelations” that occupy the days of teachers without self-
realization. “In shallow men the fish of little thoughts cause much
commotion. In oceanic minds the whales of inspiration make hardly a
ruffle.” This observation from the Hindu scriptures is not without
discerning humor.

Because of my guru’s unspectacular guise, only a few of his
contemporaries recognized him as a superman. The popular adage: “He is
a fool that cannot conceal his wisdom,” could never be applied to Sri
Yukteswar. Though born a mortal like all others, Master had achieved
identity with the Ruler of time and space. In his life I perceived a
godlike unity. He had not found any insuperable obstacle to mergence
of human with Divine. No such barrier exists, I came to understand,
save in man’s spiritual unadventurousness.

I always thrilled at the touch of Sri Yukteswar’s holy feet. Yogis
teach that a disciple is spiritually magnetized by reverent contact
with a master; a subtle current is generated. The devotee’s
undesirable habit-mechanisms in the brain are often cauterized; the
groove of his worldly tendencies beneficially disturbed. Momentarily
at least he may find the secret veils of maya lifting, and glimpse the
reality of bliss. My whole body responded with a liberating glow
whenever I knelt in the Indian fashion before my guru.

“Even when Lahiri Mahasaya was silent,” Master told me, “or when he
conversed on other than strictly religious topics, I discovered that
nonetheless he had transmitted to me ineffable knowledge.”

Sri Yukteswar affected me similarly. If I entered the hermitage in a
worried or indifferent frame of mind, my attitude imperceptibly
changed. A healing calm descended at mere sight of my guru. Every day
with him was a new experience in joy, peace, and wisdom. Never did I
find him deluded or intoxicated with greed or emotion or anger or any
human attachment.

“The darkness of maya is silently approaching. Let us hie homeward
within.” With these words at dusk Master constantly reminded his
disciples of their need for Kriya Yoga. A new student occasionally
expressed doubts regarding his own worthiness to engage in yoga
practice.

“Forget the past,” Sri Yukteswar would console him. “The vanished
lives of all men are dark with many shames. Human conduct is ever
unreliable until anchored in the Divine. Everything in future will
improve if you are making a spiritual effort now.”

Master always had young chelas ^12-13 in his hermitage. Their
spiritual and intellectual education was his lifelong interest: even
shortly before he passed on, he accepted for training two six-year-old
boys and one youth of sixteen. He directed their minds and lives with
that careful discipline in which the word “disciple” is etymologically
rooted. The ashram residents loved and revered their guru; a slight
clap of his hands sufficed to bring them eagerly to his side. When his
mood was silent and withdrawn, no one ventured to speak; when his
laugh rang jovially, children looked upon him as their own.

Master seldom asked others to render him a personal service, nor would
he accept help from a student unless the willingness were sincere. My
guru quietly washed his clothes if the disciples overlooked that
privileged task. Sri Yukteswar wore the traditional ocher-colored
swami robe; his laceless shoes, in accordance with yogi custom, were

of tiger or deer skin.

Master spoke fluent English, French, Hindi, and Bengali; his Sanskrit
was fair. He patiently instructed his young disciples by certain short
cuts which he had ingeniously devised for the study of English and
Sanskrit.

Master was cautious of his body, while withholding solicitous
attachment. The Infinite, he pointed out, properly manifests through
physical and mental soundness. He discountenanced any extremes. A
disciple once started a long fast. My guru only laughed: “Why not
throw the dog a bone?”

Sri Yukteswar’s health was excellent; I never saw him unwell. ^12-14
He permitted students to consult doctors if it seemed advisable. His
purpose was to give respect to the worldly custom: “Physicians must
carry on their work of healing through God’s laws as applied to
matter.” But he extolled the superiority of mental therapy, and often
repeated: “Wisdom is the greatest cleanser.”

“The body is a treacherous friend. Give it its due; no more,” he said.
“Pain and pleasure are transitory; endure all dualities with calmness,
while trying at the same time to remove their hold. Imagination is the
door through which disease as well as healing enters. Disbelieve in
the reality of sickness even when you are ill; an unrecognized visitor
will flee!”

Master numbered many doctors among his disciples. “Those who have
ferreted out the physical laws can easily investigate the science of
the soul,” he told them. “A subtle spiritual mechanism is hidden just
behind the bodily structure.” ^12-15

Sri Yukteswar counseled his students to be living liaisons of Western
and Eastern virtues. Himself an executive Occidental in outer habits,
inwardly he was the spiritual Oriental. He praised the progressive,
resourceful and hygienic habits of the West, and the religious ideals
which give a centuried halo to the East.

Discipline had not been unknown to me: at home Father was strict,
Ananta often severe. But Sri Yukteswar’s training cannot be described
as other than drastic. A perfectionist, my guru was hypercritical of
his disciples, whether in matters of moment or in the subtle nuances
of behavior.

“Good manners without sincerity are like a beautiful dead lady,” he
remarked on suitable occasion. “Straightforwardness without civility
is like a surgeon’s knife, effective but unpleasant. Candor with
courtesy is helpful and admirable.”

Master was apparently satisfied with my spiritual progress, for he
seldom referred to it; in other matters my ears were no strangers to
reproof. My chief offenses were absentmindedness, intermittent
indulgence in sad moods, non-observance of certain rules of etiquette,
and occasional unmethodical ways.

“Observe how the activities of your father Bhagabati are well-
organized and balanced in every way,” my guru pointed out. The two
disciples of Lahiri Mahasaya had met, soon after I began my
pilgrimages to Serampore. Father and Sri Yukteswar admiringly
evaluated the other’s worth. Both had built an inner life of spiritual
granite, insoluble against the ages.

From transient teachers of my earlier life I had imbibed a few

erroneous lessons. A chela, I was told, need not concern himself
strenuously over worldly duties; when I had neglected or carelessly
performed my tasks, I was not chastised. Human nature finds such
instruction very easy of assimilation. Under Master’s unsparing rod,
however, I soon recovered from the agreeable delusions of
irresponsibility.

“Those who are too good for this world are adorning some other,” Sri
Yukteswar remarked. “So long as you breathe the free air of earth, you
are under obligation to render grateful service. He alone who has
fully mastered the breathless state ^12-16 is freed from cosmic
imperatives. I will not fail to let you know when you have attained
the final perfection.”

My guru could never be bribed, even by love. He showed no leniency to
anyone who, like myself, willingly offered to be his disciple. Whether
Master and I were surrounded by his students or by strangers, or were
alone together, he always spoke plainly and upbraided sharply. No
trifling lapse into shallowness or inconsistency escaped his rebuke.
This flattening treatment was hard to endure, but my resolve was to
allow Sri Yukteswar to iron out each of my psychological kinks. As he
labored at this titanic transformation, I shook many times under the
weight of his disciplinary hammer.

“If you don’t like my words, you are at liberty to leave at any time,”
Master assured me. “I want nothing from you but your own improvement.
Stay only if you feel benefited.”

For every humbling blow he dealt my vanity, for every tooth in my
metaphorical jaw he knocked loose with stunning aim, I am grateful
beyond any facility of expression. The hard core of human egotism is
hardly to be dislodged except rudely. With its departure, the Divine
finds at last an unobstructed channel. In vain It seeks to percolate
through flinty hearts of selfishness.

Sri Yukteswar’s wisdom was so penetrating that, heedless of remarks,
he often replied to one’s unspoken observation. “What a person
imagines he hears, and what the speaker has really implied, may be
poles apart,” he said. “Try to feel the thoughts behind the confusion
of men’s verbiage.”

But divine insight is painful to worldly ears; Master was not popular
with superficial students. The wise, always few in number, deeply
revered him. I daresay Sri Yukteswar would have been the most sought-
after guru in India had his words not been so candid and so
censorious.

“I am hard on those who come for my training,” he admitted to me.
“That is my way; take it or leave it. I will never compromise. But you
will be much kinder to your disciples; that is your way. I try to
purify only in the fires of severity, searing beyond the average
toleration. The gentle approach of love is also transfiguring. The
inflexible and the yielding methods are equally effective if applied
with wisdom. You will go to foreign lands, where blunt assaults on the
ego are not appreciated. A teacher could not spread India’s message in
the West without an ample fund of accommodative patience and
forbearance.” I refuse to state the amount of truth I later came to
find in Master’s words!

Though Sri Yukteswar’s undissembling speech prevented a large
following during his years on earth, nevertheless his living spirit
manifests today over the world, through sincere students of his Kriya
Yoga and other teachings. He has further dominion in men’s souls than
ever Alexander dreamed of in the soil.

Father arrived one day to pay his respects to Sri Yukteswar. My parent
expected, very likely, to hear some words in my praise. He was shocked
to be given a long account of my imperfections. It was Master’s
practice to recount simple, negligible shortcomings with an air of
portentous gravity. Father rushed to see me. “From your guru’s remarks
I thought to find you a complete wreck!” My parent was between tears
and laughter.

The only cause of Sri Yukteswar’s displeasure at the time was that I
had been trying, against his gentle hint, to convert a certain man to
the spiritual path.

With indignant speed I sought out my guru. He received me with
downcast eyes, as though conscious of guilt. It was the only time I
ever saw the divine lion meek before me. The unique moment was savored
to the full.

“Sir, why did you judge me so mercilessly before my astounded father?
Was that just?”

“I will not do it again.” Master’s tone was apologetic.

Instantly I was disarmed. How readily the great man admitted his
fault! Though he never again upset Father’s peace of mind, Master
relentlessly continued to dissect me whenever and wherever he chose.

New disciples often joined Sri Yukteswar in exhaustive criticism of
others. Wise like the guru! Models of flawless discrimination! But he
who takes the offensive must not be defenseless. The same carping
students fled precipitantly as soon as Master publicly unloosed in
their direction a few shafts from his analytical quiver.

“Tender inner weaknesses, revolting at mild touches of censure, are
like diseased parts of the body, recoiling before even delicate
handling.” This was Sri Yukteswar’s amused comment on the flighty
ones.

There are disciples who seek a guru made in their own image. Such
students often complained that they did not understand Sri Yukteswar.

“Neither do you comprehend God!” I retorted on one occasion. “When a
saint is clear to you, you will be one.” Among the trillion mysteries,
breathing every second the inexplicable air, who may venture to ask
that the fathomless nature of a master be instantly grasped?

Students came, and generally went. Those who craved a path of oily
sympathy and comfortable recognitions did not find it at the
hermitage. Master offered shelter and shepherding for the aeons, but
many disciples miserly demanded ego-balm as well. They departed,
preferring life’s countless humiliations before any humility. Master’s
blazing rays, the open penetrating sunshine of his wisdom, were too
powerful for their spiritual sickness. They sought some lesser teacher
who, shading them with flattery, permitted the fitful sleep of
ignorance.

During my early months with Master, I had experienced a sensitive fear
of his reprimands. These were reserved, I soon saw, for disciples who
had asked for his verbal vivisection. If any writhing student made a
protest, Sri Yukteswar would become unoffendedly silent. His words
were never wrathful, but impersonal with wisdom.

Master’s insight was not for the unprepared ears of casual visitors;
he seldom remarked on their defects, even if conspicuous. But toward
students who sought his counsel, Sri Yukteswar felt a serious
responsibility. Brave indeed is the guru who undertakes to transform
the crude ore of ego-permeated humanity! A saint’s courage roots in
his compassion for the stumbling eyeless of this world.

When I had abandoned underlying resentment, I found a marked decrease
in my chastisement. In a very subtle way, Master melted into
comparative clemency. In time I demolished every wall of
rationalization and subconscious reservation behind which the human
personality generally shields itself. ^12-17 The reward was an
effortless harmony with my guru. I discovered him then to be trusting,
considerate, and silently loving. Undemonstrative, however, he
bestowed no word of affection.

My own temperament is principally devotional. It was disconcerting at
first to find that my guru, saturated with jnana but seemingly dry of
bhakti, ^12-18 expressed himself only in terms of cold spiritual
mathematics. But as I tuned myself to his nature, I discovered no
diminution but rather increase in my devotional approach to God. A
self-realized master is fully able to guide his various disciples
along natural lines of their essential bias.

My relationship with Sri Yukteswar, somewhat inarticulate, nonetheless
possessed all eloquence. Often I found his silent signature on my
thoughts, rendering speech inutile. Quietly sitting beside him, I felt
his bounty pouring peacefully over my being.

Sri Yukteswar’s impartial justice was notably demonstrated during the
summer vacation of my first college year. I welcomed the opportunity
to spend uninterrupted months at Serampore with my guru.

“You may be in charge of the hermitage.” Master was pleased over my
enthusiastic arrival. “Your duties will be the reception of guests,
and supervision of the work of the other disciples.”

Kumar, a young villager from east Bengal, was accepted a fortnight
later for hermitage training. Remarkably intelligent, he quickly won
Sri Yukteswar’s affection. For some unfathomable reason, Master was
very lenient to the new resident.

“Mukunda, let Kumar assume your duties. Employ your own time in
sweeping and cooking.” Master issued these instructions after the new
boy had been with us for a month.

Exalted to leadership, Kumar exercised a petty household tyranny. In
silent mutiny, the other disciples continued to seek me out for daily
counsel.

“Mukunda is impossible! You made me supervisor, yet the others go to
him and obey him.” Three weeks later Kumar was complaining to our
guru. I overheard him from an adjoining room.

“That’s why I assigned him to the kitchen and you to the parlor.” Sri
Yukteswar’s withering tones were new to Kumar. “In this way you have
come to realize that a worthy leader has the desire to serve, and not
to dominate. You wanted Mukunda’s position, but could not maintain it
by merit. Return now to your earlier work as cook’s assistant.”

After this humbling incident, Master resumed toward Kumar a former
attitude of unwonted indulgence. Who can solve the mystery of
attraction? In Kumar our guru discovered a charming fount which did
not spurt for the fellow disciples. Though the new boy was obviously
Sri Yukteswar’s favorite, I felt no dismay. Personal idiosyncrasies,
possessed even by masters, lend a rich complexity to the pattern of
life. My nature is seldom commandeered by a detail; I was seeking from
Sri Yukteswar a more inaccessible benefit than an outward praise.

Kumar spoke venomously to me one day without reason; I was deeply
hurt.

“Your head is swelling to the bursting point!” I added a warning whose
truth I felt intuitively: “Unless you mend your ways, someday you will
be asked to leave this ashram.”

Laughing sarcastically, Kumar repeated my remark to our guru, who had
just entered the room. Fully expecting to be scolded, I retired meekly
to a corner.

“Maybe Mukunda is right.” Master’s reply to the boy came with unusual
coldness. I escaped without castigation.

A year later, Kumar set out for a visit to his childhood home. He
ignored the quiet disapproval of Sri Yukteswar, who never
authoritatively controlled his disciples’ movements. On the boy’s
return to Serampore in a few months, a change was unpleasantly
apparent. Gone was the stately Kumar with serenely glowing face. Only
an undistinguished peasant stood before us, one who had lately
acquired a number of evil habits.

Master summoned me and brokenheartedly discussed the fact that the boy
was now unsuited to the monastic hermitage life.

“Mukunda, I will leave it to you to instruct Kumar to leave the ashram
tomorrow; I can’t do it!” Tears stood in Sri Yukteswar’s eyes, but he
controlled himself quickly. “The boy would never have fallen to these
depths had he listened to me and not gone away to mix with undesirable
companions. He has rejected my protection; the callous world must be
his guru still.”

Kumar’s departure brought me no elation; sadly I wondered how one with
power to win a master’s love could ever respond to cheaper allures.
Enjoyment of wine and sex are rooted in the natural man, and require
no delicacies of perception for their appreciation. Sense wiles are
comparable to the evergreen oleander, fragrant with its multicolored
flowers: every part of the plant is poisonous. The land of healing
lies within, radiant with that happiness blindly sought in a thousand
misdirections. ^12-19

“Keen intelligence is two-edged,” Master once remarked in reference to
Kumar’s brilliant mind. “It may be used constructively or
destructively like a knife, either to cut the boil of ignorance, or to
decapitate one’s self. Intelligence is rightly guided only after the
mind has acknowledged the inescapability of spiritual law.”

My guru mixed freely with men and women disciples, treating all as his
children. Perceiving their soul equality, he showed no distinction or
partiality.

“In sleep, you do not know whether you are a man or a woman,” he said.
“Just as a man, impersonating a woman, does not become one, so the
soul, impersonating both man and woman, has no sex. The soul is the
pure, changeless image of God.”

Sri Yukteswar never avoided or blamed women as objects of seduction.
Men, he said, were also a temptation to women. I once inquired of my
guru why a great ancient saint had called women “the door to hell.”

“A girl must have proved very troublesome to his peace of mind in his
early life,” my guru answered causticly. “Otherwise he would have
denounced, not woman, but some imperfection in his own self-control.”

If a visitor dared to relate a suggestive story in the hermitage,
Master would maintain an unresponsive silence. “Do not allow yourself
to be thrashed by the provoking whip of a beautiful face,” he told the
disciples. “How can sense slaves enjoy the world? Its subtle flavors
escape them while they grovel in primal mud. All nice discriminations
are lost to the man of elemental lusts.”

Students seeking to escape from the dualistic maya delusion received
from Sri Yukteswar patient and understanding counsel.

“Just as the purpose of eating is to satisfy hunger, not greed, so the
sex instinct is designed for the propagation of the species according
to natural law, never for the kindling of insatiable longings,” he
said. “Destroy wrong desires now; otherwise they will follow you after
the astral body is torn from its physical casing. Even when the flesh
is weak, the mind should be constantly resistant. If temptation
assails you with cruel force, overcome it by impersonal analysis and
indomitable will. Every natural passion can be mastered.

“Conserve your powers. Be like the capacious ocean, absorbing within
all the tributary rivers of the senses. Small yearnings are openings
in the reservoir of your inner peace, permitting healing waters to be
wasted in the desert soil of materialism. The forceful activating
impulse of wrong desire is the greatest enemy to the happiness of man.
Roam in the world as a lion of self-control; see that the frogs of
weakness don’t kick you around.”

The devotee is finally freed from all instinctive compulsions. He
transforms his need for human affection into aspiration for God alone,
a love solitary because omnipresent.

Sri Yukteswar’s mother lived in the Rana Mahal district of Benares
where I had first visited my guru. Gracious and kindly, she was yet a
woman of very decided opinions. I stood on her balcony one day and
watched mother and son talking together. In his quiet, sensible way,
Master was trying to convince her about something. He was apparently
unsuccessful, for she shook her head with great vigor.

“Nay, nay, my son, go away now! Your wise words are not for me! I am
not your disciple!”

Sri Yukteswar backed away without further argument, like a scolded
child. I was touched at his great respect for his mother even in her
unreasonable moods. She saw him only as her little boy, not as a sage.
There was a charm about the trifling incident; it supplied a sidelight
on my guru’s unusual nature, inwardly humble and outwardly unbendable.

The monastic regulations do not allow a swami to retain connection
with worldly ties after their formal severance. He cannot perform the
ceremonial family rites which are obligatory on the householder. Yet
Shankara, the ancient founder of the Swami Order, disregarded the
injunctions. At the death of his beloved mother, he cremated her body
with heavenly fire which he caused to spurt from his upraised hand.

Sri Yukteswar also ignored the restrictions, in a fashion less
spectacular. When his mother passed on, he arranged the crematory
services by the holy Ganges in Benares, and fed many Brahmins in
conformance with age-old custom.

The shastric prohibitions were intended to help swamis overcome narrow
identifications. Shankara and Sri Yukteswar had wholly merged their
beings in the Impersonal Spirit; they needed no rescue by rule.
Sometimes, too, a master purposely ignores a canon in order to uphold
its principle as superior to and independent of form. Thus Jesus
plucked ears of corn on the day of rest. To the inevitable critics he
said: “The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the
sabbath.” ^12-20

Outside of the scriptures, seldom was a book honored by Sri
Yukteswar’s perusal. Yet he was invariably acquainted with the latest
scientific discoveries and other advancements of knowledge. A
brilliant conversationalist, he enjoyed an exchange of views on
countless topics with his guests. My guru’s ready wit and rollicking
laugh enlivened every discussion. Often grave, Master was never
gloomy. “To seek the Lord, one need not disfigure his face,” he would
remark. “Remember that finding God will mean the funeral of all
sorrows.”

Among the philosophers, professors, lawyers and scientists who came to
the hermitage, a number arrived for their first visit with the
expectation of meeting an orthodox religionist. A supercilious smile
or a glance of amused tolerance occasionally betrayed that the
newcomers anticipated nothing more than a few pious platitudes. Yet
their reluctant departure would bring an expressed conviction that Sri
Yukteswar had shown precise insight into their specialized fields.

My guru ordinarily was gentle and affable to guests; his welcome was
given with charming cordiality. Yet inveterate egotists sometimes
suffered an invigorating shock. They confronted in Master either a
frigid indifference or a formidable opposition: ice or iron!

A noted chemist once crossed swords with Sri Yukteswar. The visitor
would not admit the existence of God, inasmuch as science has devised
no means of detecting Him.

“So you have inexplicably failed to isolate the Supreme Power in your
test tubes!” Master’s gaze was stern. “I recommend an unheard-of
experiment. Examine your thoughts unremittingly for twenty-four hours.
Then wonder no longer at God’s absence.”

A celebrated pundit received a similar jolt. With ostentatious zeal,
the scholar shook the ashram rafters with scriptural lore. Resounding
passages poured from the Mahabharata, the Upanishads, ^12-21 the
Bhasyas ^12-22 of Shankara.

“I am waiting to hear you.” Sri Yukteswar’s tone was inquiring, as
though utter silence had reigned. The pundit was puzzled.

“Quotations there have been, in superabundance.” Master’s words
convulsed me with mirth, as I squatted in my corner, at a respectful
distance from the visitor. “But what original commentary can you
supply, from the uniqueness of your particular life? What holy text
have you absorbed and made your own? In what ways have these timeless
truths renovated your nature? Are you content to be a hollow victrola,
mechanically repeating the words of other men?”

“I give up!” The scholar’s chagrin was comical. “I have no inner
realization.”

For the first time, perhaps, he understood that discerning placement
of the comma does not atone for a spiritual coma.

“These bloodless pedants smell unduly of the lamp,” my guru remarked
after the departure of the chastened one. “They prefer philosophy to
be a gentle intellectual setting-up exercise. Their elevated thoughts
are carefully unrelated either to the crudity of outward action or to
any scourging inner discipline!”

Master stressed on other occasions the futility of mere book learning.

“Do not confuse understanding with a larger vocabulary,” he remarked.
“Sacred writings are beneficial in stimulating desire for inward
realization, if one stanza at a time is slowly assimilated. Continual
intellectual study results in vanity and the false satisfaction of an
undigested knowledge.”

Sri Yukteswar related one of his own experiences in scriptural
edification. The scene was a forest hermitage in eastern Bengal, where
he observed the procedure of a renowned teacher, Dabru Ballav. His
method, at once simple and difficult, was common in ancient India.

Dabru Ballav had gathered his disciples around him in the sylvan
solitudes. The holy Bhagavad Gita was open before them. Steadfastly
they looked at one passage for half an hour, then closed their eyes.
Another half hour slipped away. The master gave a brief comment.
Motionless, they meditated again for an hour. Finally the guru spoke.

“Have you understood?”

“Yes, sir.” One in the group ventured this assertion.

“No; not fully. Seek the spiritual vitality that has given these words
the power to rejuvenate India century after century.” Another hour
disappeared in silence. The master dismissed the students, and turned
to Sri Yukteswar.

“Do you know the Bhagavad Gita?”

“No, sir, not really; though my eyes and mind have run through its
pages many times.”

“Thousands have replied to me differently!” The great sage smiled at
Master in blessing. “If one busies himself with an outer display of
scriptural wealth, what time is left for silent inward diving after
the priceless pearls?”

Sri Yukteswar directed the study of his own disciples by the same
intensive method of one-pointedness. “Wisdom is not assimilated with
the eyes, but with the atoms,” he said. “When your conviction of a
truth is not merely in your brain but in your being, you may
diffidently vouch for its meaning.” He discouraged any tendency a
student might have to construe book-knowledge as a necessary step to
spiritual realization.

“The rishis wrote in one sentence profundities that commentating
scholars busy themselves over for generations,” he remarked. “Endless
literary controversy is for sluggard minds. What more liberating
thought than ‘God is’-nay, ‘God’?”

But man does not easily return to simplicity. It is seldom “God” for
him, but rather learned pomposities. His ego is pleased, that he can
grasp such erudition.

Men who were pridefully conscious of high worldly position were
likely, in Master’s presence, to add humility to their other
possessions. A local magistrate once arrived for an interview at the
seaside hermitage in Puri. The man, who held a reputation for
ruthlessness, had it well within his power to oust us from the ashram.
I cautioned my guru about the despotic possibilities. But he seated
himself with an uncompromising air, and did not rise to greet the
visitor. Slightly nervous, I squatted near the door. The man had to
content himself with a wooden box; my guru did not request me to fetch
a chair. There was no fulfillment of the magistrate’s obvious
expectation that his importance would be ceremoniously acknowledged.

A metaphysical discussion ensued. The guest blundered through
misinterpretations of the scriptures. As his accuracy sank, his ire
rose.

“Do you know that I stood first in the M. A. examination?” Reason had
forsaken him, but he could still shout.

“Mr. Magistrate, you forget that this is not your courtroom,” Master
replied evenly. “From your childish remarks I would have surmised that
your college career was unremarkable. A university degree, in any
case, is not remotely related to Vedic realization. Saints are not
produced in batches every semester like accountants.”

After a stunned silence, the visitor laughed heartily.

“This is my first encounter with a heavenly magistrate,” he said.
Later he made a formal request, couched in the legal terms which were
evidently part and parcel of his being, to be accepted as a
“probationary” disciple.

My guru personally attended to the details connected with the
management of his property. Unscrupulous persons on various occasions
attempted to secure possession of Master’s ancestral land. With
determination and even by instigating lawsuits, Sri Yukteswar
outwitted every opponent. He underwent these painful experiences from
a desire never to be a begging guru, or a burden on his disciples.

His financial independence was one reason why my alarmingly outspoken
Master was innocent of the cunnings of diplomacy. Unlike those
teachers who have to flatter their supporters, my guru was impervious
to the influences, open or subtle, of others’ wealth. Never did I hear
him ask or even hint for money for any purpose. His hermitage training
was given free and freely to all disciples.

An insolent court deputy arrived one day at the Serampore ashram to
serve Sri Yukteswar with a legal summons. A disciple named Kanai and
myself were also present. The officer’s attitude toward Master was
offensive.

“It will do you good to leave the shadows of your hermitage and
breathe the honest air of a courtroom.” The deputy grinned
contemptuously. I could not contain myself.

“Another word of your impudence and you will be on the floor!” I
advanced threateningly.

“You wretch!” Kanai’s shout was simultaneous with my own. “Dare you
bring your blasphemies into this sacred ashram?”

But Master stood protectingly in front of his abuser. “Don’t get
excited over nothing. This man is only doing his rightful duty.”

The officer, dazed at his varying reception, respectfully offered a
word of apology and sped away.

Amazing it was to find that a master with such a fiery will could be
so calm within. He fitted the Vedic definition of a man of God:
“Softer than the flower, where kindness is concerned; stronger than
the thunder, where principles are at stake.”

There are always those in this world who, in Browning’s words, “endure
no light, being themselves obscure.” An outsider occasionally berated
Sri Yukteswar for an imaginary grievance. My imperturbable guru
listened politely, analyzing himself to see if any shred of truth lay
within the denunciation. These scenes would bring to my mind one of
Master’s inimitable observations: “Some people try to be tall by
cutting off the heads of others!”

The unfailing composure of a saint is impressive beyond any sermon.
“He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that
ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.” ^12-23

I often reflected that my majestic Master could easily have been an
emperor or world-shaking warrior had his mind been centered on fame or
worldly achievement. He had chosen instead to storm those inner
citadels of wrath and egotism whose fall is the height of a man.

“Please permit me to go to the Himalayas. I hope in unbroken solitude
to achieve continuous divine communion.”

I actually once addressed these ungrateful words to my Master. Seized
by one of the unpredictable delusions which occasionally assail the
devotee, I felt a growing impatience with hermitage duties and college
studies. A feebly extenuating circumstance is that my proposal was
made when I had been only six months with Sri Yukteswar. Not yet had I
fully surveyed his towering stature.

“Many hillmen live in the Himalayas, yet possess no God-perception.”
My guru’s answer came slowly and simply. “Wisdom is better sought from
a man of realization than from an inert mountain.”

Ignoring Master’s plain hint that he, and not a hill, was my teacher,
I repeated my plea. Sri Yukteswar vouchsafed no reply. I took his
silence for consent, a precarious interpretation readily accepted at
one’s convenience.

In my Calcutta home that evening, I busied myself with travel
preparations. Tying a few articles inside a blanket, I remembered a
similar bundle, surreptitiously dropped from my attic window a few
years earlier. I wondered if this were to be another ill-starred
flight toward the Himalayas. The first time my spiritual elation had
been high; tonight conscience smote heavily at thought of leaving my
guru.

The following morning I sought out Behari Pundit, my Sanskrit
professor at Scottish Church College.

“Sir, you have told me of your friendship with a great disciple of
Lahiri Mahasaya. Please give me his address.”

“You mean Ram Gopal Muzumdar. I call him the ‘sleepless saint.’ He is
always awake in an ecstatic consciousness. His home is at Ranbajpur,
near Tarakeswar.”

I thanked the pundit, and entrained immediately for Tarakeswar. I
hoped to silence my misgivings by wringing a sanction from the
“sleepless saint” to engage myself in lonely Himalayan meditation.
Behari’s friend, I heard, had received illumination after many years
of Kriya Yoga practice in isolated caves.

At Tarakeswar I approached a famous shrine. Hindus regard it with the
same veneration that Catholics give to the Lourdes sanctuary in
France. Innumerable healing miracles have occurred at Tarakeswar,
including one for a member of my family.

“I sat in the temple there for a week,” my eldest aunt once told me.
“Observing a complete fast, I prayed for the recovery of your Uncle
Sarada from a chronic malady. On the seventh day I found a herb
materialized in my hand! I made a brew from the leaves, and gave it to
your uncle. His disease vanished at once, and has never reappeared.”

I entered the sacred Tarakeswar shrine; the altar contains nothing but
a round stone. Its circumference, beginningless and endless, makes it
aptly significant of the Infinite. Cosmic abstractions are not alien

even to the humblest Indian peasant; he has been accused by
Westerners, in fact, of living on abstractions!

My own mood at the moment was so austere that I felt disinclined to
bow before the stone symbol. God should be sought, I reflected, only
within the soul.

I left the temple without genuflection and walked briskly toward the
outlying village of Ranbajpur. My appeal to a passer-by for guidance
caused him to sink into long cogitation.

“When you come to a crossroad, turn right and keep going,” he finally
pronounced oracularly.

Obeying the directions, I wended my way alongside the banks of a
canal. Darkness fell; the outskirts of the jungle village were alive
with winking fireflies and the howls of near-by jackals. The moonlight
was too faint to supply any reassurance; I stumbled on for two hours.

Welcome clang of a cowbell! My repeated shouts eventually brought a
peasant to my side.

“I am looking for Ram Gopal Babu.”

“No such person lives in our village.” The man’s tone was surly. “You
are probably a lying detective.”

Hoping to allay suspicion in his politically troubled mind, I
touchingly explained my predicament. He took me to his home and
offered a hospitable welcome.

“Ranbajpur is far from here,” he remarked. “At the crossroad, you
should have turned left, not right.”

My earlier informant, I thought sadly, was a distinct menace to
travelers. After a relishable meal of coarse rice, lentil-dhal , and
curry of potatoes with raw bananas, I retired to a small hut adjoining
the courtyard. In the distance, villagers were singing to the loud
accompaniment of mridangas ^13-1 and cymbals. Sleep was
inconsiderable that night; I prayed deeply to be directed to the
secret yogi, Ram Gopal.

As the first streaks of dawn penetrated the fissures of my dark room,
I set out for Ranbajpur. Crossing rough paddy fields, I trudged over
sickled stumps of the prickly plant and mounds of dried clay. An
occasionally-met peasant would inform me, invariably, that my
destination was “only a krosha (two miles).” In six hours the sun
traveled victoriously from horizon to meridian, but I began to feel
that I would ever be distant from Ranbajpur by one krosha .

At midafternoon my world was still an endless paddy field. Heat
pouring from the avoidless sky was bringing me to near-collapse. As a
man approached at leisurely pace, I hardly dared utter my usual
question, lest it summon the monotonous: “Just a krosha .”

The stranger halted beside me. Short and slight, he was physically
unimpressive save for an extraordinary pair of piercing dark eyes.

“I was planning to leave Ranbajpur, but your purpose was good, so I
awaited you.” He shook his finger in my astounded face. “Aren’t you
clever to think that, unannounced, you could pounce on me? That
professor Behari had no right to give you my address.”

Considering that introduction of myself would be mere verbosity in the
presence of this master, I stood speechless, somewhat hurt at my
reception. His next remark was abruptly put.

“Tell me; where do you think God is?”

“Why, He is within me and everywhere.” I doubtless looked as
bewildered as I felt.

“All-pervading, eh?” The saint chuckled. “Then why, young sir, did you
fail to bow before the Infinite in the stone symbol at the Tarakeswar
temple yesterday? ^13-2 Your pride caused you the punishment of being
misdirected by the passer-by who was not bothered by fine distinctions
of left and right. Today, too, you have had a fairly uncomfortable
time of it!”

I agreed wholeheartedly, wonder-struck that an omniscient eye hid
within the unremarkable body before me. Healing strength emanated from
the yogi; I was instantly refreshed in the scorching field.

“The devotee inclines to think his path to God is the only way,” he
said. “Yoga, through which divinity is found within, is doubtless the
highest road: so Lahiri Mahasaya has told us. But discovering the Lord
within, we soon perceive Him without. Holy shrines at Tarakeswar and
elsewhere are rightly venerated as nuclear centers of spiritual
power.”

The saint’s censorious attitude vanished; his eyes became
compassionately soft. He patted my shoulder.

“Young yogi, I see you are running away from your master. He has
everything you need; you must return to him. Mountains cannot be your
guru.” Ram Gopal was repeating the same thought which Sri Yukteswar
had expressed at our last meeting.

“Masters are under no cosmic compulsion to limit their residence.” My
companion glanced at me quizzically. “The Himalayas in India and Tibet
have no monopoly on saints. What one does not trouble to find within
will not be discovered by transporting the body hither and yon. As
soon as the devotee is willing to go even to the ends of the earth for
spiritual enlightenment, his guru appears near-by.”

I silently agreed, recalling my prayer in the Benares hermitage,
followed by the meeting with Sri Yukteswar in a crowded lane.

“Are you able to have a little room where you can close the door and
be alone?”

“Yes.” I reflected that this saint descended from the general to the
particular with disconcerting speed.

“That is your cave.” The yogi bestowed on me a gaze of illumination
which I have never forgotten. “That is your sacred mountain. That is
where you will find the kingdom of God.”

His simple words instantaneously banished my lifelong obsession for
the Himalayas. In a burning paddy field I awoke from the monticolous
dreams of eternal snows.

“Young sir, your divine thirst is laudable. I feel great love for
you.” Ram Gopal took my hand and led me to a quaint hamlet. The adobe
houses were covered with coconut leaves and adorned with rustic
entrances.

The saint seated me on the umbrageous bamboo platform of his small
cottage. After giving me sweetened lime juice and a piece of rock
candy, he entered his patio and assumed the lotus posture. In about
four hours I opened my meditative eyes and saw that the moonlit figure
of the yogi was still motionless. As I was sternly reminding my
stomach that man does not live by bread alone, Ram Gopal approached
me.

“I see you are famished; food will be ready soon.”

A fire was kindled under a clay oven on the patio; rice and dhal were
quickly served on large banana leaves. My host courteously refused my
aid in all cooking chores. “The guest is God,” a Hindu proverb, has
commanded devout observance from time immemorial. In my later world
travels, I was charmed to see that a similar respect for visitors is
manifested in rural sections of many countries. The city dweller finds
the keen edge of hospitality blunted by superabundance of strange
faces.

The marts of men seemed remotely dim as I squatted by the yogi in the
isolation of the tiny jungle village. The cottage room was mysterious
with a mellow light. Ram Gopal arranged some torn blankets on the
floor for my bed, and seated himself on a straw mat. Overwhelmed by
his spiritual magnetism, I ventured a request.

“Sir, why don’t you grant me a samadhi ?”

“Dear one, I would be glad to convey the divine contact, but it is not
my place to do so.” The saint looked at me with half-closed eyes.
“Your master will bestow that experience shortly. Your body is not
tuned just yet. As a small lamp cannot withstand excessive electrical
voltage, so your nerves are unready for the cosmic current. If I gave
you the infinite ecstasy right now, you would burn as if every cell
were on fire.

“You are asking illumination from me,” the yogi continued musingly,
“while I am wondering-inconsiderable as I am, and with the little
meditation I have done-if I have succeeded in pleasing God, and what
worth I may find in His eyes at the final reckoning.”

“Sir, have you not been singleheartedly seeking God for a long time?”

“I have not done much. Behari must have told you something of my life.
For twenty years I occupied a secret grotto, meditating eighteen hours
a day. Then I moved to a more inaccessible cave and remained there for
twenty-five years, entering the yoga union for twenty hours daily. I
did not need sleep, for I was ever with God. My body was more rested
in the complete calmness of the superconsciousness than it could be by
the partial peace of the ordinary subconscious state.

“The muscles relax during sleep, but the heart, lungs, and circulatory
system are constantly at work; they get no rest. In
superconsciousness, the internal organs remain in a state of suspended
animation, electrified by the cosmic energy. By such means I have
found it unnecessary to sleep for years. The time will come when you
too will dispense with sleep.”

“My goodness, you have meditated for so long and yet are unsure of the
Lord’s favor!” I gazed at him in astonishment. “Then what about us
poor mortals?”

“Well, don’t you see, my dear boy, that God is Eternity Itself? To
assume that one can fully know Him by forty-five years of meditation
is rather a preposterous expectation. Babaji assures us, however, that
even a little meditation saves one from the dire fear of death and
after-death states. Do not fix your spiritual ideal on a small
mountain, but hitch it to the star of unqualified divine attainment.
If you work hard, you will get there.”

Enthralled by the prospect, I asked him for further enlightening
words. He related a wondrous story of his first meeting with Lahiri
Mahasaya’s guru, Babaji. ^13-3 Around midnight Ram Gopal fell into
silence, and I lay down on my blankets. Closing my eyes, I saw flashes
of lightning; the vast space within me was a chamber of molten light.
I opened my eyes and observed the same dazzling radiance. The room
became a part of that infinite vault which I beheld with interior
vision.

“Why don’t you go to sleep?”

“Sir, how can I sleep in the presence of lightning, blazing whether my
eyes are shut or open?”

“You are blessed to have this experience; the spiritual radiations are
not easily seen.” The saint added a few words of affection.

At dawn Ram Gopal gave me rock candies and said I must depart. I felt
such reluctance to bid him farewell that tears coursed down my cheeks.

“I will not let you go empty-handed.” The yogi spoke tenderly. “I will
do something for you.”

He smiled and looked at me steadfastly. I stood rooted to the ground,
peace rushing like a mighty flood through the gates of my eyes. I was
instantaneously healed of a pain in my back, which had troubled me
intermittently for years. Renewed, bathed in a sea of luminous joy, I
wept no more. After touching the saint’s feet, I sauntered into the
jungle, making my way through its tropical tangle until I reached
Tarakeswar.

There I made a second pilgrimage to the famous shrine, and prostrated
myself fully before the altar. The round stone enlarged before my
inner vision until it became the cosmical spheres, ring within ring,
zone after zone, all dowered with divinity.

I entrained happily an hour later for Calcutta. My travels ended, not
in the lofty mountains, but in the Himalayan presence of my Master.

“I am here, Guruji.” My shamefacedness spoke more eloquently for me.

“Let us go to the kitchen and find something to eat.” Sri Yukteswar’s
manner was as natural as if hours and not days had separated us.

“Master, I must have disappointed you by my abrupt departure from my
duties here; I thought you might be angry with me.”

“No, of course not! Wrath springs only from thwarted desires. I do not
expect anything from others, so their actions cannot be in opposition
to wishes of mine. I would not use you for my own ends; I am happy
only in your own true happiness.”

“Sir, one hears of divine love in a vague way, but for the first time
I am having a concrete example in your angelic self! In the world,
even a father does not easily forgive his son if he leaves his
parent’s business without warning. But you show not the slightest
vexation, though you must have been put to great inconvenience by the
many unfinished tasks I left behind.”

We looked into each other’s eyes, where tears were shining. A blissful
wave engulfed me; I was conscious that the Lord, in the form of my
guru, was expanding the small ardors of my heart into the
incompressible reaches of cosmic love.

A few mornings later I made my way to Master’s empty sitting room. I
planned to meditate, but my laudable purpose was unshared by
disobedient thoughts. They scattered like birds before the hunter.

“Mukunda!” Sri Yukteswar’s voice sounded from a distant inner balcony.

I felt as rebellious as my thoughts. “Master always urges me to
meditate,” I muttered to myself. “He should not disturb me when he
knows why I came to his room.”

He summoned me again; I remained obstinately silent. The third time
his tone held rebuke.

“Sir, I am meditating,” I shouted protestingly.

“I know how you are meditating,” my guru called out, “with your mind
distributed like leaves in a storm! Come here to me.”

Snubbed and exposed, I made my way sadly to his side.

“Poor boy, the mountains couldn’t give what you wanted.” Master spoke
caressively, comfortingly. His calm gaze was unfathomable. “Your
heart’s desire shall be fulfilled.”

Sri Yukteswar seldom indulged in riddles; I was bewildered. He struck
gently on my chest above the heart.

My body became immovably rooted; breath was drawn out of my lungs as
if by some huge magnet. Soul and mind instantly lost their physical
bondage, and streamed out like a fluid piercing light from my every
pore. The flesh was as though dead, yet in my intense awareness I knew
that never before had I been fully alive. My sense of identity was no
longer narrowly confined to a body, but embraced the circumambient
atoms. People on distant streets seemed to be moving gently over my
own remote periphery. The roots of plants and trees appeared through a
dim transparency of the soil; I discerned the inward flow of their
sap.

The whole vicinity lay bare before me. My ordinary frontal vision was
now changed to a vast spherical sight, simultaneously all-perceptive.
Through the back of my head I saw men strolling far down Rai Ghat
Road, and noticed also a white cow who was leisurely approaching. When
she reached the space in front of the open ashram gate, I observed her
with my two physical eyes. As she passed by, behind the brick wall, I
saw her clearly still.

All objects within my panoramic gaze trembled and vibrated like quick
motion pictures. My body, Master’s, the pillared courtyard, the
furniture and floor, the trees and sunshine, occasionally became
violently agitated, until all melted into a luminescent sea; even as
sugar crystals, thrown into a glass of water, dissolve after being
shaken. The unifying light alternated with materializations of form,
the metamorphoses revealing the law of cause and effect in creation.

An oceanic joy broke upon calm endless shores of my soul. The Spirit
of God, I realized, is exhaustless Bliss; His body is countless
tissues of light. A swelling glory within me began to envelop towns,
continents, the earth, solar and stellar systems, tenuous nebulae, and
floating universes. The entire cosmos, gently luminous, like a city
seen afar at night, glimmered within the infinitude of my being. The
sharply etched global outlines faded somewhat at the farthest edges;
there I could see a mellow radiance, ever-undiminished. It was
indescribably subtle; the planetary pictures were formed of a grosser
light.

The divine dispersion of rays poured from an Eternal Source, blazing
into galaxies, transfigured with ineffable auras. Again and again I
saw the creative beams condense into constellations, then resolve into
sheets of transparent flame. By rhythmic reversion, sextillion worlds
passed into diaphanous luster; fire became firmament.

I cognized the center of the empyrean as a point of intuitive
perception in my heart. Irradiating splendor issued from my nucleus to
every part of the universal structure. Blissful amrita , the nectar of
immortality, pulsed through me with a quicksilverlike fluidity. The
creative voice of God I heard resounding as Aum , ^14-1 the vibration
of the Cosmic Motor.

Suddenly the breath returned to my lungs. With a disappointment almost
unbearable, I realized that my infinite immensity was lost. Once more
I was limited to the humiliating cage of a body, not easily
accommodative to the Spirit. Like a prodigal child, I had run away
from my macrocosmic home and imprisoned myself in a narrow microcosm.

My guru was standing motionless before me; I started to drop at his
holy feet in gratitude for the experience in cosmic consciousness
which I had long passionately sought. He held me upright, and spoke
calmly, unpretentiously.

“You must not get overdrunk with ecstasy. Much work yet remains for
you in the world. Come; let us sweep the balcony floor; then we shall
walk by the Ganges.”

I fetched a broom; Master, I knew, was teaching me the secret of
balanced living. The soul must stretch over the cosmogonic abysses,
while the body performs its daily duties. When we set out later for a
stroll, I was still entranced in unspeakable rapture. I saw our bodies
as two astral pictures, moving over a road by the river whose essence
was sheer light.

“It is the Spirit of God that actively sustains every form and force
in the universe; yet He is transcendental and aloof in the blissful
uncreated void beyond the worlds of vibratory phenomena,” ^14-2
Master explained. “Saints who realize their divinity even while in the
flesh know a similar twofold existence. Conscientiously engaging in
earthly work, they yet remain immersed in an inward beatitude. The
Lord has created all men from the limitless joy of His being. Though
they are painfully cramped by the body, God nevertheless expects that
souls made in His image shall ultimately rise above all sense
identifications and reunite with Him.”

The cosmic vision left many permanent lessons. By daily stilling my
thoughts, I could win release from the delusive conviction that my
body was a mass of flesh and bones, traversing the hard soil of
matter. The breath and the restless mind, I saw, were like storms
which lashed the ocean of light into waves of material forms-earth,
sky, human beings, animals, birds, trees. No perception of the
Infinite as One Light could be had except by calming those storms. As
often as I silenced the two natural tumults, I beheld the
multitudinous waves of creation melt into one lucent sea, even as the
waves of the ocean, their tempests subsiding, serenely dissolve into
unity.

A master bestows the divine experience of cosmic consciousness when
his disciple, by meditation, has strengthened his mind to a degree
where the vast vistas would not overwhelm him. The experience can
never be given through one’s mere intellectual willingness or open-
mindedness. Only adequate enlargement by yoga practice and devotional
bhakti can prepare the mind to absorb the liberating shock of
omnipresence. It comes with a natural inevitability to the sincere
devotee. His intense craving begins to pull at God with an
irresistible force. The Lord, as the Cosmic Vision, is drawn by the

seeker’s magnetic ardor into his range of consciousness.

I wrote, in my later years, the following poem, “Samadhi,” endeavoring
to convey the glory of its cosmic state:

Sri Yukteswar taught me how to summon the blessed experience at will,
and also how to transmit it to others if their intuitive channels were
developed. For months I entered the ecstatic union, comprehending why
the Upanishads say God is rasa , “the most relishable.” One day,
however, I took a problem to Master.

“I want to know, sir-when shall I find God?”

“You have found Him.”

“O no, sir, I don’t think so!”

My guru was smiling. “I am sure you aren’t expecting a venerable
Personage, adorning a throne in some antiseptic corner of the cosmos!
I see, however, that you are imagining that the possession of
miraculous powers is knowledge of God. One might have the whole
universe, and find the Lord elusive still! Spiritual advancement is
not measured by one’s outward powers, but only by the depth of his
bliss in meditation.

“Ever-new Joy Is God. He is inexhaustible; as you continue your
meditations during the years, He will beguile you with an infinite
ingenuity. Devotees like yourself who have found the way to God never
dream of exchanging Him for any other happiness; He is seductive
beyond thought of competition.

“How quickly we weary of earthly pleasures! Desire for material things
is endless; man is never satisfied completely, and pursues one goal
after another. The ‘something else’ he seeks is the Lord, who alone
can grant lasting joy.

“Outward longings drive us from the Eden within; they offer false
pleasures which only impersonate soul-happiness. The lost paradise is
quickly regained through divine meditation. As God is unanticipatory
Ever-Newness, we never tire of Him. Can we be surfeited with bliss,
delightfully varied throughout eternity?”

“I understand now, sir, why saints call the Lord unfathomable. Even
everlasting life could not suffice to appraise Him.”

“That is true; but He is also near and dear. After the mind has been
cleared by Kriya Yoga of sensory obstacles, meditation furnishes a
twofold proof of God. Ever-new joy is evidence of His existence,
convincing to our very atoms. Also, in meditation one finds His
instant guidance, His adequate response to every difficulty.”

“I see, Guruji; you have solved my problem.” I smiled gratefully. “I
do realize now that I have found God, for whenever the joy of
meditation has returned subconsciously during my active hours, I have
been subtly directed to adopt the right course in everything, even
details.”

“Human life is beset with sorrow until we know how to tune in with the
Divine Will, whose ‘right course’ is often baffling to the egoistic
intelligence. God bears the burden of the cosmos; He alone can give
unerring counsel.”

“Master, a gift for you! These six huge cauliflowers were planted with
my hands; I have watched over their growth with the tender care of a
mother nursing her child.” I presented the basket of vegetables with a
ceremonial flourish.

“Thank you!” Sri Yukteswar’s smile was warm with appreciation. “Please
keep them in your room; I shall need them tomorrow for a special
dinner.”

I had just arrived in Puri ^15-1 to spend my college summer vacation
with my guru at his seaside hermitage. Built by Master and his
disciples, the cheerful little two-storied retreat fronts on the Bay
of Bengal.

I awoke early the following morning, refreshed by the salty sea
breezes and the charm of my surroundings. Sri Yukteswar’s melodious
voice was calling; I took a look at my cherished cauliflowers and
stowed them neatly under my bed.

“Come, let us go to the beach.” Master led the way; several young
disciples and myself followed in a scattered group. Our guru surveyed
us in mild criticism.

“When our Western brothers walk, they usually take pride in unison.
Now, please march in two rows; keep rhythmic step with one another.”
Sri Yukteswar watched as we obeyed; he began to sing: “Boys go to and
fro, in a pretty little row.” I could not but admire the ease with
which Master was able to match the brisk pace of his young students.

“Halt!” My guru’s eyes sought mine. “Did you remember to lock the back
door of the hermitage?”

“I think so, sir.”

Sri Yukteswar was silent for a few minutes, a half-suppressed smile on
his lips. “No, you forgot,” he said finally. “Divine contemplation
must not be made an excuse for material carelessness. You have
neglected your duty in safeguarding the ashram; you must be punished.”

I thought he was obscurely joking when he added: “Your six
cauliflowers will soon be only five.”

We turned around at Master’s orders and marched back until we were
close to the hermitage.

“Rest awhile. Mukunda, look across the compound on our left; observe
the road beyond. A certain man will arrive there presently; he will be
the means of your chastisement.”

I concealed my vexation at these incomprehensible remarks. A peasant
soon appeared on the road; he was dancing grotesquely and flinging his
arms about with meaningless gestures. Almost paralyzed with curiosity,
I glued my eyes on the hilarious spectacle. As the man reached a point
in the road where he would vanish from our view, Sri Yukteswar said,
“Now, he will return.”

The peasant at once changed his direction and made for the rear of the
ashram. Crossing a sandy tract, he entered the building by the back
door. I had left it unlocked, even as my guru had said. The man
emerged shortly, holding one of my prized cauliflowers. He now strode
along respectably, invested with the dignity of possession.

The unfolding farce, in which my role appeared to be that of
bewildered victim, was not so disconcerting that I failed in indignant
pursuit. I was halfway to the road when Master recalled me. He was
shaking from head to foot with laughter.

“That poor crazy man has been longing for a cauliflower,” he explained
between outbursts of mirth. “I thought it would be a good idea if he
got one of yours, so ill-guarded!”

I dashed to my room, where I found that the thief, evidently one with
a vegetable fixation, had left untouched my gold rings, watch, and
money, all lying openly on the blanket. He had crawled instead under
the bed where, completely hidden from casual sight, one of my
cauliflowers had aroused his singlehearted desire.

I asked Sri Yukteswar that evening to explain the incident which had,
I thought, a few baffling features.

My guru shook his head slowly. “You will understand it someday.
Science will soon discover a few of these hidden laws.”

When the wonders of radio burst some years later on an astounded
world, I remembered Master’s prediction. Age-old concepts of time and
space were annihilated; no peasant’s home so narrow that London or
Calcutta could not enter! The dullest intelligence enlarged before
indisputable proof of one aspect of man’s omnipresence.

The “plot” of the cauliflower comedy can be best understood by a radio
analogy. Sri Yukteswar was a perfect human radio. Thoughts are no more
than very gentle vibrations moving in the ether. Just as a sensitized
radio picks up a desired musical number out of thousands of other
programs from every direction, so my guru had been able to catch the
thought of the half-witted man who hankered for a cauliflower, out of
the countless thoughts of broadcasting human wills in the
world. ^15-2 By his powerful will, Master was also a human
broadcasting station, and had successfully directed the peasant to
reverse his steps and go to a certain room for a single cauliflower.

Intuition ^15-3 is soul guidance, appearing naturally in man during
those instants when his mind is calm. Nearly everyone has had the
experience of an inexplicably correct “hunch,” or has transferred his
thoughts effectively to another person.

The human mind, free from the static of restlessness, can perform
through its antenna of intuition all the functions of complicated
radio mechanisms-sending and receiving thoughts, and tuning out
undesirable ones. As the power of a radio depends on the amount of
electrical current it can utilize, so the human radio is energized
according to the power of will possessed by each individual.

All thoughts vibrate eternally in the cosmos. By deep concentration, a
master is able to detect the thoughts of any mind, living or dead.
Thoughts are universally and not individually rooted; a truth cannot
be created, but only perceived. The erroneous thoughts of man result
from imperfections in his discernment. The goal of yoga science is to
calm the mind, that without distortion it may mirror the divine vision
in the universe.

Radio and television have brought the instantaneous sound and sight of
remote persons to the firesides of millions: the first faint
scientific intimations that man is an all-pervading spirit. Not a body
confined to a point in space, but the vast soul, which the ego in most
barbaric modes conspires in vain to cramp.

“Very strange, very wonderful, seemingly very improbable phenomena may
yet appear which, when once established, will not astonish us more
than we are now astonished at all that science has taught us during
the last century,” Charles Robert Richet, Nobel Prizeman in
physiology, has declared. “It is assumed that the phenomena which we
now accept without surprise, do not excite our astonishment because
they are understood. But this is not the case. If they do not surprise
us it is not because they are understood, it is because they are
familiar; for if that which is not understood ought to surprise us, we
should be surprised at everything-the fall of a stone thrown into the
air, the acorn which becomes an oak, mercury which expands when it is
heated, iron attracted by a magnet, phosphorus which burns when it is
rubbed. . . . The science of today is a light matter; the revolutions
and evolutions which it will experience in a hundred thousand years
will far exceed the most daring anticipations. The truths-those
surprising, amazing, unforeseen truths-which our descendants will
discover, are even now all around us, staring us in the eyes, so to
speak, and yet we do not see them. But it is not enough to say that we
do not see them; we do not wish to see them; for as soon as an
unexpected and unfamiliar fact appears, we try to fit it into the
framework of the commonplaces of acquired knowledge, and we are
indignant that anyone should dare to experiment further.”

A humorous occurrence took place a few days after I had been so
implausibly robbed of a cauliflower. A certain kerosene lamp could not
be found. Having so lately witnessed my guru’s omniscient insight, I
thought he would demonstrate that it was child’s play to locate the
lamp.

Master perceived my expectation. With exaggerated gravity he
questioned all ashram residents. A young disciple confessed that he
had used the lamp to go to the well in the back yard.

Sri Yukteswar gave the solemn counsel: “Seek the lamp near the well.”

I rushed there; no lamp! Crestfallen, I returned to my guru. He was
now laughing heartily, without compunction for my disillusionment.

“Too bad I couldn’t direct you to the vanished lamp; I am not a
fortune teller!” With twinkling eyes, he added, “I am not even a
satisfactory Sherlock Holmes!”

I realized that Master would never display his powers when challenged,
or for a triviality.

Delightful weeks sped by. Sri Yukteswar was planning a religious
procession. He asked me to lead the disciples over the town and beach
of Puri. The festive day dawned as one of the hottest of the summer.

“Guruji, how can I take the barefooted students over the fiery sands?”
I spoke despairingly.

“I will tell you a secret,” Master responded. “The Lord will send an
umbrella of clouds; you all shall walk in comfort.”

I happily organized the procession; our group started from the ashram
with a Sat-Sanga banner. ^15-4 Designed by Sri Yukteswar, it bore the
symbol of the single ^15-5 eye, the telescopic gaze of intuition.

No sooner had we left the hermitage than the part of the sky which was
overhead became filled with clouds as though by magic. To the
accompaniment of astonished ejaculations from all sides, a very light
shower fell, cooling the city streets and the burning seashore. The
soothing drops descended during the two hours of the parade. The exact
instant at which our group returned to the ashram, the clouds and rain
passed away tracelessly.

“You see how God feels for us,” Master replied after I had expressed
my gratitude. “The Lord responds to all and works for all. Just as He
sent rain at my plea, so He fulfills any sincere desire of the
devotee. Seldom do men realize how often God heeds their prayers. He
is not partial to a few, but listens to everyone who approaches Him
trustingly. His children should ever have implicit faith in the
loving-kindness of their Omnipresent Father.” ^15-6

Sri Yukteswar sponsored four yearly festivals, at the equinoxes and
solstices, when his students gathered from far and near. The winter
solstice celebration was held in Serampore; the first one I attended
left me with a permanent blessing.

The festivities started in the morning with a barefoot procession
along the streets. The voices of a hundred students rang out with
sweet religious songs; a few musicians played the flute and khol
kartal (drums and cymbals). Enthusiastic townspeople strewed the path
with flowers, glad to be summoned from prosaic tasks by our resounding
praise of the Lord’s blessed name. The long tour ended in the
courtyard of the hermitage. There we encircled our guru, while
students on upper balconies showered us with marigold blossoms.

Many guests went upstairs to receive a pudding of channa and oranges.
I made my way to a group of brother disciples who were serving today
as cooks. Food for such large gatherings had to be cooked outdoors in
huge cauldrons. The improvised wood-burning brick stoves were smoky
and tear-provoking, but we laughed merrily at our work. Religious
festivals in India are never considered troublesome; each one does his
part, supplying money, rice, vegetables, or his personal services.

Master was soon in our midst, supervising the details of the feast.
Busy every moment, he kept pace with the most energetic young student.

A sankirtan (group chanting), accompanied by the harmonium and hand-
played Indian drums, was in progress on the second floor. Sri
Yukteswar listened appreciatively; his musical sense was acutely
perfect.

“They are off key!” Master left the cooks and joined the artists. The
melody was heard again, this time correctly rendered.

In India, music as well as painting and the drama is considered a
divine art. Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva-the Eternal Trinity-were the
first musicians. The Divine Dancer Shiva is scripturally represented
as having worked out the infinite modes of rhythm in His cosmic dance
of universal creation, preservation, and dissolution, while Brahma
accentuated the time-beat with the clanging cymbals, and Vishnu
sounded the holy mridanga or drum. Krishna, an incarnation of Vishnu,
is always shown in Hindu art with a flute, on which he plays the
enrapturing song that recalls to their true home the human souls
wandering in maya -delusion. Saraswati, goddess of wisdom, is
symbolized as performing on the vina , mother of all stringed
instruments. The Sama Veda of India contains the world’s earliest
writings on musical science.

The foundation stone of Hindu music is the ragas or fixed melodic
scales. The six basic ragas branch out into 126 derivative raginis
(wives) and putras (sons). Each raga has a minimum of five notes: a
leading note (vadi or king), a secondary note (samavadi or prime
minister), helping notes (anuvadi , attendants), and a dissonant note
(vivadi , the enemy).

Each one of the six basic ragas has a natural correspondence with a
certain hour of the day, season of the year, and a presiding deity who
bestows a particular potency. Thus, (1) the Hindole Raga is heard only
at dawn in the spring, to evoke the mood of universal love; (2)
Deepaka Raga is played during the evening in summer, to arouse
compassion; (3) Megha Raga is a melody for midday in the rainy season,
to summon courage; (4) Bhairava Raga is played in the mornings of
August, September, October, to achieve tranquillity; (5) Sri Raga is
reserved for autumn twilights, to attain pure love; (6) Malkounsa Raga
is heard at midnights in winter, for valor.

The ancient rishis discovered these laws of sound alliance between
nature and man. Because nature is an objectification of Aum , the
Primal Sound or Vibratory Word, man can obtain control over all
natural manifestations through the use of certain mantras or
chants. ^15-7 Historical documents tell of the remarkable powers
possessed by Miyan Tan Sen, sixteenth century court musician for Akbar
the Great. Commanded by the Emperor to sing a night raga while the sun
was overhead, Tan Sen intoned a mantra which instantly caused the
whole palace precincts to become enveloped in darkness.

Indian music divides the octave into 22 srutis or demi-semitones.
These microtonal intervals permit fine shades of musical expression
unattainable by the Western chromatic scale of 12 semitones. Each one
of the seven basic notes of the octave is associated in Hindu
mythology with a color, and the natural cry of a bird or beast-Do with
green, and the peacock; Re with red, and the skylark; Mi with golden,
and the goat; Fa with yellowish white, and the heron; Sol with black,
and the nightingale; La with yellow, and the horse; Si with a
combination of all colors, and the elephant.

Three scales-major, harmonic minor, melodic minor-are the only ones
which Occidental music employs, but Indian music outlines 72 thatas or
scales. The musician has a creative scope for endless improvisation
around the fixed traditional melody or raga ; he concentrates on the
sentiment or definitive mood of the structural theme and then
embroiders it to the limits of his own originality. The Hindu musician
does not read set notes; he clothes anew at each playing the bare
skeleton of the raga , often confining himself to a single melodic
sequence, stressing by repetition all its subtle microtonal and
rhythmic variations. Bach, among Western composers, had an
understanding of the charm and power of repetitious sound slightly
differentiated in a hundred complex ways.

Ancient Sanskrit literature describes 120 talas or time-measures. The
traditional founder of Hindu music, Bharata, is said to have isolated
32 kinds of tala in the song of a lark. The origin of tala or rhythm
is rooted in human movements-the double time of walking, and the
triple time of respiration in sleep, when inhalation is twice the
length of exhalation. India has always recognized the human voice as
the most perfect instrument of sound. Hindu music therefore largely
confines itself to the voice range of three octaves. For the same
reason, melody (relation of successive notes) is stressed, rather than
harmony (relation of simultaneous notes).

The deeper aim of the early rishi-musicians was to blend the singer
with the Cosmic Song which can be heard through awakening of man’s
occult spinal centers. Indian music is a subjective, spiritual, and
individualistic art, aiming not at symphonic brilliance but at
personal harmony with the Oversoul. The Sanskrit word for musician is
bhagavathar , “he who sings the praises of God.” The sankirtans or
musical gatherings are an effective form of yoga or spiritual
discipline, necessitating deep concentration, intense absorption in
the seed thought and sound. Because man himself is an expression of
the Creative Word, sound has the most potent and immediate effect on
him, offering a way to remembrance of his divine origin.

The sankirtan issuing from Sri Yukteswar’s second-story sitting room
on the day of the festival was inspiring to the cooks amidst the
steaming pots. My brother disciples and I joyously sang the refrains,
beating time with our hands.

By sunset we had served our hundreds of visitors with khichuri (rice
and lentils), vegetable curry, and rice pudding. We laid cotton
blankets over the courtyard; soon the assemblage was squatting under
the starry vault, quietly attentive to the wisdom pouring from Sri
Yukteswar’s lips. His public speeches emphasized the value of Kriya Yoga, and a life of self-respect, calmness, determination, simple
diet, and regular exercise.

A group of very young disciples then chanted a few sacred hymns; the
meeting concluded with sankirtan . From ten o’clock until midnight, the
ashram residents washed pots and pans, and cleared the courtyard. My
guru called me to his side.

“I am pleased over your cheerful labors today and during the past week
of preparations. I want you with me; you may sleep in my bed tonight.”

This was a privilege I had never thought would fall to my lot. We sat
awhile in a state of intense divine tranquillity. Hardly ten minutes
after we had gotten into bed, Master rose and began to dress.

“What is the matter, sir?” I felt a tinge of unreality in the
unexpected joy of sleeping beside my guru.

“I think that a few students who missed their proper train connections
will be here soon. Let us have some food ready.”

“Guruji, no one would come at one o’clock in the morning!”

“Stay in bed; you have been working very hard. But I am going to
cook.”

At Sri Yukteswar’s resolute tone, I jumped up and followed him to the
small daily-used kitchen adjacent to the second-floor inner balcony.
Rice and dhal were soon boiling.

My guru smiled affectionately. “Tonight you have conquered fatigue and
fear of hard work; you shall never be bothered by them in the future.”

As he uttered these words of lifelong blessing, footsteps sounded in
the courtyard. I ran downstairs and admitted a group of students.

“Dear brother, how reluctant we are to disturb Master at this hour!”
One man addressed me apologetically. “We made a mistake about train
schedules, but felt we could not return home without a glimpse of our
guru.”

“He has been expecting you and is even now preparing your food.”

Sri Yukteswar’s welcoming voice rang out; I led the astonished
visitors to the kitchen. Master turned to me with twinkling eyes.

“Now that you have finished comparing notes, no doubt you are
satisfied that our guests really did miss their train!”

I followed him to his bedroom a half hour later, realizing fully that
I was about to sleep beside a godlike guru.

“Mukunda, why don’t you get an astrological armlet?”

“Should I, Master? I don’t believe in astrology.”

“It is never a question of belief ; the only scientific attitude one
can take on any subject is whether it is true . The law of gravitation
worked as efficiently before Newton as after him. The cosmos would be
fairly chaotic if its laws could not operate without the sanction of
human belief.

“Charlatans have brought the stellar science to its present state of
disrepute. Astrology is too vast, both mathematically ^16-1 and
philosophically, to be rightly grasped except by men of profound
understanding. If ignoramuses misread the heavens, and see there a
scrawl instead of a script, that is to be expected in this imperfect
world. One should not dismiss the wisdom with the ‘wise.’

“All parts of creation are linked together and interchange their
influences. The balanced rhythm of the universe is rooted in
reciprocity,” my guru continued. “Man, in his human aspect, has to
combat two sets of forces-first, the tumults within his being, caused
by the admixture of earth, water, fire, air, and ethereal elements;
second, the outer disintegrating powers of nature. So long as man
struggles with his mortality, he is affected by the myriad mutations
of heaven and earth.

“Astrology is the study of man’s response to planetary stimuli. The
stars have no conscious benevolence or animosity; they merely send
forth positive and negative radiations. Of themselves, these do not
help or harm humanity, but offer a lawful channel for the outward
operation of cause-effect equilibriums which each man has set into
motion in the past.

“A child is born on that day and at that hour when the celestial rays
are in mathematical harmony with his individual karma. His horoscope
is a challenging portrait, revealing his unalterable past and its
probable future results. But the natal chart can be rightly
interpreted only by men of intuitive wisdom: these are few.

“The message boldly blazoned across the heavens at the moment of birth
is not meant to emphasize fate-the result of past good and evil-but to
arouse man’s will to escape from his universal thralldom. What he has
done, he can undo. None other than himself was the instigator of the
causes of whatever effects are now prevalent in his life. He can
overcome any limitation, because he created it by his own actions in
the first place, and because he has spiritual resources which are not
subject to planetary pressure.

“Superstitious awe of astrology makes one an automaton, slavishly
dependent on mechanical guidance. The wise man defeats his planets-
which is to say, his past-by transferring his allegiance from the
creation to the Creator. The more he realizes his unity with Spirit,
the less he can be dominated by matter. The soul is ever-free; it is
deathless because birthless. It cannot be regimented by stars.

“Man is a soul, and has a body. When he properly places his sense of
identity, he leaves behind all compulsive patterns. So long as he
remains confused in his ordinary state of spiritual amnesia, he will
know the subtle fetters of environmental law.

“God is harmony; the devotee who attunes himself will never perform
any action amiss. His activities will be correctly and naturally timed
to accord with astrological law. After deep prayer and meditation he
is in touch with his divine consciousness; there is no greater power
than that inward protection.”

“Then, dear Master, why do you want me to wear an astrological
bangle?” I ventured this question after a long silence, during which I
had tried to assimilate Sri Yukteswar’s noble exposition.

“It is only when a traveler has reached his goal that he is justified
in discarding his maps. During the journey, he takes advantage of any
convenient short cut. The ancient rishis discovered many ways to
curtail the period of man’s exile in delusion. There are certain
mechanical features in the law of karma which can be skillfully
adjusted by the fingers of wisdom.

“All human ills arise from some transgression of universal law. The
scriptures point out that man must satisfy the laws of nature, while
not discrediting the divine omnipotence. He should say: ‘Lord, I trust
in Thee, and know Thou canst help me, but I too will do my best to
undo any wrong I have done.’ By a number of means-by prayer, by will
power, by yoga meditation, by consultation with saints, by use of
astrological bangles-the adverse effects of past wrongs can be
minimized or nullified.

“Just as a house can be fitted with a copper rod to absorb the shock
of lightning, so the bodily temple can be benefited by various
protective measures. Ages ago our yogis discovered that pure metals
emit an astral light which is powerfully counteractive to negative
pulls of the planets. Subtle electrical and magnetic radiations are
constantly circulating in the universe; when a man’s body is being
aided, he does not know it; when it is being disintegrated, he is
still in ignorance. Can he do anything about it?

“This problem received attention from our rishis; they found helpful
not only a combination of metals, but also of plants and-most
effective of all-faultless jewels of not less than two carats. The
preventive uses of astrology have seldom been seriously studied
outside of India. One little-known fact is that the proper jewels,
metals, or plant preparations are valueless unless the required weight
is secured, and unless these remedial agents are worn next to the
skin.”

“Sir, of course I shall take your advice and get a bangle. I am
intrigued at the thought of outwitting a planet!”

“For general purposes I counsel the use of an armlet made of gold,
silver, and copper. But for a specific purpose I want you to get one
of silver and lead.” Sri Yukteswar added careful directions.

“Guruji, what ‘specific purpose’ do you mean?”

“The stars are about to take an unfriendly interest in you, Mukunda.
Fear not; you shall be protected. In about a month your liver will
cause you much trouble. The illness is scheduled to last for six
months, but your use of an astrological armlet will shorten the period
to twenty-four days.”

I sought out a jeweler the next day, and was soon wearing the bangle.
My health was excellent; Master’s prediction slipped from my mind. He
left Serampore to visit Benares. Thirty days after our conversation, I
felt a sudden pain in the region of my liver. The following weeks were
a nightmare of excruciating pain. Reluctant to disturb my guru, I
thought I would bravely endure my trial alone.

But twenty-three days of torture weakened my resolution; I entrained
for Benares. There Sri Yukteswar greeted me with unusual warmth, but
gave me no opportunity to tell him my woes in private. Many devotees
visited Master that day, just for a darshan. ^16-2 Ill and neglected,
I sat in a corner. It was not until after the evening meal that all
guests had departed. My guru summoned me to the octagonal balcony of
the house.

“You must have come about your liver disorder.” Sri Yukteswar’s gaze
was averted; he walked to and fro, occasionally intercepting the
moonlight. “Let me see; you have been ailing for twenty-four days,
haven’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Please do the stomach exercise I have taught you.”

“If you knew the extent of my suffering, Master, you would not ask me
to exercise.” Nevertheless I made a feeble attempt to obey him.

“You say you have pain; I say you have none. How can such
contradictions exist?” My guru looked at me inquiringly.

I was dazed and then overcome with joyful relief. No longer could I
feel the continuous torment that had kept me nearly sleepless for
weeks; at Sri Yukteswar’s words the agony vanished as though it had
never been.

I started to kneel at his feet in gratitude, but he quickly prevented
me.

“Don’t be childish. Get up and enjoy the beauty of the moon over the
Ganges.” But Master’s eyes were twinkling happily as I stood in
silence beside him. I understood by his attitude that he wanted me to
feel that not he, but God, had been the Healer.

I wear even now the heavy silver and lead bangle, a memento of that
day-long-past, ever-cherished-when I found anew that I was living with
a personage indeed superhuman. On later occasions, when I brought my
friends to Sri Yukteswar for healing, he invariably recommended jewels
or the bangle, extolling their use as an act of astrological wisdom.

I had been prejudiced against astrology from my childhood, partly
because I observed that many people are sequaciously attached to it,
and partly because of a prediction made by our family astrologer: “You
will marry three times, being twice a widower.” I brooded over the
matter, feeling like a goat awaiting sacrifice before the temple of
triple matrimony.

“You may as well be resigned to your fate,” my brother Ananta had
remarked. “Your written horoscope has correctly stated that you would
fly from home toward the Himalayas during your early years, but would
be forcibly returned. The forecast of your marriages is also bound to
be true.”

A clear intuition came to me one night that the prophecy was wholly
false. I set fire to the horoscope scroll, placing the ashes in a
paper bag on which I wrote: “Seeds of past karma cannot germinate if
they are roasted in the divine fires of wisdom.” I put the bag in a
conspicuous spot; Ananta immediately read my defiant comment.

“You cannot destroy truth as easily as you have burnt this paper
scroll.” My brother laughed scornfully.

It is a fact that on three occasions before I reached manhood, my
family tried to arrange my betrothal. Each time I refused to fall in
with the plans, ^16-3 knowing that my love for God was more
overwhelming than any astrological persuasion from the past.

“The deeper the self-realization of a man, the more he influences the
whole universe by his subtle spiritual vibrations, and the less he
himself is affected by the phenomenal flux.” These words of Master’s
often returned inspiringly to my mind.

Occasionally I told astrologers to select my worst periods, according
to planetary indications, and I would still accomplish whatever task I
set myself. It is true that my success at such times has been
accompanied by extraordinary difficulties. But my conviction has
always been justified: faith in the divine protection, and the right
use of man’s God-given will, are forces formidable beyond any the
“inverted bowl” can muster.

The starry inscription at one’s birth, I came to understand, is not
that man is a puppet of his past. Its message is rather a prod to
pride; the very heavens seek to arouse man’s determination to be free
from every limitation. God created each man as a soul, dowered with
individuality, hence essential to the universal structure, whether in
the temporary role of pillar or parasite. His freedom is final and
immediate, if he so wills; it depends not on outer but inner
victories.

Sri Yukteswar discovered the mathematical application of a 24,000-year
equinoctial cycle to our present age. ^16-4 The cycle is divided into
an Ascending Arc and a Descending Arc, each of 12,000 years. Within
each Arc fall four Yugas or Ages, called Kali , Dwapara , Treta , and
Satya , corresponding to the Greek ideas of Iron, Bronze, Silver, and
Golden Ages.

My guru determined by various calculations that the last Kali Yuga or
Iron Age, of the Ascending Arc, started about A.D. 500. The Iron Age,
1200 years in duration, is a span of materialism; it ended about A.D.
1700. That year ushered in Dwapara Yuga , a 2400-year period of
electrical and atomic-energy developments, the age of telegraph,
radio, airplanes, and other space-annihilators.

The 3600-year period of Treta Yuga will start in A.D. 4100; its age
will be marked by common knowledge of telepathic communications and
other time-annihilators. During the 4800 years of Satya Yuga , final
age in an ascending arc, the intelligence of a man will be completely
developed; he will work in harmony with the divine plan.

A descending arc of 12,000 years, starting with a descending Golden
Age of 4800 years, then begins ^16-5 for the world; man gradually
sinks into ignorance. These cycles are the eternal rounds of maya , the
contrasts and relativities of the phenomenal universe. ^16-6 Man, one
by one, escapes from creation’s prison of duality as he awakens to
consciousness of his inseverable divine unity with the Creator.

Master enlarged my understanding not only of astrology but of the
world’s scriptures. Placing the holy texts on the spotless table of
his mind, he was able to dissect them with the scalpel of intuitive
reasoning, and to separate errors and interpolations of scholars from
the truths as originally expressed by the prophets.

“Fix one’s vision on the end of the nose.” This inaccurate
interpretation of a Bhagavad Gita stanza, ^16-7 widely accepted by
Eastern pundits and Western translators, used to arouse Master’s droll
criticism.

“The path of a yogi is singular enough as it is,” he remarked. “Why
counsel him that he must also make himself cross-eyed? The true
meaning of nasikagram is ‘origin of the nose, not ‘end of the nose.’
The nose begins at the point between the two eyebrows, the seat of
spiritual vision.” ^16-8 Because of one Sankhya ^16-9 aphorism,
“Iswar-ashidha ,”-“A Lord of Creation cannot be deduced” or “God is not
proved,” ^16-10 -many scholars call the whole philosophy atheistical.

“The verse is not nihilistic,” Sri Yukteswar explained. “It merely
signifies that to the unenlightened man, dependent on his senses for
all final judgments, proof of God must remain unknown and therefore
non-existent. True Sankhya followers, with unshakable insight born of
meditation, understand that the Lord is both existent and knowable.”

Master expounded the Christian Bible with a beautiful clarity. It was
from my Hindu guru, unknown to the roll call of Christian membership,
that I learned to perceive the deathless essence of the Bible, and to
understand the truth in Christ’s assertion-surely the most thrillingly
intransigent ever uttered: “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my
words shall not pass away.” ^16-11

The great masters of India mold their lives by the same godly ideals
which animated Jesus; these men are his proclaimed kin: “Whosoever
shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my
brother, and sister, and mother.” ^16-12 “If ye continue in my word,”
Christ pointed out, “then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall
know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” ^16-13 Freemen
all, lords of themselves, the Yogi-Christs of India are part of the
immortal fraternity: those who have attained a liberating knowledge of
the One Father.

“The Adam and Eve story is incomprehensible to me!” I observed with
considerable heat one day in my early struggles with the allegory.
“Why did God punish not only the guilty pair, but also the innocent
unborn generations?”

Master was more amused by my vehemence than my ignorance. “Genesis is
deeply symbolic, and cannot be grasped by a literal interpretation,”
he explained. “Its ‘tree of life’ is the human body. The spinal cord
is like an upturned tree, with man’s hair as its roots, and afferent
and efferent nerves as branches. The tree of the nervous system bears
many enjoyable fruits, or sensations of sight, sound, smell, taste,
and touch. In these, man may rightfully indulge; but he was forbidden
the experience of sex, the ‘apple’ at the center of the bodily
garden. ^16-14

“The ‘serpent’ represents the coiled-up spinal energy which stimulates
the sex nerves. ‘Adam’ is reason, and ‘Eve’ is feeling. When the
emotion or Eve-consciousness in any human being is overpowered by the
sex impulse, his reason or Adam also succumbs. ^16-15

“God created the human species by materializing the bodies of man and
woman through the force of His will; He endowed the new species with
the power to create children in a similar ‘immaculate’ or divine
manner. ^16-16 Because His manifestation in the individualized soul
had hitherto been limited to animals, instinct-bound and lacking the
potentialities of full reason, God made the first human bodies,
symbolically called Adam and Eve. To these, for advantageous upward
evolution, He transferred the souls or divine essence of two
animals. ^16-17 In Adam or man, reason predominated; in Eve or woman,
feeling was ascendant. Thus was expressed the duality or polarity
which underlies the phenomenal worlds. Reason and feeling remain in a
heaven of cooperative joy so long as the human mind is not tricked by
the serpentine energy of animal propensities.

“The human body was therefore not solely a result of evolution from
beasts, but was produced by an act of special creation by God. The
animal forms were too crude to express full divinity; the human being
was uniquely given a tremendous mental capacity-the ‘thousand-petaled
lotus’ of the brain-as well as acutely awakened occult centers in the
spine.

“God, or the Divine Consciousness present within the first created
pair, counseled them to enjoy all human sensibilities, but not to put
their concentration on touch sensations. ^16-18 These were banned in
order to avoid the development of the sex organs, which would enmesh
humanity in the inferior animal method of propagation. The warning not
to revive subconsciously-present bestial memories was not heeded.
Resuming the way of brute procreation, Adam and Eve fell from the
state of heavenly joy natural to the original perfect man.

“Knowledge of ‘good and evil’ refers to the cosmic dualistic
compulsion. Falling under the sway of maya through misuse of his
feeling and reason, or Eve-and Adam-consciousness, man relinquishes
his right to enter the heavenly garden of divine self-
sufficiency. ^16-19 The personal responsibility of every human being
is to restore his ‘parents’ or dual nature to a unified harmony or
Eden.”

As Sri Yukteswar ended his discourse, I glanced with new respect at
the pages of Genesis .

“Dear Master,” I said, “for the first time I feel a proper filial
obligation toward Adam and Eve!”

“Because you and my son think so highly of Swami Sri Yukteswar, I will
take a look at him.” The tone of voice used by Dr. Narayan Chunder Roy
implied that he was humoring the whim of half-wits. I concealed my
indignation, in the best traditions of the proselyter.

My companion, a veterinary surgeon, was a confirmed agnostic. His
young son Santosh had implored me to take an interest in his father.
So far my invaluable aid had been a bit on the invisible side.

Dr. Roy accompanied me the following day to the Serampore hermitage.

After Master had granted him a brief interview, marked for the most
part by stoic silence on both sides, the visitor brusquely departed.

“Why bring a dead man to the ashram?” Sri Yukteswar looked at me
inquiringly as soon as the door had closed on the Calcutta skeptic.

“Sir! The doctor is very much alive!”

“But in a short time he will be dead.”

I was shocked. “Sir, this will be a terrible blow to his son. Santosh
yet hopes for time to change his father’s materialistic views. I
beseech you, Master, to help the man.”

“Very well; for your sake.” My guru’s face was impassive. “The proud
horse doctor is far gone in diabetes, although he does not know it. In
fifteen days he will take to his bed. The physicians will give him up
for lost; his natural time to leave this earth is six weeks from
today. Due to your intercession, however, on that date he will
recover. But there is one condition. You must get him to wear an
astrological bangle; he will doubtless object as violently as one of
his horses before an operation!” Master chuckled.

After a silence, during which I wondered how Santosh and I could best
employ the arts of cajolery on the recalcitrant doctor, Sri Yukteswar
made further disclosures.

“As soon as the man gets well, advise him not to eat meat. He will not
heed this counsel, however, and in six months, just as he is feeling
at his best, he will drop dead. Even that six-month extension of life
is granted him only because of your plea.”

The following day I suggested to Santosh that he order an armlet at
the jeweler’s. It was ready in a week, but Dr. Roy refused to put it
on.

“I am in the best of health. You will never impress me with these
astrological superstitions.” The doctor glanced at me belligerently.

I recalled with amusement that Master had justifiably compared the man
to a balky horse. Another seven days passed; the doctor, suddenly ill,
meekly consented to wear the bangle. Two weeks later the physician in
attendance told me that his patient’s case was hopeless. He supplied
harrowing details of the ravages inflicted by diabetes.

I shook my head. “My guru has said that, after a sickness lasting one
month, Dr. Roy will be well.”

The physician stared at me incredulously. But he sought me out a
fortnight later, with an apologetic air.

“Dr. Roy has made a complete recovery!” he exclaimed. “It is the most
amazing case in my experience. Never before have I seen a dying man
show such an inexplicable comeback. Your guru must indeed be a healing
prophet!”

After one interview with Dr. Roy, during which I repeated Sri
Yukteswar’s advice about a meatless diet, I did not see the man again
for six months. He stopped for a chat one evening as I sat on the
piazza of my family home on Gurpar Road.

“Tell your teacher that by eating meat frequently, I have wholly
regained my strength. His unscientific ideas on diet have not
influenced me.” It was true that Dr. Roy looked a picture of health.

But the next day Santosh came running to me from his home on the next
block. “This morning Father dropped dead!”

This case was one of my strangest experiences with Master. He healed
the rebellious veterinary surgeon in spite of his disbelief, and
extended the man’s natural term on earth by six months, just because
of my earnest supplication. Sri Yukteswar was boundless in his
kindness when confronted by the urgent prayer of a devotee.

It was my proudest privilege to bring college friends to meet my guru.
Many of them would lay aside-at least in the ashram!-their fashionable
academic cloak of religious skepticism.

One of my friends, Sasi, spent a number of happy week ends in
Serampore. Master became immensely fond of the boy, and lamented that
his private life was wild and disorderly.

“Sasi, unless you reform, one year hence you will be dangerously ill.”
Sri Yukteswar gazed at my friend with affectionate exasperation.
“Mukunda is the witness: don’t say later that I didn’t warn you.”

Sasi laughed. “Master, I will leave it to you to interest a sweet
charity of cosmos in my own sad case! My spirit is willing but my will
is weak. You are my only savior on earth; I believe in nothing else.”

“At least you should wear a two-carat blue sapphire. It will help
you.”

“I can’t afford one. Anyhow, dear guruji, if trouble comes, I fully
believe you will protect me.”

“In a year you will bring three sapphires,” Sri Yukteswar replied
cryptically. “They will be of no use then.”

Variations on this conversation took place regularly. “I can’t
reform!” Sasi would say in comical despair. “And my trust in you,
Master, is more precious to me than any stone!”

A year later I was visiting my guru at the Calcutta home of his
disciple, Naren Babu. About ten o’clock in the morning, as Sri
Yukteswar and I were sitting quietly in the second-floor parlor, I
heard the front door open. Master straightened stiffly.

“It is that Sasi,” he remarked gravely. “The year is now up; both his
lungs are gone. He has ignored my counsel; tell him I don’t want to
see him.”

Half stunned by Sri Yukteswar’s sternness, I raced down the stairway.
Sasi was ascending.

“O Mukunda! I do hope Master is here; I had a hunch he might be.”

“Yes, but he doesn’t wish to be disturbed.”

Sasi burst into tears and brushed past me. He threw himself at Sri
Yukteswar’s feet, placing there three beautiful sapphires.

“Omniscient guru, the doctors say I have galloping tuberculosis! They
give me no longer than three more months! I humbly implore your aid; I
know you can heal me!”

“Isn’t it a bit late now to be worrying over your life? Depart with
your jewels; their time of usefulness is past.” Master then sat
sphinxlike in an unrelenting silence, punctuated by the boy’s sobs for
mercy.

An intuitive conviction came to me that Sri Yukteswar was merely
testing the depth of Sasi’s faith in the divine healing power. I was
not surprised a tense hour later when Master turned a sympathetic gaze
on my prostrate friend.

“Get up, Sasi; what a commotion you make in other people’s houses!
Return your sapphires to the jeweler’s; they are an unnecessary
expense now. But get an astrological bangle and wear it. Fear not; in
a few weeks you shall be well.”

Sasi’s smile illumined his tear-marred face like sudden sun over a
sodden landscape. “Beloved guru, shall I take the medicines prescribed
by the doctors?”

Sri Yukteswar’s glance was longanimous. “Just as you wish-drink them
or discard them; it does not matter. It is more possible for the sun
and moon to interchange their positions than for you to die of
tuberculosis.” He added abruptly, “Go now, before I change my mind!”

With an agitated bow, my friend hastily departed. I visited him
several times during the next few weeks, and was aghast to find his
condition increasingly worse.

“Sasi cannot last through the night.” These words from his physician,
and the spectacle of my friend, now reduced almost to a skeleton, sent
me posthaste to Serampore. My guru listened coldly to my tearful
report.

“Why do you come here to bother me? You have already heard me assure
Sasi of his recovery.”

I bowed before him in great awe, and retreated to the door. Sri
Yukteswar said no parting word, but sank into silence, his unwinking
eyes half-open, their vision fled to another world.

I returned at once to Sasi’s home in Calcutta. With astonishment I
found my friend sitting up, drinking milk.

“O Mukunda! What a miracle! Four hours ago I felt Master’s presence in
the room; my terrible symptoms immediately disappeared. I feel that
through his grace I am entirely well.”

In a few weeks Sasi was stouter and in better health than ever
before. ^17-1 But his singular reaction to his healing had an
ungrateful tinge: he seldom visited Sri Yukteswar again! My friend
told me one day that he so deeply regretted his previous mode of life
that he was ashamed to face Master.

I could only conclude that Sasi’s illness had had the contrasting
effect of stiffening his will and impairing his manners.

The first two years of my course at Scottish Church College were
drawing to a close. My classroom attendance had been very spasmodic;
what little studying I did was only to keep peace with my family. My
two private tutors came regularly to my house; I was regularly absent:
I can discern at least this one regularity in my scholastic career!

In India two successful years of college bring an Intermediate Arts
diploma; the student may then look forward to another two years and
his A.B. degree.

The Intermediate Arts final examinations loomed ominously ahead. I
fled to Puri, where my guru was spending a few weeks. Vaguely hoping
that he would sanction my nonappearance at the finals, I related my
embarrassing unpreparedness.

But Master smiled consolingly. “You have wholeheartedly pursued your
spiritual duties, and could not help neglecting your college work.
Apply yourself diligently to your books for the next week: you shall
get through your ordeal without failure.”

I returned to Calcutta, firmly suppressing all reasonable doubts that
occasionally arose with unnerving ridicule. Surveying the mountain of
books on my table, I felt like a traveler lost in a wilderness. A long
period of meditation brought me a labor-saving inspiration. Opening
each book at random, I studied only those pages which lay thus
exposed. Pursuing this course during eighteen hours a day for a week,
I considered myself entitled to advise all succeeding generations on
the art of cramming.

The following days in the examination halls were a justification of my
seemingly haphazard procedure. I passed all the tests, though by a
hairbreadth. The congratulations of my friends and family were
ludicrously mixed with ejaculations betraying their astonishment.

On his return from Puri, Sri Yukteswar gave me a pleasant surprise.
“Your Calcutta studies are now over. I will see that you pursue your
last two years of university work right here in Serampore.”

I was puzzled. “Sir, there is no Bachelor of Arts course in this
town.” Serampore College, the sole institution of higher learning,
offered only a two-year course in Intermediate Arts.

Master smiled mischievously. “I am too old to go about collecting
donations to establish an A.B. college for you. I guess I shall have
to arrange the matter through someone else.”

Two months later Professor Howells, president of Serampore College,
publicly announced that he had succeeded in raising sufficient funds
to offer a four-year course. Serampore College became a branch
affiliation of the University of Calcutta. I was one of the first
students to enroll in Serampore as an A.B. candidate.

“Guruji, how kind you are to me! I have been longing to leave Calcutta
and be near you every day in Serampore. Professor Howells does not
dream how much he owes to your silent help!”

Sri Yukteswar gazed at me with mock severity. “Now you won’t have to
spend so many hours on trains; what a lot of free time for your
studies! Perhaps you will become less of a last-minute crammer and
more of a scholar.” But somehow his tone lacked conviction.

“Years ago, right in this very room you now occupy, a Mohammedan
wonder-worker performed four miracles before me!”

Sri Yukteswar made this surprising statement during his first visit to
my new quarters. Immediately after entering Serampore College, I had
taken a room in a near-by boardinghouse, called Panthi . It was an old-
fashioned brick mansion, fronting the Ganges.

“Master, what a coincidence! Are these newly decorated walls really
ancient with memories?” I looked around my simply furnished room with
awakened interest.

“It is a long story.” My guru smiled reminiscently. “The name of the
fakir ^18-1 was Afzal Khan. He had acquired his extraordinary
powers through a chance encounter with a Hindu yogi.

“‘Son, I am thirsty; fetch me some water.’ A dust-covered sannyasi
made this request of Afzal one day during his early boyhood in a small
village of eastern Bengal.

“‘Master, I am a Mohammedan. How could you, a Hindu, accept a drink
from my hands?’

“‘Your truthfulness pleases me, my child. I do not observe the
ostracizing rules of ungodly sectarianism. Go; bring me water
quickly.’

“Afzal’s reverent obedience was rewarded by a loving glance from the
yogi.

“‘You possess good karma from former lives,’ he observed solemnly. ‘I
am going to teach you a certain yoga method which will give you
command over one of the invisible realms. The great powers that will
be yours should be exercised for worthy ends; never employ them
selfishly! I perceive, alas! that you have brought over from the past
some seeds of destructive tendencies. Do not allow them to sprout by
watering them with fresh evil actions. The complexity of your previous
karma is such that you must use this life to reconcile your yogic
accomplishments with the highest humanitarian goals.’

“After instructing the amazed boy in a complicated technique, the
master vanished.

“Afzal faithfully followed his yoga exercise for twenty years. His
miraculous feats began to attract widespread attention. It seems that
he was always accompanied by a disembodied spirit whom he called
‘Hazrat.’ This invisible entity was able to fulfill the FAKIR’S
slightest wish.

“Ignoring his master’s warning, Afzal began to misuse his powers.
Whatever object he touched and then replaced would soon disappear
without a trace. This disconcerting eventuality usually made the
Mohammedan an objectionable guest!

“He visited large jewelry stores in Calcutta from time to time,
representing himself as a possible purchaser. Any jewel he handled
would vanish shortly after he had left the shop.

“Afzal was often surrounded by several hundred students, attracted by
the hope of learning his secrets. The fakir occasionally invited them
to travel with him. At the railway station he would manage to touch a
roll of tickets. These he would return to the clerk, remarking: ‘I
have changed my mind, and won’t buy them now.’ But when he boarded the
train with his retinue, Afzal would be in possession of the required
tickets. ^18-2

“These exploits created an indignant uproar; Bengali jewelers and
ticket-sellers were succumbing to nervous breakdowns! The police who
sought to arrest Afzal found themselves helpless; the fakir could
remove incriminating evidence merely by saying: ‘Hazrat, take this
away.’”

Sri Yukteswar rose from his seat and walked to the balcony of my room
which overlooked the Ganges. I followed him, eager to hear more of the
baffling Mohammedan Raffles.

“This Panthi house formerly belonged to a friend of mine. He became
acquainted with Afzal and asked him here. My friend also invited about
twenty neighbors, including myself. I was only a youth then, and felt
a lively curiosity about the notorious fakir .” Master laughed. “I took
the precaution of not wearing anything valuable! Afzal looked me over
inquisitively, then remarked:

“‘You have powerful hands. Go downstairs to the garden; get a smooth
stone and write your name on it with chalk; then throw the stone as
far as possible into the Ganges.’

“I obeyed. As soon as the stone had vanished under distant waves, the
Mohammedan addressed me again:

“‘Fill a pot with Ganges water near the front of this house.’

“After I had returned with a vessel of water, the fakir cried,
‘Hazrat, put the stone in the pot!’

“The stone appeared at once. I pulled it from the vessel and found my
signature as legible as when I had written it.

“Babu, ^18-3 one of my friends in the room, was wearing a heavy
antique gold watch and chain. The fakir examined them with ominous
admiration. Soon they were missing!

“‘Afzal, please return my prized heirloom!’ Babu was nearly in tears.

“The Mohammedan was stoically silent for awhile, then said, ‘You have
five hundred rupees in an iron safe. Bring them to me, and I will tell
you where to locate your timepiece.’

“The distraught Babu left immediately for his home. He came back
shortly and handed Afzal the required sum.

“‘Go to the little bridge near your house,’ the fakir instructed Babu.
‘Call on Hazrat to give you the watch and chain.’

“Babu rushed away. On his return, he was wearing a smile of relief and
no jewelry whatever.

“‘When I commanded Hazrat as directed,’ he announced, ‘my watch came
tumbling down from the air into my right hand! You may be sure I
locked the heirloom in my safe before rejoining the group here!’

“Babu’s friends, witnesses of the comicotragedy of the ransom for a
watch, were staring with resentment at Afzal. He now spoke
placatingly.

“‘Please name any drink you want; Hazrat will produce it.’

“A number asked for milk, others for fruit juices. I was not too much
shocked when the unnerved Babu requested whisky! The Mohammedan gave
an order; the obliging Hazrat sent sealed containers sailing down the
air and thudding to the floor. Each man found his desired beverage.

“The promise of the fourth spectacular feat of the day was doubtless
gratifying to our host: Afzal offered to supply an instantaneous
lunch!

“‘Let us order the most expensive dishes,’ Babu suggested gloomily. ‘I
want an elaborate meal for my five hundred rupees! Everything should
be served on gold plates!’

“As soon as each man had expressed his preferences, the fakir
addressed himself to the inexhaustible Hazrat. A great rattle ensued;
gold platters filled with intricately-prepared curries, hot luchis ,
and many out-of-season fruits, landed from nowhere at our feet. All
the food was delicious. After feasting for an hour, we started to
leave the room. A tremendous noise, as though dishes were being piled
up, caused us to turn around. Lo! there was no sign of the glittering
plates or the remnants of the meal.”

“Guruji,” I interrupted, “if Afzal could easily secure such things as
gold dishes, why did he covet the property of others?”

“The fakir was not highly developed spiritually,” Sri Yukteswar
explained. “His mastery of a certain yoga technique gave him access to
an astral plane where any desire is immediately materialized. Through
the agency of an astral being, Hazrat, the Mohammedan could summon the
atoms of any object from etheric energy by an act of powerful will.
But such astrally-produced objects are structurally evanescent; they
cannot be long retained. Afzal still yearned for worldly wealth which,
though more hardly earned, has a more dependable durability.”

I laughed. “It too sometimes vanishes most unaccountably!”

“Afzal was not a man of God-realization,” Master went on. “Miracles of
a permanent and beneficial nature are performed by true saints because
they have attuned themselves to the omnipotent Creator. Afzal was
merely an ordinary man with an extraordinary power of penetrating a
subtle realm not usually entered by mortals until death.”

“I understand now, Guruji. The after-world appears to have some
charming features.”

Master agreed. “I never saw Afzal after that day, but a few years
later Babu came to my home to show me a newspaper account of the
Mohammedan’s public confession. From it I learned the facts I have
just told you about Afzal’s early initiation from a Hindu guru.”

The gist of the latter part of the published document, as recalled by
Sri Yukteswar, was as follows: “I, Afzal Khan, am writing these words
as an act of penance and as a warning to those who seek the possession
of miraculous powers. For years I have been misusing the wondrous
abilities imparted to me through the grace of God and my master. I
became drunk with egotism, feeling that I was beyond the ordinary laws
of morality. My day of reckoning finally arrived.

“Recently I met an old man on a road outside Calcutta. He limped along
painfully, carrying a shining object which looked like gold. I
addressed him with greed in my heart.

“‘I am Afzal Khan, the great fakir . What have you there?’

“‘This ball of gold is my sole material wealth; it can be of no
interest to a fakir . I implore you, sir, to heal my limp.’

“I touched the ball and walked away without reply. The old man hobbled
after me. He soon raised an outcry: ‘My gold is gone!’

“As I paid no attention, he suddenly spoke in a stentorian voice that
issued oddly from his frail body:

“‘Do you not recognize me?’

“I stood speechless, aghast at the belated discovery that this
unimpressive old cripple was none other than the great saint who,
long, long ago, had initiated me into yoga. He straightened himself;
his body instantly became strong and youthful.

“‘So!’ My guru’s glance was fiery. ‘I see with my own eyes that you
use your powers, not to help suffering humanity, but to prey on it
like a common thief! I withdraw your occult gifts; Hazrat is now freed
from you. No longer shall you be a terror in Bengal!’

“I called on Hazrat in anguished tones; for the first time, he did not
appear to my inner sight. But some dark veil suddenly lifted within
me; I saw clearly the blasphemy of my life.

“‘My guru, I thank you for coming to banish my long delusion.’ I was
sobbing at his feet. ‘I promise to forsake my worldly ambitions. I
will retire to the mountains for lonely meditation on God, hoping to
atone for my evil past.’

“My master regarded me with silent compassion. ‘I feel your
sincerity,’ he said finally. ‘Because of your earlier years of strict
obedience, and because of your present repentance, I will grant you
one boon. Your other powers are now gone, but whenever food and
clothing are needed, you may still call successfully on Hazrat to
supply them. Devote yourself wholeheartedly to divine understanding in
the mountain solitudes.’

“My guru then vanished; I was left to my tears and reflections.
Farewell, world! I go to seek the forgiveness of the Cosmic Beloved.”

“I am often beset by atheistic doubts. Yet a torturing surmise
sometimes haunts me: may not untapped soul possibilities exist? Is man
not missing his real destiny if he fails to explore them?”

These remarks of Dijen Babu, my roommate at the Panthi boardinghouse,
were called forth by my invitation that he meet my guru.

“Sri Yukteswarji will initiate you into Kriya Yoga,” I replied. “It
calms the dualistic turmoil by a divine inner certainty.”

That evening Dijen accompanied me to the hermitage. In Master’s
presence my friend received such spiritual peace that he was soon a
constant visitor. The trivial preoccupations of daily life are not
enough for man; wisdom too is a native hunger. In Sri Yukteswar’s

words Dijen found an incentive to those attempts-first painful, then
effortlessly liberating-to locate a realer self within his bosom than
the humiliating ego of a temporary birth, seldom ample enough for the
Spirit.

As Dijen and I were both pursuing the A.B. course at Serampore
College, we got into the habit of walking together to the ashram as
soon as classes were over. We would often see Sri Yukteswar standing
on his second-floor balcony, welcoming our approach with a smile.

One afternoon Kanai, a young hermitage resident, met Dijen and me at
the door with disappointing news.

“Master is not here; he was summoned to Calcutta by an urgent note.”

The following day I received a post card from my guru. “I shall leave
Calcutta Wednesday morning,” he had written. “You and Dijen meet the
nine o’clock train at Serampore station.”

About eight-thirty on Wednesday morning, a telepathic message from Sri
Yukteswar flashed insistently to my mind: “I am delayed; don’t meet
the nine o’clock train.”

I conveyed the latest instructions to Dijen, who was already dressed
for departure.

“You and your intuition!” My friend’s voice was edged in scorn. “I
prefer to trust Master’s written word.”

I shrugged my shoulders and seated myself with quiet finality.
Muttering angrily, Dijen made for the door and closed it noisily
behind him.

As the room was rather dark, I moved nearer to the window overlooking
the street. The scant sunlight suddenly increased to an intense
brilliancy in which the iron-barred window completely vanished.
Against this dazzling background appeared the clearly materialized
figure of Sri Yukteswar!

Bewildered to the point of shock, I rose from my chair and knelt
before him. With my customary gesture of respectful greeting at my
guru’s feet, I touched his shoes. These were a pair familiar to me, of
orange-dyed canvas, soled with rope. His ocher swami cloth brushed
against me; I distinctly felt not only the texture of his robe, but
also the gritty surface of the shoes, and the pressure of his toes
within them. Too much astounded to utter a word, I stood up and gazed
at him questioningly.

“I was pleased that you got my telepathic message.” Master’s voice was
calm, entirely normal. “I have now finished my business in Calcutta,
and shall arrive in Serampore by the ten o’clock train.”

As I still stared mutely, Sri Yukteswar went on, “This is not an
apparition, but my flesh and blood form. I have been divinely
commanded to give you this experience, rare to achieve on earth. Meet
me at the station; you and Dijen will see me coming toward you,
dressed as I am now. I shall be preceded by a fellow passenger-a
little boy carrying a silver jug.”

My guru placed both hands on my head, with a murmured blessing. As he
concluded with the words, “Taba Asi,” ^19-1 I heard a peculiar
rumbling sound. ^19-2 His body began to melt gradually within the
piercing light. First his feet and legs vanished, then his torso and
head, like a scroll being rolled up. To the very last, I could feel
his fingers resting lightly on my hair. The effulgence faded; nothing
remained before me but the barred window and a pale stream of
sunlight.

I remained in a half-stupor of confusion, questioning whether I had
not been the victim of a hallucination. A crestfallen Dijen soon
entered the room.

“Master was not on the nine o’clock train, nor even the nine-thirty.”
My friend made his announcement with a slightly apologetic air.

“Come then; I know he will arrive at ten o’clock.” I took Dijen’s hand
and rushed him forcibly along with me, heedless of his protests. In
about ten minutes we entered the station, where the train was already
puffing to a halt.

“The whole train is filled with the light of Master’s aura! He is
there!” I exclaimed joyfully.

“You dream so?” Dijen laughed mockingly.

“Let us wait here.” I told my friend details of the way in which our
guru would approach us. As I finished my description, Sri Yukteswar
came into view, wearing the same clothes I had seen a short time
earlier. He walked slowly in the wake of a small lad bearing a silver
jug.

For a moment a wave of cold fear passed through me, at the
unprecedented strangeness of my experience. I felt the materialistic,
twentieth-century world slipping from me; was I back in the ancient
days when Jesus appeared before Peter on the sea?

As Sri Yukteswar, a modern Yogi-Christ, reached the spot where Dijen
and I were speechlessly rooted, Master smiled at my friend and
remarked:

“I sent you a message too, but you were unable to grasp it.”

Dijen was silent, but glared at me suspiciously. After we had escorted
our guru to his hermitage, my friend and I proceeded toward Serampore
College. Dijen halted in the street, indignation streaming from his
every pore.

“So! Master sent me a message! Yet you concealed it! I demand an
explanation!”

“Can I help it if your mental mirror oscillates with such restlessness
that you cannot register our guru’s instructions?” I retorted.

The anger vanished from Dijen’s face. “I see what you mean,” he said
ruefully. “But please explain how you could know about the child with
the jug.”

By the time I had finished the story of Master’s phenomenal appearance
at the boardinghouse that morning, my friend and I had reached
Serampore College.

“The account I have just heard of our guru’s powers,” Dijen said,
“makes me feel that any university in the world is only a
kindergarten.”

“Father, I want to invite Master and four friends to accompany me to
the Himalayan foothills during my summer vacation. May I have six
train passes to Kashmir and enough money to cover our travel
expenses?”

As I had expected, Father laughed heartily. “This is the third time
you have given me the same cock-and-bull story. Didn’t you make a
similar request last summer, and the year before that? At the last
moment, Sri Yukteswarji refuses to go.”

“It is true, Father; I don’t know why my guru will not give me his
definite word about Kashmir. ^20-1 But if I tell him that I have
already secured the passes from you, somehow I think that this time he
will consent to make the journey.”

Father was unconvinced at the moment, but the following day, after
some good-humored gibes, he handed me six passes and a roll of ten-
rupee bills.

“I hardly think your theoretical trip needs such practical props,” he
remarked, “but here they are.”

That afternoon I exhibited my booty to Sri Yukteswar. Though he smiled
at my enthusiasm, his words were noncommittal: “I would like to go; we
shall see.” He made no comment when I asked his little hermitage
disciple, Kanai, to accompany us. I also invited three other friends-
Rajendra Nath Mitra, Jotin Auddy, and one other boy. Our date of
departure was set for the following Monday.

On Saturday and Sunday I stayed in Calcutta, where marriage rites for
a cousin were being celebrated at my family home. I arrived in
Serampore with my luggage early Monday morning. Rajendra met me at the
hermitage door.

“Master is out, walking. He has refused to go.”

I was equally grieved and obdurate. “I will not give Father a third
chance to ridicule my chimerical plans for Kashmir. Come; the rest of
us will go anyhow.”

Rajendra agreed; I left the ashram to find a servant. Kanai, I knew,
would not take the trip without Master, and someone was needed to look
after the luggage. I bethought myself of Behari, previously a servant
in my family home, who was now employed by a Serampore schoolmaster.
As I walked along briskly, I met my guru in front of the Christian
church near Serampore Courthouse.

“Where are you going?” Sri Yukteswar’s face was unsmiling.

“Sir, I hear that you and Kanai will not take the trip we have been
planning. I am seeking Behari. You will recall that last year he was
so anxious to see Kashmir that he even offered to serve without pay.”

“I remember. Nevertheless, I don’t think Behari will be willing to
go.”

I was exasperated. “He is just eagerly waiting for this opportunity!”

My guru silently resumed his walk; I soon reached the schoolmaster’s
house. Behari, in the courtyard, greeted me with a friendly warmth
that abruptly vanished as soon as I mentioned Kashmir. With a murmured
word of apology, the servant left me and entered his employer’s house.
I waited half an hour, nervously assuring myself that Behari’s delay
was being caused by preparations for his trip. Finally I knocked at
the front door.

“Behari left by the back stairs about thirty minutes ago,” a man
informed me. A slight smile hovered about his lips.

I departed sadly, wondering whether my invitation had been too
coercive or whether Master’s unseen influence were at work. Passing
the Christian church, again I saw my guru walking slowly toward me.
Without waiting to hear my report, he exclaimed:

“So Behari would not go! Now, what are your plans?”

I felt like a recalcitrant child who is determined to defy his
masterful father. “Sir, I am going to ask my uncle to lend me his
servant, Lal Dhari.”

“See your uncle if you want to,” Sri Yukteswar replied with a chuckle.
“But I hardly think you will enjoy the visit.”

Apprehensive but rebellious, I left my guru and entered Serampore
Courthouse. My paternal uncle, Sarada Ghosh, a government attorney,
welcomed me affectionately.

“I am leaving today with some friends for Kashmir,” I told him. “For
years I have been looking forward to this Himalayan trip.”

“I am happy for you, Mukunda. Is there anything I can do to make your
journey more comfortable?”

These kind words gave me a lift of encouragement. “Dear uncle,” I
said, “could you possibly spare me your servant, Lal Dhari?”

My simple request had the effect of an earthquake. Uncle jumped so
violently that his chair overturned, the papers on the desk flew in
every direction, and his pipe, a long, coconut-stemmed hubble-bubble,
fell to the floor with a great clatter.

“You selfish young man,” he shouted, quivering with wrath, “what a
preposterous idea! Who will look after me, if you take my servant on
one of your pleasure jaunts?”

I concealed my surprise, reflecting that my amiable uncle’s sudden
change of front was only one more enigma in a day fully devoted to
incomprehensibility. My retreat from the courthouse office was more
alacritous than dignified.

I returned to the hermitage, where my friends were expectantly
gathered. Conviction was growing on me that some sufficient if
exceedingly recondite motive was behind Master’s attitude. Remorse
seized me that I had been trying to thwart my guru’s will.

“Mukunda, wouldn’t you like to stay awhile longer with me?” Sri
Yukteswar inquired. “Rajendra and the others can go ahead now, and
wait for you at Calcutta. There will be plenty of time to catch the
last evening train leaving Calcutta for Kashmir.”

“Sir, I don’t care to go without you,” I said mournfully.

My friends paid not the slightest attention to my remark. They
summoned a hackney carriage and departed with all the luggage. Kanai
and I sat quietly at our guru’s feet. After a half hour of complete
silence, Master rose and walked toward the second-floor dining patio.

“Kanai, please serve Mukunda’s food. His train leaves soon.”

Getting up from my blanket seat, I staggered suddenly with nausea and
a ghastly churning sensation in my stomach. The stabbing pain was so
intense that I felt I had been abruptly hurled into some violent hell.
Groping blindly toward my guru, I collapsed before him, attacked by
all symptoms of the dread Asiatic cholera. Sri Yukteswar and Kanai
carried me to the sitting room.

Racked with agony, I cried, “Master, I surrender my life to you;” for
I believed it was indeed fast ebbing from the shores of my body.

Sri Yukteswar put my head on his lap, stroking my forehead with
angelic tenderness.

“You see now what would have happened if you were at the station with
your friends,” he said. “I had to look after you in this strange way,
because you chose to doubt my judgment about taking the trip at this
particular time.”

I understood at last. Inasmuch as great masters seldom see fit to
display their powers openly, a casual observer of the day’s events
would have imagined that their sequence was quite natural. My guru’s
intervention had been too subtle to be suspected. He had worked his
will through Behari and my Uncle Sarada and Rajendra and the others in
such an inconspicuous manner that probably everyone but myself thought
the situations had been logically normal.

As Sri Yukteswar never failed to observe his social obligations, he
instructed Kanai to go for a specialist, and to notify my uncle.

“Master,” I protested, “only you can heal me. I am too far gone for
any doctor.”

“Child, you are protected by the Divine Mercy. Don’t worry about the
doctor; he will not find you in this state. You are already healed.”

With my guru’s words, the excruciating suffering left me. I sat up
feebly. A doctor soon arrived and examined me carefully.

“You appear to have passed through the worst,” he said. “I will take
some specimens with me for laboratory tests.”

The following morning the physician arrived hurriedly. I was sitting
up, in good spirits.

“Well, well, here you are, smiling and chatting as though you had had
no close call with death.” He patted my hand gently. “I hardly
expected to find you alive, after I had discovered from the specimens
that your disease was Asiatic cholera. You are fortunate, young man,
to have a guru with divine healing powers! I am convinced of it!”

I agreed wholeheartedly. As the doctor was preparing to leave,
Rajendra and Auddy appeared at the door. The resentment in their faces
changed into sympathy as they glanced at the physician and then at my
somewhat wan countenance.

“We were angry when you didn’t turn up as agreed at the Calcutta
train. You have been sick?”

“Yes.” I could not help laughing as my friends placed the luggage in
the same corner it had occupied yesterday. I quoted: “There was a ship
that went to Spain; when it arrived, it came back again!”

Master entered the room. I permitted myself a convalescent’s liberty,
and captured his hand lovingly.

“Guruji,” I said, “from my twelfth year on, I have made many
unsuccessful attempts to reach the Himalayas. I am finally convinced
that without your blessings the Goddess Parvati ^20-2 will not
receive me!”

“You are strong enough now to travel. I will accompany you to
Kashmir,” Sri Yukteswar informed me two days after my miraculous
recovery from Asiatic cholera.

That evening our party of six entrained for the north. Our first
leisurely stop was at Simla, a queenly city resting on the throne of
Himalayan hills. We strolled over the steep streets, admiring the
magnificent views.

“English strawberries for sale,” cried an old woman, squatting in a
picturesque open market place.

Master was curious about the strange little red fruits. He bought a
basketful and offered it to Kanai and myself, who were near-by. I
tasted one berry but spat it hastily on the ground.

“Sir, what a sour fruit! I could never like strawberries!”

My guru laughed. “Oh, you will like them-in America. At a dinner
there, your hostess will serve them with sugar and cream. After she
has mashed the berries with a fork, you will taste them and say: ‘What
delicious strawberries!’ Then you will remember this day in Simla.”

Sri Yukteswar’s forecast vanished from my mind, but reappeared there
many years later, shortly after my arrival in America. I was a dinner
guest at the home of Mrs. Alice T. Hasey (Sister Yogmata) in West
Somerville, Massachusetts. When a dessert of strawberries was put on
the table, my hostess picked up her fork and mashed my berries, adding
cream and sugar. “The fruit is rather tart; I think you will like it
fixed this way,” she remarked.

I took a mouthful. “What delicious strawberries!” I exclaimed. At once
my guru’s prediction in Simla emerged from the fathomless cave of
memory. It was staggering to realize that long ago Sri Yukteswar’s
God-tuned mind had sensitively detected the program of karmic events
wandering in the ether of futurity.

Our party soon left Simla and entrained for Rawalpindi. There we hired
a large landau, drawn by two horses, in which we started a seven-day
trip to Srinagar, capital city of Kashmir. The second day of our
northbound journey brought into view the true Himalayan vastness. As
the iron wheels of our carriage creaked along the hot, stony roads, we
were enraptured with changing vistas of mountainous grandeur.

“Sir,” Auddy said to Master, “I am greatly enjoying these glorious
scenes in your holy company.”

I felt a throb of pleasure at Auddy’s appreciation, for I was acting
as host on this trip. Sri Yukteswar caught my thought; he turned to me
and whispered:

“Don’t flatter yourself; Auddy is not nearly as entranced with the
scenery as he is with the prospect of leaving us long enough to have a
cigaret.”

I was shocked. “Sir,” I said in an undertone, “please do not break our
harmony by these unpleasant words. I can hardly believe that Auddy is
hankering for a smoke.” ^21-1 I looked apprehensively at my usually
irrepressible guru.

“Very well; I won’t say anything to Auddy.” Master chuckled. “But you
will soon see, when the landau halts, that Auddy is quick to seize his
opportunity.”

The carriage arrived at a small caravanserai. As our horses were led
to be watered, Auddy inquired, “Sir, do you mind if I ride awhile with
the driver? I would like to get a little outside air.”

Sri Yukteswar gave permission, but remarked to me, “He wants fresh
smoke and not fresh air.”

The landau resumed its noisy progress over the dusty roads. Master’s
eyes were twinkling; he instructed me, “Crane up your neck through the
carriage door and see what Auddy is doing with the air.”

I obeyed, and was astounded to observe Auddy in the act of exhaling
rings of cigaret smoke. My glance toward Sri Yukteswar was apologetic.

“You are right, as always, sir. Auddy is enjoying a puff along with a
panorama.” I surmised that my friend had received a gift from the cab
driver; I knew Auddy had not carried any cigarets from Calcutta.

We continued on the labyrinthine way, adorned by views of rivers,
valleys, precipitous crags, and multitudinous mountain tiers. Every
night we stopped at rustic inns, and prepared our own food. Sri
Yukteswar took special care of my diet, insisting that I have lime
juice at all meals. I was still weak, but daily improving, though the
rattling carriage was strictly designed for discomfort.

Joyous anticipations filled our hearts as we neared central Kashmir,
paradise land of lotus lakes, floating gardens, gaily canopied
houseboats, the many-bridged Jhelum River, and flower-strewn pastures,
all ringed round by the Himalayan majesty. Our approach to Srinagar
was through an avenue of tall, welcoming trees. We engaged rooms at a
double-storied inn overlooking the noble hills. No running water was
available; we drew our supply from a near-by well. The summer weather
was ideal, with warm days and slightly cold nights.

We made a pilgrimage to the ancient Srinagar temple of Swami Shankara.
As I gazed upon the mountain-peak hermitage, standing bold against the
sky, I fell into an ecstatic trance. A vision appeared of a hilltop
mansion in a distant land. The lofty Shankara ashram before me was
transformed into the structure where, years later, I established the
Self-Realization Fellowship headquarters in America. When I first
visited Los Angeles, and saw the large building on the crest of Mount
Washington, I recognized it at once from my long-past visions in
Kashmir and elsewhere.

A few days at Srinagar; then on to Gulmarg (“mountain paths of
flowers”), elevated by six thousand feet. There I had my first ride on
a large horse. Rajendra mounted a small trotter, whose heart was fired
with ambition for speed. We ventured onto the very steep Khilanmarg;
the path led through a dense forest, abounding in tree-mushrooms,
where the mist-shrouded trails were often precarious. But Rajendra’s
little animal never permitted my oversized steed a moment’s rest, even
at the most perilous turns. On, on, untiringly came Rajendra’s horse,
oblivious to all but the joy of competition.

Our strenuous race was rewarded by a breath-taking view. For the first
time in this life, I gazed in all directions at sublime snow-capped
Himalayas, lying tier upon tier like silhouettes of huge polar bears.
My eyes feasted exultingly on endless reaches of icy mountains against
sunny blue skies.

I rolled merrily with my young companions, all wearing overcoats, on
the sparkling white slopes. On our downward trip we saw afar a vast
carpet of yellow flowers, wholly transfiguring the bleak hills.

Our next excursions were to the famous royal “pleasure gardens” of the
Emperor Jehangir, at Shalimar and Nishat Bagh. The ancient palace at
Nishat Bagh is built directly over a natural waterfall. Rushing down
from the mountains, the torrent has been regulated through ingenious
contrivances to flow over colorful terraces and to gush into fountains
amidst the dazzling flower-beds. The stream also enters several of the
palace rooms, ultimately dropping fairy like into the lake below. The
immense gardens are riotous with color- roses of a dozen hues,
snapdragons, lavender, pansies, poppies. An emerald enclosing outline
is given by symmetrical rows of chinars , ^21-2 cypresses, cherry
trees; beyond them tower the white austerities of the Himalayas.

Kashmir grapes are considered a rare delicacy in Calcutta. Rajendra,
who had been promising himself a veritable feast on reaching Kashmir,
was disappointed to find there no large vineyards. Now and then I
chaffed him jocosely over his baseless anticipation.

“Oh, I have become so much gorged with grapes I can’t walk!” I would
say. “The invisible grapes are brewing within me!” Later I heard that
sweet grapes grow abundantly in Kabul, west of Kashmir. We consoled
ourselves with ice cream made of rabri , a heavily condensed milk, and
flavored with whole pistachio nuts.

We took several trips in the shikaras or houseboats, shaded by red-
embroidered canopies, coursing along the intricate channels of Dal
Lake, a network of canals like a watery spider web. Here the numerous
floating gardens, crudely improvised with logs and earth, strike one
with amazement, so incongruous is the first sight of vegetables and
melons growing in the midst of vast waters. Occasionally one sees a
peasant, disdaining to be “rooted to the soil,” towing his square plot
of “land” to a new location in the many-fingered lake.

In this storied vale one finds an epitome of all the earth’s beauties.
The Lady of Kashmir is mountain-crowned, lake-garlanded, and flower-
shod. In later years, after I had toured many distant lands, I
understood why Kashmir is often called the world’s most scenic spot.
It possesses some of the charms of the Swiss Alps, and of Loch Lomond
in Scotland, and of the exquisite English lakes. An American traveler
in Kashmir finds much to remind him of the rugged grandeur of Alaska
and of Pikes Peak near Denver.

As entries in a scenic beauty contest, I offer for first prize either
the gorgeous view of Xochimilco in Mexico, where mountains, skies, and
poplars reflect themselves in myriad lanes of water amidst the playful
fish, or the jewel-like lakes of Kashmir, guarded like beautiful
maidens by the stern surveillance of the Himalayas. These two places
stand out in my memory as the loveliest spots on earth.

Yet I was awed also when I first beheld the wonders of Yellowstone
National Park and of the Grand Canyon of the Colorado, and of Alaska.
Yellowstone Park is perhaps the only region where one can see
innumerable geysers shooting high into the air, performing year after
year with clockwork regularity. Its opal and sapphire pools and hot
sulphurous springs, its bears and wild creatures, remind one that here
Nature left a specimen of her earliest creation. Motoring along the
roads of Wyoming to the “Devil’s Paint Pot” of hot bubbling mud, with
gurgling springs, vaporous fountains, and spouting geysers in all
directions, I was disposed to say that Yellowstone deserves a special
prize for uniqueness.

The ancient majestic redwoods of Yosemite, stretching their huge
columns far into the unfathomable sky, are green natural cathedrals
designed with skill divine. Though there are wonderful falls in the
Orient, none match the torrential beauty of Niagara near the Canadian
border. The Mammoth Caves of Kentucky and the Carlsbad Caverns in New
Mexico, with colorful iciclelike formations, are stunning fairylands.
Their long needles of stalactite spires, hanging from cave ceilings
and mirrored in underground waters, present a glimpse of other worlds
as fancied by man.

Most of the Hindus of Kashmir, world-famed for their beauty, are as
white as Europeans and have similar features and bone structure; many
have blue eyes and blonde hair. Dressed in Western clothes, they look
like Americans. The cold Himalayas protect the Kashmiris from the
sultry sun and preserve their light complexions. As one travels to the
southern and tropical latitudes of India, he finds progressively that
the people become darker and darker.

After spending happy weeks in Kashmir, I was forced to return to
Bengal for the fall term of Serampore College. Sri Yukteswar remained
in Srinagar, with Kanai and Auddy. Before I departed, Master hinted
that his body would be subject to suffering in Kashmir.

“Sir, you look a picture of health,” I protested.

“There is a chance that I may even leave this earth.”

“Guruji!” I fell at his feet with an imploring gesture. “Please
promise that you won’t leave your body now. I am utterly unprepared to
carry on without you.”

Sri Yukteswar was silent, but smiled at me so compassionately that I
felt reassured. Reluctantly I left him.

“Master dangerously ill.” This telegram from Auddy reached me shortly
after my return to Serampore.

“Sir,” I wired my guru frantically, “I asked for your promise not to
leave me. Please keep your body; otherwise, I also shall die.”

“Be it as you wish.” This was Sri Yukteswar’s reply from Kashmir.

A letter from Auddy arrived in a few days, informing me that Master
had recovered. On his return to Serampore during the next fortnight, I
was grieved to find my guru’s body reduced to half its usual weight.

Fortunately for his disciples, Sri Yukteswar burned many of their sins
in the fire of his severe fever in Kashmir. The metaphysical method of
physical transfer of disease is known to highly advanced yogis. A
strong man can assist a weaker one by helping to carry his heavy load;
a spiritual superman is able to minimize his disciples’ physical or
mental burdens by sharing the karma of their past actions. Just as a
rich man loses some money when he pays off a large debt for his
prodigal son, who is thus saved from dire consequences of his own
folly, so a master willingly sacrifices a portion of his bodily wealth
to lighten the misery of disciples. ^21-3

By a secret method, the yogi unites his mind and astral vehicle with
those of a suffering individual; the disease is conveyed, wholly or in
part, to the saint’s body. Having harvested God on the physical field,
a master no longer cares what happens to that material form. Though he
may allow it to register a certain disease in order to relieve others,
his mind is never affected; he considers himself fortunate in being
able to render such aid.

The devotee who has achieved final salvation in the Lord finds that
his body has completely fulfilled its purpose; he can then use it in
any way he deems fit. His work in the world is to alleviate the
sorrows of mankind, whether through spiritual means or by intellectual
counsel or through will power or by the physical transfer of disease.
Escaping to the superconsciousness whenever he so desires, a master
can remain oblivious of physical suffering; sometimes he chooses to
bear bodily pain stoically, as an example to disciples. By putting on
the ailments of others, a yogi can satisfy, for them, the karmic law
of cause and effect. This law is mechanically or mathematically
operative; its workings can be scientifically manipulated by men of
divine wisdom.

The spiritual law does not require a master to become ill whenever he
heals another person. Healings ordinarily take place through the
saint’s knowledge of various methods of instantaneous cure in which no
hurt to the spiritual healer is involved. On rare occasions, however,
a master who wishes to greatly quicken his disciples’ evolution may
then voluntarily work out on his own body a large measure of their
undesirable karma.

Jesus signified himself as a ransom for the sins of many. With his
divine powers, ^21-4 his body could never have been subjected to
death by crucifixion if he had not willingly cooperated with the
subtle cosmic law of cause and effect. He thus took on himself the
consequences of others’ karma, especially that of his disciples. In
this manner they were highly purified and made fit to receive the
omnipresent consciousness which later descended on them.

Only a self-realized master can transfer his life force, or convey
into his own body the diseases of others. An ordinary man cannot
employ this yogic method of cure, nor is it desirable that he should
do so; for an unsound physical instrument is a hindrance to God-
meditation. The Hindu scriptures teach that the first duty of man is
to keep his body in good condition; otherwise his mind is unable to
remain fixed in devotional concentration.

A very strong mind, however, can transcend all physical difficulties
and attain to God-realization. Many saints have ignored illness and
succeeded in their divine quest. St. Francis of Assisi, severely
afflicted with ailments, healed others and even raised the dead.

I knew an Indian saint, half of whose body was once festering with
sores. His diabetic condition was so acute that under ordinary
conditions he could not sit still at one time for more than fifteen
minutes. But his spiritual aspiration was undeterrable. “Lord,” he
prayed, “wilt Thou come into my broken temple?” With ceaseless command
of will, the saint gradually became able to sit daily in the lotus
posture for eighteen continuous hours, engrossed in the ecstatic
trance.

“And,” he told me, “at the end of three years, I found the Infinite
Light blazing within my shattered form. Rejoicing in the joyful
splendour, I forgot the body. Later I saw that it had become whole
through the Divine Mercy.”

A historical healing incident concerns King Baber (1483-1530), founder
of the Mogul empire in India. His son, Prince Humayun, was mortally
ill. The father prayed with anguished determination that he receive
the sickness, and that his son be spared. After all physicians had
given up hope, Humayun recovered. Baber immediately fell sick and died
of the same disease which had stricken his son. Humayun succeeded
Baber as Emperor of Hindustan.

Many people imagine that every spiritual master has, or should have,
the health and strength of a Sandow. The assumption is unfounded. A
sickly body does not indicate that a guru is not in touch with divine
powers, any more than lifelong health necessarily indicates an inner
illumination. The condition of the physical body, in other words,
cannot rightfully be made a test of a master. His distinguishing
qualifications must be sought in his own domain, the spiritual.

Numerous bewildered seekers in the West erroneously think that an
eloquent speaker or writer on metaphysics must be a master. The
rishis, however, have pointed out that the acid test of a master is a
man’s ability to enter at will the breathless state, and to maintain
the unbroken samadhi of nirbikalpa . ^21-5 Only by these achievements
can a human being prove that he has “mastered” maya or the dualistic
Cosmic Delusion. He alone can say from the depths of realization:
“Ekam sat ,”-“Only One exists.”

“The Vedas declare that the ignorant man who rests content with making
the slightest distinction between the individual soul and the Supreme
Self is exposed to danger,” Shankara the great monist has written.
“Where there is duality by virtue of ignorance, one sees all things as
distinct from the Self. When everything is seen as the Self, then
there is not even an atom other than the Self. . . .

“As soon as the knowledge of the Reality has sprung up, there can be
no fruits of past actions to be experienced, owing to the unreality of
the body, in the same way as there can be no dream after waking.”

Only great gurus are able to assume the karma of disciples. Sri
Yukteswar would not have suffered in Kashmir unless he had received
permission from the Spirit within him to help his disciples in that
strange way. Few saints were ever more sensitively equipped with
wisdom to carry out divine commands than my God-tuned Master.

When I ventured a few words of sympathy over his emaciated figure, my
guru said gaily:

“It has its good points; I am able now to get into some small ganjis
(undershirts) that I haven’t worn in years!”

Listening to Master’s jovial laugh, I remembered the words of St.
Francis de Sales: “A saint that is sad is a sad saint!”

“As a loyal Hindu wife, I do not wish to complain of my husband. But I
yearn to see him turn from his materialistic views. He delights in
ridiculing the pictures of saints in my meditation room. Dear brother,
I have deep faith that you can help him. Will you?”

My eldest sister Roma gazed beseechingly at me. I was paying a short
visit at her Calcutta home on Girish Vidyaratna Lane. Her plea touched
me, for she had exercised a profound spiritual influence over my early
life, and had lovingly tried to fill the void left in the family
circle by Mother’s death.

“Beloved sister, of course I will do anything I can.” I smiled, eager
to lift the gloom plainly visible on her face, in contrast to her
usual calm and cheerful expression.

Roma and I sat awhile in silent prayer for guidance. A year earlier,
my sister had asked me to initiate her into Kriya Yoga, in which she
was making notable progress.

An inspiration seized me. “Tomorrow,” I said, “I am going to the
Dakshineswar temple. Please come with me, and persuade your husband to
accompany us. I feel that in the vibrations of that holy place, Divine
Mother will touch his heart. But don’t disclose our object in wanting
him to go.”

Sister agreed hopefully. Very early the next morning I was pleased to
find that Roma and her husband were in readiness for the trip. As our
hackney carriage rattled along Upper Circular Road toward
Dakshineswar, my brother-in-law, Satish Chandra Bose, amused himself
by deriding spiritual gurus of the past, present, and future. I
noticed that Roma was quietly weeping.