Levi celerio autobiography of a yogi pdf
Autobiography of A Yogi Edition
Autobiography of A Yogi Edition
of a
Yogi
By Paramhansa Yogananda
With a Preface by
W. Y. Evans-Wentz, M.A., D. Litt., D. Sc.
“Except ye see signs and wonders,
ye will not believe.”—John
The Philosophical Library
New York
, , by
Paramhansa Yogananda
Printed in the United States of America
First Edition, First Printing Published by
The Philosophical Library, Inc.
15 East 40th Street
New York, N.
Y.
Reprint of the First Edition Published by
Crystal Clarity Publishers
Tyler Foote Road
Nevada City, CA
Second printing
2
Foreword
by Swami Kriyananda
(J. Donald Walters)
I met Paramhansa Yogananda as a result of reading this book. Finding it was, I must say, a
complete surprise. There it was, sitting “innocently” on a shelf in a book shop on Fifth Avenue in
New York.
I’d no idea how utterly this volume would revolutionize my life.
That was late in the summer of I was desperate to know truth. Nothing I’d
encountered had persuaded me that people were right in what they were urging on me as my
destiny. My father was a geologist working for a large oil company. My mother was respected
and happy in her social milieu.
Both were, in many ways, ideal parents; I’d never, for example,
known them even to have an argument. Their love and respect for one another were an
inspiration to their many friends.
Yet even so, I was not happy. Life must have more to offer, I felt, than marriage, a nice
home in a nice suburb, a socially acceptable job, and “cocktail party” friendships.
I was
desperately unhappy. I wanted God, and had no idea how to go about finding Him.
That was when I came upon this book. Reading it was the most moving experience of my
life. As I launched on this literary adventure, I found myself fluctuating between tears and
laughter: tears of joy, laughter of even greater joy.
Here, I knew, I had found someone at last who
had what I so urgently wanted: someone who knew God!
I took the next bus non-stop across the American continent: a journey of four days and four
nights to Los Angeles where he lived. The first words I addressed to him would have been
inconceivable to me a scant week earlier. Words such as guru, yoga, karma, and many others
that, nowadays, are part of common parlance were utterly new to me.
Yet my first words to him
were, “I want to be your disciple.” I knew to my core that here, before me, was my own so long-
needed guide to the Infinite.
To my indescribable joy, I was accepted.
His life, an epic of compassion, added further
proof that day of his unfathomable kindness: He took in a callow twenty-two-year-old, wholly
ignorant in spiritual matters, yet earnestly desirous of being taught. He must have realized what a
Herculean task he was assuming. Yet he resolved to do what he could to mold this lump of
unwieldy clay into some semblance of a yogi.
My own story, and what it meant to live with this great man of God, is related in The Path
(Autobiography of a Western Yogi).
The present brief testimony is only an invitation to you to
read the following pages.
No man, it has been said, is great in the eyes of his own valet. The saying becomes null and
void in the life of Paramhansa Yogananda. He remains the greatest man I have ever known. The
people closest to him were the ones who held him in the highest reverence and esteem.
3
There were, I confess, things in his book that I had to place mentally on a shelf—certainly
not because I disbelieved them, for my faith in him was complete—yet things nevertheless for
which my skeptical modern upbringing had not prepared me.
The longer I lived with him,
however, the more aware I became that wonders—well, why mince words? miracles!—were an
everyday feature of his life.
Dear Reader, if you are willing to risk a complete change in your life-outlook, read this
book! I promise you, it won’t devastate you. Rather, you will gain from it joyful new insight into
what life is really all about.
I met Paramhansa Yogananda fifty-six years ago.
Since then I have remained his devoted
disciple. And I become more certain every day that what he brought to the world was something
of which the whole human race stands in desperate need.
(Note: This PDF file does not contain the photos published with the original, edition;
nor is it formatted with the original pagination, due to the different, ”x11” page size of the
PDF.)
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Preface
By W.
Y. EVANS-WENTZ, M.A., ,
Jesus College, Oxford; Author of
The Tibetan Book of the Dead,
Tibet’s Great Yogi Milarepa,
Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines, etc.
The value of Yogananda’s Autobiography is greatly enhanced by the fact that it is one of the few
books in English about the wise men of India which has been written, not by a journalist or
foreigner, but by one of their own race and training—in short, a book about yogis by a yogi.
As
an eyewitness recountal of the extraordinary lives and powers of modern Hindu saints, the book
has importance both timely and timeless. To its illustrious author, whom I have had the pleasure
of knowing both in India and America, may every reader render due appreciation and gratitude.
His unusual life-document is certainly one of the most revealing of the depths of the Hindu mind
and heart, and of the spiritual wealth of India, ever to be published in the West.
It has been my privilege to have met one of the sages whose life-history is herein narrated—
Sri Yukteswar Giri.
A likeness of the venerable saint appeared as part of the frontispiece of my
Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines.* It was at Puri, in Orissa, on the Bay of Bengal, that I
encountered Sri Yukteswar. He was then the head of a quiet ashrama near the seashore there,
and was chiefly occupied in the spiritual training of a group of youthful disciples.
He expressed
keen interest in the welfare of the people of the United States and of all the Americas, and of
England, too, and questioned me concerning the distant activities, particularly those in
California, of his chief disciple, Paramhansa Yogananda, whom he dearly loved, and whom he
had sent, in , as his emissary to the West.
Sri Yukteswar was of gentle mien and voice, of pleasing presence, and worthy of the
veneration which his followers spontaneously accorded to him.
Every person who knew him,
whether of his own community or not, held him in the highest esteem. I vividly recall his tall,
straight, ascetic figure, garbed in the saffron-colored garb of one who has renounced worldly
quests, as he stood at the entrance of the hermitage to give me welcome. His hair was long and
somewhat curly, and his face bearded.
His body was muscularly firm, but slender and well-
formed, and his step energetic. He had chosen as his place of earthly abode the holy city of Puri,
whither multitudes of pious Hindus, representative of every province of India, come daily on
pilgrimage to the famed Temple of Jagannath, “Lord of the World.” It was at Puri that Sri
Yukteswar closed his mortal eyes, in , to the scenes of this transitory state of being and
passed on, knowing that his incarnation had been carried to a triumphant completion.
I am glad, indeed, to be able to record this testimony to the high character and holiness of
Sri Yukteswar.
Content to remain afar from the multitude, he gave himself unreservedly and in
5
tranquillity to that ideal life which Paramhansa Yogananda, his disciple, has now described for
the ages.
W. Y. EVANS-WENTZ
*Oxford University Press,
6
Author’s Acknowledgments
I am deeply indebted to Miss L. V. Pratt for her long editorial labors over the manuscript of
this book.
My thanks are due also to Miss Ruth Zahn for preparation of the index, to Mr. C.
Richard Wright for permission to use extracts from his Indian travel diary, and to Dr. W. Y.
Evans-Wentz for suggestions and encouragement.
PARAMHANSA YOGANANDA
October 28,
Encinitas, California
7
Contents
Preface, by W.
Y. EVANS-WENTZ
List of Illustrations
CHAPTER 1My Parents and Early Life
CHAPTER 2 My Mother’s Death and the Mystic Amulet 18
CHAPTER 3 The Saint with Two Bodies
CHAPTER 4 My Interrupted Flight Toward the Himalayas
CHAPTER 5 A “Perfume Saint” Displays his Wonders 36
CHAPTER 6 The Tiger Swami 42
CHAPTER 7 The Levitating Saint 49
CHAPTER 8 India’s Great Scientist, J.
C. Bose 53
CHAPTER 9 The Blissful Devotee and his Cosmic Romance
CHAPTER 10 I Meet my Master, Sri Yukteswar 64
CHAPTER 11 Two Penniless Boys in Brindaban 72
CHAPTER 12 Years in my Master’s Hermitage 78
CHAPTER 13 The Sleepless Saint 99
CHAPTER 14 An Experience in Cosmic Consciousness
CHAPTER 15 The Cauliflower Robbery
CHAPTER 16 Outwitting the Stars
CHAPTER 17 Sasi and the Three Sapphires
CHAPTER 18 A Mohammedan Wonder-Worker
CHAPTER 19 My Master, in Calcutta, Appears in Serampore
CHAPTER 20 We Do Not Visit Kashmir
CHAPTER 21 We Visit Kashmir
CHAPTER 22 The Heart of a Stone Image
CHAPTER 23 I Receive My University Degree
CHAPTER 24 I Become a Monk of the Swami Order
CHAPTER 25 Brother Ananta and Sister Nalini
CHAPTER 26 The Science of Kriya Yoga
CHAPTER 27 Founding a Yoga School at Ranchi
CHAPTER 28 Kashi, Reborn and Rediscovered
CHAPTER 29 Rabindranath Tagore and I Compare Schools
CHAPTER 30 The Law of Miracles
CHAPTER 31 An Interview with the Sacred Mother
CHAPTER 32 Rama is Raised from the Dead
CHAPTER 33 Babaji, the Yogi-Christ of Modern India
CHAPTER 34 Materializing a Palace in the Himalayas
CHAPTER 35 The Christlike Life of Lahiri Mahasaya
CHAPTER 36 Babaji’s Interest in the West
CHAPTER 37 I Go to America
CHAPTER 38 Luther Burbank—A Saint Amidst the Roses
CHAPTER 39 Therese Neumann, the Catholic Stigmatist
CHAPTER 40 I Return to India
CHAPTER 41 An Idyl in South India
CHAPTER 42 Last Days with My Guru
CHAPTER 43 The Resurrection of Sri Yukteswar
CHAPTER 44 With Mahatma Gandhi at Wardha
CHAPTER 45 The Bengali “Joy-Permeated Mother”
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CHAPTER 46 The Woman Yogi Who Never Eats
CHAPTER 47 I Return to the West
CHAPTER 48 At Encinitas in California
Index
9
CHAPTER: 1
My Parents and Early Life
The characteristic features of Indian culture obstinate crying-spells.
I recall the general
have long been a search for ultimate verities family bewilderment at my distress. Happier
and the concomitant disciple-guru* memories, too, crowd in on me: my mother’s
relationship. My own path led me to a caresses, and my first attempts at lisping
Christlike sage whose beautiful life was phrase and toddling step.
These early
chiseled for the ages. He was one of the great triumphs, usually forgotten quickly, are yet a
masters who are India’s sole remaining natural basis of self-confidence.
wealth. Emerging in every generation, they My far-reaching memories are not
have bulwarked their land against the fate of unique. Many yogis are known to have
Babylon and Egypt.
retained their self-consciousness without
I find my earliest memories covering the interruption by the dramatic transition to and
anachronistic features of a previous from “life” and “death.” If man be solely a
incarnation. Clear recollections came to me of body, its loss indeed places the final period to
a distant life, a yogi† amidst the Himalayan identity.
But if prophets down the
snows. These glimpses of the past, by some millenniums spake with truth, man is
dimensionless link, also afforded me a essentially of incorporeal nature. The
glimpse of the future. persistent core of human egoity is only
temporarily allied with sense perception.
The helpless humiliations of infancy are
not banished from my mind.
I was resentfully Although odd, clear memories of infancy
conscious of not being able to walk or express are not extremely rare. During travels in
myself freely. Prayerful surges arose within numerous lands, I have listened to early
me as I realized my bodily impotence. My recollections from the lips of veracious men
strong emotional life took silent form as and women.
words in many languages.
Among the inward I was born in the last decade of the
confusion of tongues, my ear gradually nineteenth century, and passed my first eight
accustomed itself to the circumambient years at Gorakhpur. This was my birthplace in
Bengali syllables of my people. The beguiling the United Provinces of northeastern India.
scope of an infant’s mind!
adultly considered We were eight children: four boys and four
limited to toys and toes. girls. I, Mukunda Lal Ghosh,‡ was the second
Psychological ferment and my son and the fourth child.
unresponsive body brought me to many
*Spiritual teacher; from Sanskrit root gur, to raise, to ‡My name was changed to Yogananda when I entered
uplift.
the ancient monastic Swami Order in My guru
†A practitioner of yoga, “union,” ancient Indian bestowed the religious title of Paramhansa on me in
science of meditation on God. (see chapters 24 and 42).
10
Father and Mother were Bengalis, of the budget. One fortnight Mother spent, in
Kshatriya caste.* Both were blessed with feeding the poor, more than Father’s monthly
saintly nature.
Their mutual love, tranquil and income.
dignified, never expressed itself frivolously. “All I ask, please, is to keep your
A perfect parental harmony was the calm charities within a reasonable limit.” Even a
center for the revolving tumult of eight young gentle rebuke from her husband was grievous
lives.
to Mother. She ordered a hackney carriage,
Father, Bhagabati Charan Ghosh, was not hinting to the children at any
kind, grave, at times stern. Loving him dearly, disagreement.
we children yet observed a certain reverential “Good-by; I am going away to my
distance. An outstanding mathematician and mother’s home.” Ancient ultimatum!
logician, he was guided principally by his
intellect.
But Mother was a queen of hearts, We broke into astounded lamentations.
and taught us only through love. After her Our maternal uncle arrived opportunely; he
death, Father displayed more of his inner whispered to Father some sage counsel,
tenderness. I noticed then that his gaze often garnered no doubt from the ages.
After Father
metamorphosed into my mother’s. had made a few conciliatory remarks, Mother
happily dismissed the cab. Thus ended the
In Mother’s presence we tasted our only trouble I ever noticed between my
earliest bitter-sweet acquaintance with the parents. But I recall a characteristic
scriptures. Tales from the Mahabharata and discussion.
Ramayana† were resourcefully summoned to
meet the exigencies of discipline.
Instruction “Please give me ten rupees for a hapless
and chastisement went hand in hand. woman who has just arrived at the house.”
Mother’s smile had its own persuasion.
A daily gesture of respect to Father was
given by Mother’s dressing us carefully in the “Why ten rupees? One is enough.” Father
afternoons to welcome him home from the added a justification: “When my father and
office.
His position was similar to that of a grandparents died suddenly, I had my first
vice-president, in the Bengal-Nagpur taste of poverty. My only breakfast, before
Railway, one of India’s large companies. His walking miles to my school, was a small
work involved traveling, and our family lived banana. Later, at the university, I was in such
in several cities during my childhood.
need that I applied to a wealthy judge for aid
of one rupee per month. He declined,
Mother held an open hand toward the remarking that even a rupee is important.”
needy. Father was also kindly disposed, but
his respect for law and order extended to the “How bitterly you recall the denial of that
rupee!” Mother’s heart had an instant logic.
*Traditionally, the second caste of warriors and rulers.
“Do you want this woman also to remember
†These ancient epics are the hoard of India’s history, painfully your refusal of ten rupees which she
mythology, and philosophy. An “Everyman’s Library”
volume, Ramayana and Mahabharata, is a needs urgently?”
condensation in English verse by Romesh Dutt (New
York: E.
P. Dutton).
11
“You win!” With the immemorial gesture Several years after Father had retired on a
of vanquished husbands, he opened his wallet. pension, an English accountant arrived to
“Here is a ten-rupee note. Give it to her with examine the books of the Bengal-Nagpur
my good will.” Railway Company.
The amazed investigator
discovered that Father had never applied for
Father tended to first say “No” to any
overdue bonuses.
new proposal. His attitude toward the strange
woman who so readily enlisted Mother’s “He did the work of three men!” the
sympathy was an example of his customary accountant told the company.
“He has rupees
caution. Aversion to instant acceptance— , (about $41,) owing to him as
typical of the French mind in the West—is back compensation.” The officials presented
really only honoring the principle of “due Father with a check for this amount. He
reflection.” I always found Father reasonable thought so little about it that he overlooked
and evenly balanced in his judgments.
If I any mention to the family. Much later he was
could bolster up my numerous requests with questioned by my youngest brother Bishnu,
one or two good arguments, he invariably put who noticed the large deposit on a bank
the coveted goal within my reach, whether it statement.
were a vacation trip or a new motorcycle.
“Why be elated by material profit?”
Father was a strict disciplinarian to his Father replied. “The one who pursues a goal
children in their early years, but his attitude of evenmindedness is neither jubilant with
toward himself was truly Spartan. He never gain nor depressed by loss. He knows that
visited the theater, for instance, but sought his man arrives penniless in this world, and
recreation in various spiritual practices and in departs without a single rupee.”
reading the Bhagavad Gita.* Shunning all Early in their married life, my parents
luxuries, he would cling to one old pair of became disciples of a great master, Lahiri
shoes until they were useless.
His sons bought Mahasaya of Benares. This contact
automobiles after they came into popular use, strengthened Father’s naturally ascetical
but Father was always content with the trolley temperament. Mother made a remarkable
car for his daily ride to the office. The admission to my eldest sister Roma: “Your
accumulation of money for the sake of power father and myself live together as man and
was alien to his nature.
Once, after organizing wife only once a year, for the purpose of
the Calcutta Urban Bank, he refused to having children.”
benefit himself by holding any of its shares.
He had simply wished to perform a civic duty Father first met Lahiri Mahasaya through
in his spare time. Abinash Babu,† an employee in the
Gorakhpur office of the Bengal-Nagpur
*This noble Sanskrit poem, which occurs as part of the Railway.
Abinash instructed my young ears
Mahabharata epic, is the Hindu Bible. The most with engrossing tales of many Indian saints.
poetical English translation is Edwin Arnold’s The
Song Celestial (Philadelphia: David McKay, 75ø). One
of the best translations with detailed commentary is Sri
Aurobindo’s Message of the Gita (Jupiter Press, 16
Semudoss St., Madras, India, $).
†Babu (Mister) is placed in Bengali names at the end.
12
He invariably concluded with a tribute to the exclaiming, ‘Lahiri Mahasaya! Lahiri
superior glories of his own guru. Mahasaya!’ Your father was motionless with
stupefaction for a few moments.
“Did you ever hear of the extraordinary
circumstances under which your father “‘Abinash, not only do I give you leave,
became a disciple of Lahiri Mahasaya?” but I give myself leave to start for Benares
tomorrow.
I must know this great Lahiri
It was on a lazy summer afternoon, as
Mahasaya, who is able to materialize himself
Abinash and I sat together in the compound of
at will in order to intercede for you! I will
my home, that he put this intriguing question.
take my wife and ask this master to initiate us
I shook my head with a smile of anticipation.
in his spiritual path.
Will you guide us to
“Years ago, before you were born, I him?’
asked my superior officer—your father—to
“‘Of course.’ Joy filled me at the
give me a week’s leave from my Gorakhpur
miraculous answer to my prayer, and the
duties in order to visit my guru in Benares.
quick, favorable turn of events.
Your father ridiculed my plan.
“The next evening your parents and I
“‘Are you going to become a religious
entrained for Benares.
We took a horse cart
fanatic?’ he inquired. ‘Concentrate on your
the following day, and then had to walk
office work if you want to forge ahead.’
through narrow lanes to my guru’s secluded
“Sadly walking home along a woodland home. Entering his little parlor, we bowed
path that day, I met your father in a palanquin. before the master, enlocked in his habitual
He dismissed his servants and conveyance, lotus posture.
He blinked his piercing eyes
and fell into step beside me. Seeking to and leveled them on your father.
console me, he pointed out the advantages of
“‘Bhagabati, you are too hard on your
striving for worldly success. But I heard him
employee!’ His words were the same as those
listlessly. My heart was repeating: ‘Lahiri
he had used two days before in the Gorakhpur
Mahasaya!
I cannot live without seeing you!’
field. He added, ‘I am glad that you have
“Our path took us to the edge of a allowed Abinash to visit me, and that you and
tranquil field, where the rays of the late your wife have accompanied him.’
afternoon sun were still crowning the tall
“To their joy, he initiated your parents in
ripple of the wild grass.
We paused in
the spiritual practice of Kriya Yoga.† Your
admiration. There in the field, only a few
father and I, as brother disciples, have been
yards from us, the form of my great guru
close friends since the memorable day of the
suddenly appeared!*
vision. Lahiri Mahasaya took a definite
“‘Bhagabati, you are too hard on your interest in your own birth.
Your life shall
employee!’ His voice was resonant in our
astounded ears. He vanished as mysteriously
*The phenomenal powers possessed by great masters
as he had come. On my knees I was are explained in chapter 30, “The Law of Miracles.”
†A yogic technique whereby the sensory tumult is
stilled, permitting man to achieve an ever-increasing
identity with cosmic consciousness.
(See p. )
13
surely be linked with his own: the master’s family estate in Ichapur, Bengal, I was
blessing never fails.” stricken with Asiatic cholera. My life was
despaired of; the doctors could do nothing. At
Lahiri Mahasaya left this world shortly
my bedside, Mother frantically motioned me
after I had entered it.
His picture, in an ornate
to look at Lahiri Mahasaya’s picture on the
frame, always graced our family altar in the
wall above my head.
various cities to which Father was transferred
by his office. Many a morning and evening “Bow to him mentally!” She knew I was
found Mother and me meditating before an too feeble even to lift my hands in salutation.
improvised shrine, offering flowers dipped in “If you really show your devotion and
fragrant sandalwood paste.
With frankincense inwardly kneel before him, your life will be
and myrrh as well as our united devotions, we spared!”
honored the divinity which had found full I gazed at his photograph and saw there a
expression in Lahiri Mahasaya. blinding light, enveloping my body and the
His picture had a surpassing influence entire room.
My nausea and other
over my life. As I grew, the thought of the uncontrollable symptoms disappeared; I was
master grew with me. In meditation I would well. At once I felt strong enough to bend
often see his photographic image emerge over and touch Mother’s feet in appreciation
from its small frame and, taking a living form, of her immeasurable faith in her guru.
Mother
sit before me. When I attempted to touch the pressed her head repeatedly against the little
feet of his luminous body, it would change picture.
and again become the picture. As childhood “O Omnipresent Master, I thank thee that
slipped into boyhood, I found Lahiri thy light hath healed my son!”
Mahasaya transformed in my mind from a
little image, cribbed in a frame, to a living, I realized that she too had witnessed the
enlightening presence.
I frequently prayed to luminous blaze through which I had instantly
him in moments of trial or confusion, finding recovered from a usually fatal disease.
within me his solacing direction. At first I One of my most precious possessions is
grieved because he was no longer physically that same photograph.
Given to Father by
living. As I began to discover his secret Lahiri Mahasaya himself, it carries a holy
omnipresence, I lamented no more. He had vibration. The picture had a miraculous
often written to those of his disciples who origin. I heard the story from Father’s brother
were over-anxious to see him: “Why come to disciple, Kali Kumar Roy.
view my bones and flesh, when I am ever
It appears that the master had an aversion
within range of your kutastha (spiritual
to being photographed.
Over his protest, a
sight)?”
group picture was once taken of him and a
I was blessed about the age of eight with cluster of devotees, including Kali Kumar
a wonderful healing through the photograph Roy. It was an amazed photographer who
of Lahiri Mahasaya. This experience gave discovered that the plate which had clear
intensification to my love.
While at our images of all the disciples, revealed nothing
14
more than a blank space in the center where direction on the outer world, are half closed
he had reasonably expected to find the also. Completely oblivious to the poor lures
outlines of Lahiri Mahasaya. The of the earth, he was fully awake at all times to
phenomenon was widely discussed.
the spiritual problems of seekers who
approached for his bounty.
A certain student and expert
photographer, Ganga Dhar Babu, boasted that Shortly after my healing through the
the fugitive figure would not escape him. The potency of the guru’s picture, I had an
next morning, as the guru sat in lotus posture influential spiritual vision.
Sitting on my bed
on a wooden bench with a screen behind him, one morning, I fell into a deep reverie.
Ganga Dhar Babu arrived with his equipment. “What is behind the darkness of closed
Taking every precaution for success, he eyes?” This probing thought came powerfully
greedily exposed twelve plates.
On each one into my mind. An immense flash of light at
he soon found the imprint of the wooden once manifested to my inward gaze. Divine
bench and screen, but once again the master’s shapes of saints, sitting in meditation posture
form was missing. in mountain caves, formed like miniature
With tears and shattered pride, Ganga cinema pictures on the large screen of
Dhar Babu sought out his guru.
It was many radiance within my forehead.
hours before Lahiri Mahasaya broke his “Who are you?” I spoke aloud.
silence with a pregnant comment:
“We are the Himalayan yogis.” The
“I am Spirit. Can your camera reflect the celestial response is difficult to describe; my
omnipresent Invisible?” heart was thrilled.
“I see it cannot!
But, Holy Sir, I lovingly “Ah, I long to go to the Himalayas and
desire a picture of the bodily temple where become like you!” The vision vanished, but
alone, to my narrow vision, that Spirit appears the silvery beams expanded in ever-widening
fully to dwell.” circles to infinity.
“Come, then, tomorrow morning. I will “What is this wondrous glow?”
pose for you.”
“I am Iswara.* I am Light.” The voice
Again the photographer focused his was as murmuring clouds.
camera.
This time the sacred figure, not
cloaked with mysterious imperceptibility, was “I want to be one with Thee!”
sharp on the plate. The master never posed for Out of the slow dwindling of my divine
another picture; at least, I have seen none. ecstasy, I salvaged a permanent legacy of
The photograph is reproduced in this inspiration to seek God.
“He is eternal, ever-
book. Lahiri Mahasaya’s fair features, of a
universal cast, hardly suggest to what race he
belonged. His intense joy of God-communion *A Sanskrit name for God as Ruler of the universe;
is slightly revealed in a somewhat enigmatic from the root is, to rule. There are names for God
in the Hindu scriptures, each one carrying a different
smile.
His eyes, half open to denote a nominal shade of philosophical meaning.
15
new Joy!” This memory persisted long after My boil was surgically treated. A
the day of rapture. noticeable scar, left by the doctor’s incision,
is present today. On my right forearm is a
Another early recollection is outstanding;
constant reminder of the power in man’s sheer
and literally so, for I bear the scar to this day.
word.
My elder sister Uma and I were seated in the
early morning under a neem tree in our Those simple and apparently harmless
Gorakhpur compound.
She was helping me phrases to Uma, spoken with deep
with a Bengali primer, what time I could concentration, had possessed sufficient hidden
spare my gaze from the near-by parrots eating force to explode like bombs and produce
ripe margosa fruit. Uma complained of a boil definite, though injurious, effects. I
on her leg, and fetched a jar of ointment.
I understood, later, that the explosive vibratory
smeared a bit of the salve on my forearm. power in speech could be wisely directed to
free one’s life from difficulties, and thus
“Why do you use medicine on a healthy
operate without scar or rebuke.*
arm?”
Our family moved to Lahore in the
“Well, Sis, I feel I am going to have a
Punjab.
There I acquired a picture of the
boil tomorrow. I am testing your ointment on
Divine Mother in the form of the Goddess
the spot where the boil will appear.”
Kali.* It sanctified a small informal shrine on
“You little liar!” the balcony of our home. An unequivocal
“Sis, don’t call me a liar until you see
what happens in the morning.” Indignation
filled me.
*The infinite potencies of sound derive from the
Creative Word, Aum, the cosmic vibratory power
Uma was unimpressed, and thrice behind all atomic energies. Any word spoken with
repeated her taunt. An adamant resolution clear realization and deep concentration has a
materializing value. Loud or silent repetition of
sounded in my voice as I made slow reply.
inspiring words has been found effective in Coueism
and similar systems of psychotherapy; the secret lies in
“By the power of will in me, I say that the stepping-up of the mind’s vibratory rate. The poet
tomorrow I shall have a fairly large boil in Tennyson has left us, in his Memoirs, an account of his
this exact place on my arm; and your boil repetitious device for passing beyond the conscious
mind into superconsciousness:
shall swell to twice its present size!” “A kind of waking trance—this for lack of a better
word—I have frequently had, quite up from boyhood,
Morning found me with a stalwart boil on when I have been all alone,” Tennyson wrote.
“This
the indicated spot; the dimensions of Uma’s has come upon me through repeating my own name to
boil had doubled. With a shriek, my sister myself silently, till all at once, as it were out of the
intensity of the consciousness of individuality,
rushed to Mother. “Mukunda has become a individuality itself seemed to dissolve and fade away
necromancer!” Gravely, Mother instructed me into boundless being, and this not a confused state but
the clearest, the surest of the surest, utterly beyond
never to use the power of words for doing words—where death was an almost laughable
harm.
I have always remembered her counsel, impossibility—the loss of personality (if so it were)
and followed it.
Autobiography of a yogi in telugu: They express as habits, which in turn ossify into a desirable or an undesirable body. No patents will ever be taken. I know the divine will of Lahiri Mahasaya worked through the doctor and the railroad officials, including your father. His striking parables were expressed in a flawless Bengali.
seeming no extinction, but the only true life.” He wrote
further: “It is no nebulous ecstasy, but a state of
transcendent wonder, associated with absolute
clearness of mind.”
16
conviction came over me that fulfillment I continued my prayers with a crescendo
would crown any of my prayers uttered in that intensity.
A forcible tug by the other player
sacred spot. Standing there with Uma one resulted in the abrupt loss of his kite. It
day, I watched two kites flying over the roofs headed toward me, dancing in the wind. My
of the buildings on the opposite side of the helpful assistant, the cactus plant, again
very narrow lane.
secured the kite string in the necessary loop
by which I could grasp it. I presented my
“Why are you so quiet?” Uma pushed me
second trophy to Uma.
playfully.
“Indeed, Divine Mother listens to you!
“I am just thinking how wonderful it is
This is all too uncanny for me!” Sister bolted
that Divine Mother gives me whatever I ask.”
away like a frightened fawn.
“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.
*Kali is a symbol of God in the aspect of eternal Mother Nature.
17
CHAPTER: 2
My Mother’s Death and the Mystic Amulet
My mother’s greatest desire was the marriage bungalow, I was awakened by a peculiar
of my elder brother.
“Ah, when I behold the flutter of the mosquito netting over the bed.
face of Ananta’s wife, I shall find heaven on The flimsy curtains parted and I saw the
this earth!” I frequently heard Mother express beloved form of my mother.
in these words her strong Indian sentiment for “Awaken your father!” Her voice was
family continuity.
only a whisper. “Take the first available train,
I was about eleven years old at the time at four o’clock this morning. Rush to Calcutta
of Ananta’s betrothal. Mother was in if you would see me!” The wraithlike figure
Calcutta, joyously supervising the wedding vanished.
preparations.
Father and I alone remained at “Father, Father! Mother is dying!” The
our home in Bareilly in northern India, terror in my tone aroused him instantly. I
whence Father had been transferred after two sobbed out the fatal tidings.
years at Lahore.
“Never mind that hallucination of yours.”
I had previously witnessed the splendor Father gave his characteristic negation to a
of nuptial rites for my two elder sisters, Roma new situation.
“Your mother is in excellent
and Uma; but for Ananta, as the eldest son, health. If we get any bad news, we shall leave
plans were truly elaborate. Mother was tomorrow.”
welcoming numerous relatives, daily arriving
in Calcutta from distant homes. She lodged “You shall never forgive yourself for not
them comfortably in a large, newly acquired starting now!” Anguish caused me to add
house at 50 Amherst Street.
Everything was bitterly, “Nor shall I ever forgive you!”
in readiness—the banquet delicacies, the gay The melancholy morning came with
throne on which Brother was to be carried to explicit words: “Mother dangerously ill;
the home of the bride-to-be, the rows of marriage postponed; come at once.”
colorful lights, the mammoth cardboard
Father and I left distractedly.
One of my
elephants and camels, the English, Scottish
uncles met us en route at a transfer point. A
and Indian orchestras, the professional
train thundered toward us, looming with
entertainers, the priests for the ancient rituals.
telescopic increase. From my inner tumult, an
Father and I, in gala spirits, were abrupt determination arose to hurl myself on
planning to join the family in time for the the railroad tracks.
Already bereft, I felt, of
ceremony. Shortly before the great day, my mother, I could not endure a world
however, I had an ominous vision. suddenly barren to the bone. I loved Mother
It was in Bareilly on a midnight. As I as my dearest friend on earth. Her solacing
slept beside Father on the piazza of our
black eyes had been my surest refuge in the the high mountain abode of yogis and
trifling tragedies of childhood.
swamis.*
“Does she yet live?” I stopped for one “Let us run away to the Himalayas.” My
last question to my uncle. suggestion one day to Dwarka Prasad, the
young son of our landlord in Bareilly, fell on
“Of course she is alive!” He was not slow
unsympathetic ears. He revealed my plan to
to interpret the desperation in my face.
But I
my elder brother, who had just arrived to see
scarcely believed him.
Father. Instead of laughing lightly over this
When we reached our Calcutta home, it impractical scheme of a small boy, Ananta
was only to confront the stunning mystery of made it a definite point to ridicule me.
death. I collapsed into an almost lifeless state.
“Where is your orange robe?
You can’t
Years passed before any reconciliation
be a swami without that!”
entered my heart. Storming the very gates of
heaven, my cries at last summoned the Divine But I was inexplicably thrilled by his
Mother. Her words brought final healing to words. They brought a clear picture of myself
my suppurating wounds: roaming about India as a monk.
Perhaps they
awakened memories of a past life; in any
“It is I who have watched over thee, life
case, I began to see with what natural ease I
after life, in the tenderness of many mothers!
would wear the garb of that anciently-founded
See in My gaze the two black eyes, the lost
monastic order.
beautiful eyes, thou seekest!”
Chatting one morning with Dwarka, I felt
Father and I returned to Bareilly soon
a love for God descending with avalanchic
after the crematory rites for the well-beloved.
force.
My companion was only partly
Early every morning I made a pathetic
attentive to the ensuing eloquence, but I was
memorial-pilgrimage to a large sheoli tree
wholeheartedly listening to myself.
which shaded the smooth, green-gold lawn
before our bungalow. In poetical moments, I I fled that afternoon toward Naini Tal in
thought that the white sheoli flowers were the Himalayan foothills.
Ananta gave
strewing themselves with a willing devotion determined chase; I was forced to return sadly
over the grassy altar. Mingling tears with the to Bareilly. The only pilgrimage permitted me
dew, I often observed a strange other-worldly was the customary one at dawn to the sheoli
light emerging from the dawn.
Intense pangs tree. My heart wept for the lost Mothers,
of longing for God assailed me. I felt human and divine.
powerfully drawn to the Himalayas. The rent left in the family fabric by
One of my cousins, fresh from a period Mother’s death was irreparable. Father never
of travel in the holy hills, visited us in remarried during his nearly forty remaining
Bareilly.
I listened eagerly to his tales about
*Sanskrit root meaning of swami is “he who is one
with his Self (Swa).” Applied to a member of the
Indian order of monks, the title has the formal respect
of “the reverend.”
19
years. Assuming the difficult role of Father- “Let these words be my final blessing,
Mother to his little flock, he grew noticeably my beloved son Mukunda!” Mother had said.
more tender, more approachable.
With “The hour is here when I must relate a
calmness and insight, he solved the various number of phenomenal events following your
family problems. After office hours he retired birth. I first knew your destined path when
like a hermit to the cell of his room, you were but a babe in my arms. I carried you
practicing Kriya Yoga in a sweet serenity.
then to the home of my guru in Benares.
Long after Mother’s death, I attempted to Almost hidden behind a throng of disciples, I
engage an English nurse to attend to details could barely see Lahiri Mahasaya as he sat in
that would make my parent’s life more deep meditation.
comfortable. But Father shook his head.
“While I patted you, I was praying that
“Service to me ended with your mother.” the great guru take notice and bestow a
His eyes were remote with a lifelong blessing. As my silent devotional demand
devotion. “I will not accept ministrations from grew in intensity, he opened his eyes and
any other woman.” beckoned me to approach.
The others made a
way for me; I bowed at the sacred feet. My
Fourteen months after Mother’s passing,
master seated you on his lap, placing his hand
I learned that she had left me a momentous
on your forehead by way of spiritually
message. Ananta was present at her deathbed
baptizing you.
and had recorded her words. Although she
had asked that the disclosure be made to me “‘Little mother, thy son will be a yogi.
As
in one year, my brother delayed. He was soon a spiritual engine, he will carry many souls to
to leave Bareilly for Calcutta, to marry the God’s kingdom.’
girl Mother had chosen for him.* One “My heart leaped with joy to find my
evening he summoned me to his side. secret prayer granted by the omniscient guru.
“Mukunda, I have been reluctant to give Shortly before your birth, he had told me you
you strange tidings.” Ananta’s tone held a would follow his path.
note of resignation.
“My fear was to inflame “Later, my son, your vision of the Great
your desire to leave home. But in any case Light was known to me and your sister Roma,
you are bristling with divine ardor. When I as from the next room we observed you
captured you recently on your way to the motionless on the bed. Your little face was
Himalayas, I came to a definite resolve.
I illuminated; your voice rang with iron resolve
must not further postpone the fulfillment of as you spoke of going to the Himalayas in
my solemn promise.” My brother handed me quest of the Divine.
a small box, and delivered Mother’s message.
“In these ways, dear son, I came to know
that your road lies far from worldly
ambitions.
The most singular event in my life
*The Indian custom, whereby parents choose the life- brought further confirmation—an event which
partner for their child, has resisted the blunt assaults of
time. The percentage is high of happy Indian
now impels my deathbed message.
marriages.
20
“It was an interview with a sage in the “I proffered alms‡ to the saint, and
Punjab.
While our family was living in bowed before him in great reverence. Not
Lahore, one morning the servant came taking the offering, he departed with a
precipitantly into my room. blessing. The next evening, as I sat with
folded hands in meditation, a silver amulet
“‘Mistress, a strange sadhu* is here. He
materialized between my palms, even as the
insists that he “see the mother of Mukunda.”’
sadhu had promised.
It made itself known by
“These simple words struck a profound a cold, smooth touch. I have jealously
chord within me; I went at once to greet the guarded it for more than two years, and now
visitor. Bowing at his feet, I sensed that leave it in Ananta’s keeping. Do not grieve
before me was a true man of God.
for me, as I shall have been ushered by my
“‘Mother,’ he said, ‘the great masters great guru into the arms of the Infinite.
wish you to know that your stay on earth will Farewell, my child; the Cosmic Mother will
not be long. Your next illness shall prove to protect you.”
be your last.’† There was a silence, during A blaze of illumination came over me
which I felt no alarm but only a vibration of with possession of the amulet; many dormant
great peace.
Finally he addressed me again: memories awakened. The talisman, round and
“‘You are to be the custodian of a certain anciently quaint, was covered with Sanskrit
silver amulet. I will not give it to you today; characters. I understood that it came from
to demonstrate the truth in my words, the teachers of past lives, who were invisibly
talisman shall materialize in your hands guiding my steps.
A further significance there
tomorrow as you meditate. On your deathbed, was, indeed; but one does not reveal fully the
you must instruct your eldest son Ananta to heart of an amulet.
keep the amulet for one year and then to hand How the talisman finally vanished amidst
it over to your second son. Mukunda will deeply unhappy circumstances of my life; and
understand the meaning of the talisman from how its loss was a herald of my gain of a
the great ones.
He should receive it about the guru, cannot be told in this chapter.
time he is ready to renounce all worldly hopes
But the small boy, thwarted in his
and start his vital search for God. When he
attempts to reach the Himalayas, daily
has retained the amulet for some years, and
traveled far on the wings of his amulet.
when it has served its purpose, it shall vanish.
Even if kept in the most secret spot, it shall
return whence it came.’
*An anchorite; one who pursues a sadhana or path of
spiritual discipline.
†When I discovered by these words that Mother had
possessed secret knowledge of a short life, I understood
for the first time why she had been insistent on
hastening the plans for Ananta’s marriage.
Though she
died before the wedding, her natural maternal wish had
been to witness the rites. ‡A customary gesture of respect to sadhus.
21
CHAPTER: 3
The Saint with Two Bodies
“
Father, if I promise to return home without open; I made my way to a long, hall-like
coercion, may I take a sight-seeing trip to room on the second floor.
A rather stout man,
Benares?” wearing only a loincloth, was seated in lotus
posture on a slightly raised platform. His head
My keen love of travel was seldom
and unwrinkled face were clean-shaven; a
hindered by Father. He permitted me, even as
beatific smile played about his lips. To dispel
a mere boy, to visit many cities and
my thought that I had intruded, he greeted me
pilgrimage spots.
Usually one or more of my
as an old friend.
friends accompanied me; we would travel
comfortably on first-class passes provided by “Baba anand (bliss to my dear one).” His
Father. His position as a railroad official was welcome was given heartily in a childlike
fully satisfactory to the nomads in the family. voice. I knelt and touched his feet.
Father promised to give my request due “Are you Swami Pranabananda?”
consideration.
The next day he summoned me He nodded. “Are you Bhagabati’s son?”
and held out a round-trip pass from Bareilly His words were out before I had had time to
to Benares, a number of rupee notes, and two get Father’s letter from my pocket. In
letters. astonishment, I handed him the note of
“I have a business matter to propose to a introduction, which now seemed superfluous.
Benares friend, Kedar Nath Babu.
“Of course I will locate Kedar Nath Babu
Unfortunately I have lost his address. But I for you.” The saint again surprised me by his
believe you will be able to get this letter to clairvoyance. He glanced at the letter, and
him through our common friend, Swami made a few affectionate references to my
Pranabananda.
The swami, my brother parent.
disciple, has attained an exalted spiritual
stature. You will benefit by his company; this “You know, I am enjoying two pensions.
second note will serve as your introduction.” One is by the recommendation of your father,
for whom I once worked in the railroad office.
Father’s eyes twinkled as he added, The other is by the recommendation of my
“Mind, no more flights from home!” Heavenly Father, for whom I have
I set forth with the zest of my twelve conscientiously finished my earthly duties in
years (though time has never dimmed my life.”
delight in new scenes and strange faces).
I found this remark very obscure. “What
Reaching Benares, I proceeded immediately kind of pension, sir, do you receive from the
to the swami’s residence. The front door was
Heavenly Father? Does He drop money in Abruptly I quitted the room and
your lap?” descended the steps. Halfway down I met a
thin, fair-skinned man of medium height.
He
He laughed. “I mean a pension of
appeared to be in a hurry.
fathomless peace—a reward for many years
of deep meditation. I never crave money now. “Are you Kedar Nath Babu?” Excitement
My few material needs are amply provided colored my voice.
for. Later you will understand the significance “Yes. Are you not Bhagabati’s son who
of a second pension.” has been waiting here to meet me?” He
Abruptly terminating our conversation, smiled in friendly fashion.
the saint became gravely motionless.
A “Sir, how do you happen to come here?”
sphinxlike air enveloped him. At first his eyes I felt baffled resentment over his inexplicable
sparkled, as if observing something of presence.
interest, then grew dull. I felt abashed at his
pauciloquy; he had not yet told me how I “Everything is mysterious today! Less
could meet Father’s friend.
A trifle restlessly, than an hour ago I had just finished my bath
I looked about me in the bare room, empty in the Ganges when Swami Pranabananda
except for us two. My idle gaze took in his approached me. I have no idea how he knew I
wooden sandals, lying under the platform was there at that time.
seat. “‘Bhagabati’s son is waiting for you in
“Little sir,* don’t get worried.
The man my apartment,’ he said. ‘Will you come with
you wish to see will be with you in half an me?’ I gladly agreed. As we proceeded hand
hour.” The yogi was reading my mind—a feat in hand, the swami in his wooden sandals was
not too difficult at the moment! strangely able to outpace me, though I wore
these stout walking shoes.
Again he fell into inscrutable silence.
My
watch informed me that thirty minutes had “‘How long will it take you to reach my
elapsed. place?’ Pranabanandaji suddenly halted to ask
me this question.
The swami aroused himself. “I think
Kedar Nath Babu is nearing the door.” “‘About half an hour.’
I heard somebody coming up the stairs. “‘I have something else to do at present.’
An amazed incomprehension arose suddenly; He gave me an enigmatical glance.
‘I must
my thoughts raced in confusion: “How is it leave you behind. You can join me in my
possible that Father’s friend has been house, where Bhagabati’s son and I will be
summoned to this place without the help of a awaiting you.’
messenger? The swami has spoken to no one “Before I could remonstrate, he dashed
but myself since my arrival!” swiftly past me and disappeared in the crowd.
I walked here as fast as possible.”
*Choto Mahasaya is the term by which a number of
Indian saints addressed me.
It translates “little sir.”
23
This explanation only increased my Calcutta. They can similarly transcend at will
bewilderment. I inquired how long he had every obstacle of gross matter.”
known the swami. It was probably in an effort to stir
“We met a few times last year, but not spiritual ardor in my young breast that the
recently.
I was very glad to see him again swami had condescended to tell me of his
today at the bathing ghat.” powers of astral radio and television.* But
instead of enthusiasm, I experienced only an
“I cannot believe my ears! Am I losing
awe-stricken fear. Inasmuch as I was destined
my mind? Did you meet him in a vision, or
to undertake my divine search through one
did you actually see him, touch his hand, and
particular guru—Sri Yukteswar, whom I had
hear the sound of his feet?”
not yet met—I felt no inclination to accept
“I don’t know what you’re driving at!” Pranabananda as my teacher.
I glanced at him
He flushed angrily. “I am not lying to you. doubtfully, wondering if it were he or his
Can’t you understand that only through the counterpart before me.
swami could I have known you were waiting
The master sought to banish my
at this place for me?”
disquietude by bestowing a soul-awakening
“Why, that man, Swami Pranabananda, gaze, and by some inspiring words about his
has not left my sight a moment since I first guru.
came about an hour ago.” I blurted out the
“Lahiri Mahasaya was the greatest yogi I
whole story.
ever knew.
He was Divinity Itself in the form
His eyes opened widely. “Are we living of flesh.”
in this material age, or are we dreaming? I
If a disciple, I reflected, could materialize
never expected to witness such a miracle in
an extra fleshly form at will, what miracles
my life! I thought this swami was just an
indeed could be barred to his master?
ordinary man, and now I find he can
materialize an extra body and work through
it!” Together we entered the saint’s room.
*In its own way, physical science is affirming the
validity of laws discovered by yogis through mental
“Look, those are the very sandals he was science. For example, a demonstration that man has
wearing at the ghat,” Kedar Nath Babu televisional powers was given on Nov. 26, at the
Royal University of Rome. “Dr. Giuseppe Calligaris,
whispered.
“He was clad only in a loincloth, professor of neuro-psychology, pressed certain points
just as I see him now.” of a subject’s body and the subject responded with
minute descriptions of other persons and objects on the
As the visitor bowed before him, the saint opposite side of a wall. Dr. Calligaris told the other
turned to me with a quizzical smile.
professors that if certain areas on the skin are agitated,
the subject is given super-sensorial impressions
“Why are you stupefied at all this? The enabling him to see objects that he could not otherwise
perceive. To enable his subject to discern things on the
subtle unity of the phenomenal world is not other side of a wall, Professor Calligaris pressed on a
hidden from true yogis.
I instantly see and spot to the right of the thorax for fifteen minutes. Dr.
converse with my disciples in distant Calligaris said that if other spots of the body were
agitated, the subjects could see objects at any distance,
regardless of whether they had ever before seen those
objects.”
24
“I will tell you how priceless is a guru’s from that day has the Blissful Creator
help.
I used to meditate with another disciple remained hidden from my eyes behind any
for eight hours every night. We had to work at screen of delusion.”
the railroad office during the day. Finding Pranabananda’s face was suffused with
difficulty in carrying on my clerical duties, I divine light. The peace of another world
desired to devote my whole time to God.
For entered my heart; all fear had fled. The saint
eight years I persevered, meditating half the made a further confidence.
night. I had wonderful results; tremendous
spiritual perceptions illumined my mind. But “Some months later I returned to Lahiri
a little veil always remained between me and Mahasaya and tried to thank him for his
the Infinite.
Even with super-human bestowal of the infinite gift. Then I mentioned
earnestness, I found the final irrevocable another matter.
union to be denied me. One evening I paid a “‘Divine Guru, I can no longer work in
visit to Lahiri Mahasaya and pleaded for his the office. Please release me. Brahma keeps
divine intercession.
My importunities me continuously intoxicated.’
continued during the entire night.
“‘Apply for a pension from your
“‘Angelic Guru, my spiritual anguish is company.’
such that I can no longer bear my life without
“‘What reason shall I give, so early in my
meeting the Great Beloved face to face!’
service?’
“‘What can I do? You must meditate
“‘Say what you feel.’
more profoundly.’
“The next day I made my application.
“‘I am appealing to Thee, O God my
The doctor inquired the grounds for my
Master!
I see Thee materialized before me in
premature request.
a physical body; bless me that I may perceive
Thee in Thine infinite form!’ “‘At work, I find an overpowering
sensation rising in my spine.† It permeates
“Lahiri Mahasaya extended his hand in a
my whole body, unfitting me for the
benign gesture.
‘You may go now and
performance of my duties.’
meditate. I have interceded for you with
Brahma.’* “Without further questioning the
physician recommended me highly for a
“Immeasurably uplifted, I returned to my
pension, which I soon received. I know the
home. In meditation that night, the burning
divine will of Lahiri Mahasaya worked
Goal of my life was achieved.
Now I
through the doctor and the railroad officials,
ceaselessly enjoy the spiritual pension. Never
including your father. Automatically they
obeyed the great guru’s spiritual direction,
*God in His aspect of Creator; from Sanskrit root brih,
to expand. When Emerson’s poem Brahma appeared in
the Atlantic Monthly in , most the readers were †In deep meditation, the first experience of Spirit is on
bewildered.
Emerson chuckled. “Tell them,” he said, the altar of the spine, and then in the brain. The
“to say ‘Jehovah’ instead of ‘Brahma’ and they will not torrential bliss is overwhelming, but the yogi learns to
feel any perplexity.” control its outward manifestations.
25
and freed me for a life of unbroken
communion with the Beloved.”*
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.†
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!”
*After his retirement, Pranabananda wrote one of the
most profound commentaries on the Bhagavad Gita,
available in Bengali and Hindi.
†See page
26
CHAPTER: 4
My Interrupted Flight Toward the Himalayas
“
Leave your classroom on some trifling story window.
I ran down the steps and
pretext, and engage a hackney carriage. Stop passed my uncle, buying fish at the door.
in the lane where no one in my house can see “What is the excitement?” His gaze roved
you.” suspiciously over my person.
These were my final instructions to Amar I gave him a noncommittal smile and
Mitter, a high school friend who planned to walked to the lane.
Retrieving my bundle, I
accompany me to the Himalayas. We had joined Amar with conspiratorial caution. We
chosen the following day for our flight. drove to Chadni Chowk, a merchandise
Precautions were necessary, as Ananta center. For months we had been saving our
exercised a vigilant eye. He was determined tiffin money to buy English clothes.
Knowing
to foil the plans of escape which he suspected that my clever brother could easily play the
were uppermost in my mind. The amulet, like part of a detective, we thought to outwit him
a spiritual yeast, was silently at work within by European garb.
me. Amidst the Himalayan snows, I hoped to
find the master whose face often appeared to On the way to the station, we stopped for
me in visions.
my cousin, Jotin Ghosh, whom I called
Jatinda. He was a new convert, longing for a
The family was living now in Calcutta, guru in the Himalayas. He donned the new
where Father had been permanently suit we had in readiness. Well-camouflaged,
transferred. Following the patriarchal Indian we hoped! A deep elation possessed our
custom, Ananta had brought his bride to live hearts.
in our home, now at 4 Gurpar Road.
There in
a small attic room I engaged in daily “All we need now are canvas shoes.” I
meditations and prepared my mind for the led my companions to a shop displaying
divine search. rubber-soled footwear. “Articles of leather,
gotten only through the slaughter of animals,
The memorable morning arrived with must be absent on this holy trip.” I halted on
inauspicious rain.
Hearing the wheels of the street to remove the leather cover from my
Amar’s carriage in the road, I hastily tied Bhagavad Gita, and the leather straps from
together a blanket, a pair of sandals, Lahiri my English-made sola topee (helmet).
Mahasaya’s picture, a copy of the Bhagavad
Gita, a string of prayer beads, and two At the station we bought tickets to
loincloths.
This bundle I threw from my third- Burdwan, where we planned to transfer for
Hardwar in the Himalayan foothills. As soon
as the train, like ourselves, was in flight, I departure is an ill omen. This trip is doomed
gave utterance to a few of my glorious to failure.”
anticipations. “Is this your love for the Lord?
Can’t you
“Just imagine!” I ejaculated. “We shall be stand the little test of a treacherous
initiated by the masters and experience the companion?”
trance of cosmic consciousness. Our flesh will Through Amar’s suggestion of a divine
be charged with such magnetism that wild test, my heart steadied itself. We refreshed
animals of the Himalayas will come tamely ourselves with famous Burdwan sweetmeats,
near us.
Tigers will be no more than meek sitabhog (food for the goddess) and motichur
house cats awaiting our caresses!” (nuggets of sweet pearl). In a few hours, we
This remark—picturing a prospect I entrained for Hardwar, via Bareilly. Changing
considered entrancing, both metaphorically trains at Moghul Serai, we discussed a vital
and literally—brought an enthusiastic smile matter as we waited on the platform.
from Amar.
But Jatinda averted his gaze, “Amar, we may soon be closely
directing it through the window at the questioned by railroad officials. I am not
scampering landscape. underrating my brother’s ingenuity! No
“Let the money be divided in three matter what the outcome, I will not speak
portions.” Jatinda broke a long silence with untruth.”
this suggestion.
“Each of us should buy his “All I ask of you, Mukunda, is to keep
own ticket at Burdwan. Thus no one at the still. Don’t laugh or grin while I am talking.”
station will surmise that we are running away
together.” At this moment, a European station agent
accosted me. He waved a telegram whose
I unsuspectingly agreed. At dusk our import I immediately grasped.
train stopped at Burdwan.
Jatinda entered the
ticket office; Amar and I sat on the platform. “Are you running away from home in
We waited fifteen minutes, then made anger?”
unavailing inquiries. Searching in all “No!” I was glad his choice of words
directions, we shouted Jatinda’s name with permitted me to make emphatic reply. Not
the urgency of fright.
But he had faded into anger but “divinest melancholy” was
the dark unknown surrounding the little responsible, I knew, for my unconventional
station. behavior.
I was completely unnerved, shocked to a The official then turned to Amar. The
peculiar numbness. That God would duel of wits that followed hardly permitted
countenance this depressing episode!
The me to maintain the counseled stoic gravity.
romantic occasion of my first carefully-
“Where is the third boy?” The man
planned flight after Him was cruelly marred.
injected a full ring of authority into his voice.
“Amar, we must return home.” I was “Come on; speak the truth!”
weeping like a child. “Jatinda’s callous
28
“Sir, I notice you are wearing eyeglasses.
Dwarka Prasad awaited us with a telegram
Can’t you see that we are only two?” Amar from Ananta. My old friend tried valiantly to
smiled impudently. “I am not a magician; I detain us; I convinced him that our flight had
can’t conjure up a third companion.” not been undertaken lightly. As on a previous
occasion, Dwarka refused my invitation to set
The official, noticeably disconcerted by
forth to the Himalayas.
this impertinence, sought a new field of
attack.
While our train stood in a station that
night, and I was half asleep, Amar was
“What is your name?”
awakened by another questioning official. He,
“I am called Thomas. I am the son of an too, fell a victim to the hybrid charms of
English mother and a converted Christian “Thomas” and “Thompson.” The train bore us
Indian father.” triumphantly into a dawn arrival at Hardwar.
“What is your friend’s name?” The majestic mountains loomed invitingly in
the distance.
We dashed through the station
“I call him Thompson.”
and entered the freedom of city crowds. Our
By this time my inward mirth had first act was to change into native costume, as
reached a zenith; I unceremoniously made for Ananta had somehow penetrated our
the train, whistling for departure. Amar European disguise.
A premonition of capture
followed with the official, who was credulous weighed on my mind.
and obliging enough to put us into a European
Deeming it advisable to leave Hardwar at
compartment. It evidently pained him to think
once, we bought tickets to proceed north to
of two half-English boys traveling in the
Rishikesh, a soil long hallowed by feet of
section allotted to natives.
After his polite
many masters. I had already boarded the train,
exit, I lay back on the seat and laughed
while Amar lagged on the platform. He was
uncontrollably. My friend wore an expression
brought to an abrupt halt by a shout from a
of blithe satisfaction at having outwitted a
policeman.
Our unwelcome guardian escorted
veteran European official.
us to a station bungalow and took charge of
On the platform I had contrived to read our money. He explained courteously that it
the telegram. From my brother, it went thus: was his duty to hold us until my elder brother
“Three Bengali boys in English clothes arrived.
running away from home toward Hardwar via
Learning that the truants’ destination had
Moghul Serai.
Please detain them until my
been the Himalayas, the officer related a
arrival. Ample reward for your services.”
strange story.
“Amar, I told you not to leave marked
“I see you are crazy about saints! You
timetables in your home.” My glance was
will never meet a greater man of God than the
reproachful.
“Brother must have found one
one I saw only yesterday. My brother officer
there.”
and I first encountered him five days ago. We
My friend sheepishly acknowledged the were patrolling by the Ganges, on a sharp
thrust. We halted briefly in Bareilly, where lookout for a certain murderer. Our
29
instructions were to capture him, alive or The officer concluded with a pious
dead.
He was known to be masquerading as a ejaculation; his experience had obviously
sadhu in order to rob pilgrims. A short way moved him beyond his usual depths. With an
before us, we spied a figure which resembled impressive gesture, he handed me a printed
the description of the criminal. He ignored clipping about the miracle. In the usual
our command to stop; we ran to overpower garbled manner of the sensational type of
him.
Approaching his back, I wielded my ax newspaper (not missing, alas! even in India),
with tremendous force; the man’s right arm the reporter’s version was slightly
was severed almost completely from his body. exaggerated: it indicated that the sadhu had
been almost decapitated!
“Without outcry or any glance at the
ghastly wound, the stranger astonishingly Amar and I lamented that we had missed
continued his swift pace.
As we jumped in the great yogi who could forgive his
front of him, he spoke quietly. persecutor in such a Christlike way. India,
materially poor for the last two centuries, yet
“‘I am not the murderer you are seeking.’
has an inexhaustible fund of divine wealth;
“I was deeply mortified to see I had spiritual “skyscrapers” may occasionally be
injured the person of a divine-looking sage.
encountered by the wayside, even by worldly
Prostrating myself at his feet, I implored his men like this policeman.
pardon, and offered my turban-cloth to
We thanked the officer for relieving our
staunch the heavy spurts of blood.
tedium with his marvelous story. He was
“‘Son, that was just an understandable probably intimating that he was more
mistake on your part.’ The saint regarded me fortunate than we: he had met an illumined
kindly.
‘Run along, and don’t reproach saint without effort; our earnest search had
yourself. The Beloved Mother is taking care ended, not at the feet of a master, but in a
of me.’ He pushed his dangling arm into its coarse police station!
stump and lo! it adhered; the blood
So near the Himalayas and yet, in our
inexplicably ceased to flow.
captivity, so far, I told Amar I felt doubly
“‘Come to me under yonder tree in three impelled to seek freedom.
days and you will find me fully healed.
Thus
“Let us slip away when opportunity
you will feel no remorse.’
offers. We can go on foot to holy Rishikesh.”
“Yesterday my brother officer and I went I smiled encouragingly.
eagerly to the designated spot. The sadhu was
But my companion had turned pessimist
there and allowed us to examine his arm. It
as soon as the stalwart prop of our money had
bore no scar or trace of hurt!
been taken from us.
“‘I am going via Rishikesh to the
“If we started a trek over such dangerous
Himalayan solitudes.’ He blessed us as he
jungle land, we should finish, not in the city
departed quickly.
I feel that my life has been
of saints, but in the stomachs of tigers!”
uplifted through his sanctity.”
30
Ananta and Amar’s brother arrived after cannot work out your past karma† without
three days. Amar greeted his relative with worldly experiences.”
affectionate relief. I was unreconciled; Ananta Krishna’s immortal words rose to my lips
got no more from me than a severe in reply: “‘Even he with the worst of karma
upbraiding.
who ceaselessly meditates on Me quickly
“I understand how you feel.” My brother loses the effects of his past bad actions.
spoke soothingly. “All I ask of you is to Becoming a high-souled being, he soon
accompany me to Benares to meet a certain attains perennial peace. Arjuna, know this for
saint, and go on to Calcutta to visit your certain: the devotee who puts his trust in Me
grieving father for a few days.
Then you can never perishes!’”‡
resume your search here for a master.” But the forceful prognostications of the
Amar entered the conversation at this young man had slightly shaken my
point to disclaim any intention of returning to confidence. With all the fervor of my heart I
Hardwar with me. He was enjoying the prayed silently to God:
familial warmth.
But I knew I would never “Please solve my bewilderment and
abandon the quest for my guru. answer me, right here and now, if Thou dost
Our party entrained for Benares. There I desire me to lead the life of a renunciate or a
had a singular and instant response to my worldly man!”
prayers. I noticed a sadhu of noble countenance
A clever scheme had been prearranged by standing just outside the compound of the
Ananta.
Before seeing me at Hardwar, he had pundit’s house. Evidently he had overheard
stopped in Benares to ask a certain scriptural the spirited conversation between the self-
authority to interview me later. Both the styled clairvoyant and myself, for the stranger
pundit and his son had promised to undertake called me to his side.
I felt a tremendous
my dissuasion from the path of a sannyasi.* power flowing from his calm eyes.
Ananta took me to their home. The son, a “Son, don’t listen to that ignoramus. In
young man of ebullient manner, greeted me in response to your prayer, the Lord tells me to
the courtyard. He engaged me in a lengthy assure you that your sole path in this life is
philosophic discourse.
Professing to have a that of the renunciate.”
clairvoyant knowledge of my future, he With astonishment as well as gratitude, I
discountenanced my idea of being a monk. smiled happily at this decisive message.
“You will meet continual misfortune, and “Come away from that man!” The
be unable to find God, if you insist on “ignoramus” was calling me from the
deserting your ordinary responsibilities!
You
†Effects of past actions, in this or a former life; from
Sanskrit kri, “to do.”
*Literally, “renunciate.” From Sanskrit verb roots, “to ‡Bhagavad Gita, IX, Krishna was the greatest
cast aside.” prophet of India; Arjuna was his foremost disciple.
31
courtyard. My saintly guide raised his hand in “Of course I rushed to send telegrams to
blessing and slowly departed.
station officials in all the cities which Amar
had underlined in the timetable. He had
“That sadhu is just as crazy as you are.”
checked Bareilly, so I wired your friend
It was the hoary-headed pundit who made this
Dwarka there. After inquiries in our Calcutta
charming observation. He and his son were
neighborhood, I learned that cousin Jatinda
gazing at me lugubriously.
“I heard that he
had been absent one night but had arrived
too has left his home in a vague search for
home the following morning in European
God.”
garb. I sought him out and invited him to
I turned away. To Ananta I remarked that dinner. He accepted, quite disarmed by my
I would not engage in further discussion with friendly manner.
On the way I led him
our hosts. My brother agreed to an immediate unsuspectingly to a police station. He was
departure; we soon entrained for Calcutta. surrounded by several officers whom I had
“Mr. Detective, how did you discover I previously selected for their ferocious
had fled with two companions?” I vented my appearance.
Under their formidable gaze,
lively curiosity to Ananta during our Jatinda agreed to account for his mysterious
homeward journey. He smiled mischievously. conduct.
“At your school, I found that Amar had “‘I started for the Himalayas in a buoyant
left his classroom and had not returned. I went spiritual mood,’ he explained. ‘Inspiration
to his home the next morning and unearthed a filled me at the prospect of meeting the
marked timetable.
Amar’s father was just masters. But as soon as Mukunda said,
leaving by carriage and was talking to the “During our ecstasies in the Himalayan caves,
coachman. tigers will be spellbound and sit around us
like tame pussies,” my spirits froze; beads of
“‘My son will not ride with me to his
perspiration formed on my brow. “What
school this morning.
He has disappeared!’ the
then?” I thought. “If the vicious nature of the
father moaned.
tigers be not changed through the power of
“‘I heard from a brother coachman that our spiritual trance, shall they treat us with the
your son and two others, dressed in European kindness of house cats?” In my mind’s eye, I
suits, boarded the train at Howrah Station,’ already saw myself the compulsory inmate of
the man stated.
‘They made a present of their some tiger’s stomach—entering there not at
leather shoes to the cab driver.’ once with the whole body, but by installments
“Thus I had three clues—the timetable, of its several parts!’”
the trio of boys, and the English clothing.” My anger at Jatinda’s vanishment was
I was listening to Ananta’s disclosures evaporated in laughter.
The hilarious sequel
with mingled mirth and vexation. Our on the train was worth all the anguish he had
generosity to the coachman had been slightly caused me. I must confess to a slight feeling
misplaced! of satisfaction: Jatinda too had not escaped an
encounter with the police!
32
“Ananta,* you are a born sleuthhound!” Luxuriant curls framed my tutor’s
My glance of amusement was not without handsome face.
His dark eyes were guileless,
some exasperation. “And I shall tell Jatinda I with the transparency of a child’s. All the
am glad he was prompted by no mood of movements of his slight body were marked by
treachery, as it appeared, but only by the a restful deliberation. Ever gentle and loving,
prudent instinct of self-preservation!” he was firmly established in the infinite
consciousness.
Many of our happy hours
At home in Calcutta, Father touchingly
together were spent in deep Kriya meditation.
requested me to curb my roving feet until, at
least, the completion of my high school Kebalananda was a noted authority on the
studies. In my absence, he had lovingly ancient shastras or sacred books: his erudition
hatched a plot by arranging for a saintly had earned him the title of “Shastri
pundit, Swami Kebalananda,† to come Mahasaya,” by which he was usually
regularly to the house.
addressed. But my progress in Sanskrit
scholarship was unnoteworthy. I sought every
“The sage will be your Sanskrit tutor,”
opportunity to forsake prosaic grammar and
my parent announced confidently.
to talk of yoga and Lahiri Mahasaya. My tutor
Father hoped to satisfy my religious obliged me one day by telling me something
yearnings by instructions from a learned of his own life with the master.
philosopher.
But the tables were subtly
“Rarely fortunate, I was able to remain
turned: my new teacher, far from offering
near Lahiri Mahasaya for ten years. His
intellectual aridities, fanned the embers of my
Benares home was my nightly goal of
God-aspiration. Unknown to Father, Swami
pilgrimage. The guru was always present in a
Kebalananda was an exalted disciple of Lahiri
small front parlor on the first floor.
As he sat
Mahasaya. The peerless guru had possessed
in lotus posture on a backless wooden seat,
thousands of disciples, silently drawn to him
his disciples garlanded him in a semicircle.
by the irresistibility of his divine magnetism. I
His eyes sparkled and danced with the joy of
learned later that Lahiri Mahasaya had often
the Divine.
They were ever half closed,
characterized Kebalananda as rishi or
peering through the inner telescopic orb into a
illumined sage.
sphere of eternal bliss. He seldom spoke at
length. Occasionally his gaze would focus on
a student in need of help; healing words
*I always addressed him as Ananta-da. Da is a
respectful suffix which the eldest brother in an Indian poured then like an avalanche of light.
family receives from junior brothers and sisters.
†At the time of our meeting, Kebalananda had not yet
“An indescribable peace blossomed
joined the Swami Order and was generally called within me at the master’s glance.
I was
“Shastri Mahasaya.” To avoid confusion with the name permeated with his fragrance, as though from
of Lahiri Mahasaya and of Master Mahasaya (chapter
9), I am referring to my Sanskrit tutor only by his later a lotus of infinity. To be with him, even
monastic name of Swami Kebalananda. His biography without exchanging a word for days, was
has been recently published in Bengali.
Born in the
experience which changed my entire being. If
Khulna district of Bengal in , Kebalananda gave
up his body in Benares at the age of sixty-eight. His any invisible barrier rose in the path of my
family name was Ashutosh Chatterji.
33
concentration, I would meditate at the guru’s to be recorded, with voluminous
feet.
There the most tenuous states came commentaries by various students.
easily within my grasp. Such perceptions “The master never counseled slavish
eluded me in the presence of lesser teachers. belief. ‘Words are only shells,’ he said. ‘Win
The master was a living temple of God whose conviction of God’s presence through your
secret doors were open to all disciples through own joyous contact in meditation.’
devotion.
“No matter what the disciple’s problem,
“Lahiri Mahasaya was no bookish the guru advised Kriya Yoga for its solution.
interpreter of the scriptures.
Effortlessly he
dipped into the ‘divine library.’ Foam of “‘The yogic key will not lose its
words and spray of thoughts gushed from the efficiency when I am no longer present in the
fountain of his omniscience. He had the body to guide you. This technique cannot be
wondrous clavis which unlocked the profound bound, filed, and forgotten, in the manner of
philosophical science embedded ages ago in theoretical inspirations.
Continue ceaselessly
the Vedas.* If asked to explain the different on your path to liberation through Kriya,
planes of consciousness mentioned in the whose power lies in practice.’
ancient texts, he would smilingly assent. “I myself consider Kriya the most
“‘I will undergo those states, and effective device of salvation through self-
presently tell you what I perceive.’ He was effort ever to be evolved in man’s search for
thus diametrically unlike the teachers who the Infinite.” Kebalananda concluded with
commit scripture to memory and then give this earnest testimony.
“Through its use, the
forth unrealized abstractions. omnipotent God, hidden in all men, became
visibly incarnated in the flesh of Lahiri
“‘Please expound the holy stanzas as the Mahasaya and a number of his disciples.”
meaning occurs to you.’ The taciturn guru
often gave this instruction to a near-by A Christlike miracle by Lahiri Mahasaya
disciple.
‘I will guide your thoughts, that the took place in Kebalananda’s presence. My
right interpretation be uttered.’ In this way saintly tutor recounted the story one day, his
many of Lahiri Mahasaya’s perceptions came eyes remote from the Sanskrit texts before us.
“A blind disciple, Ramu, aroused my
active pity. Should he have no light in his
*The ancient four Vedas comprise over extant eyes, when he faithfully served our master, in
canonical books.
Emerson paid the following tribute in whom the Divine was fully blazing? One
his Journal to Vedic thought: “It is sublime as heat and
night and a breathless ocean. It contains every religious morning I sought to speak to Ramu, but he sat
sentiment, all the grand ethics which visit in turn each for patient hours fanning the guru with a
noble poetic mind.
. . . It is of no use to put away the
book; if I trust myself in the woods or in a boat upon
hand-made palm-leaf punkha. When the
the pond, Nature makes a Brahmin of me presently: devotee finally left the room, I followed him.
eternal necessity, eternal compensation, unfathomable
power, unbroken silence. . . . This is her creed. Peace, “‘Ramu, how long have you been blind?’
she saith to me, and purity and absolute
abandonment—these panaceas expiate all sin and bring
you to the beatitude of the Eight Gods.”
34
“‘From my birth, sir!
Never have my by him above all other saints. Ramu’s faith
eyes been blessed with a glimpse of the sun.’ was the devotionally ploughed soil in which
the guru’s powerful seed of permanent
“‘Our omnipotent guru can help you.
healing sprouted.” Kebalananda was silent for
Please make a supplication.’
a moment, then paid a further tribute to his
“The following day Ramu diffidently guru.
approached Lahiri Mahasaya.
The disciple
“It was evident in all miracles performed
felt almost ashamed to ask that physical
by Lahiri Mahasaya that he never allowed the
wealth be added to his spiritual
ego-principle‡ to consider itself a causative
superabundance.
force. By perfection of resistless surrender,
“‘Master, the Illuminator of the cosmos is the master enabled the Prime Healing Power
in you.
I pray you to bring His light into my to flow freely through him.
eyes, that I perceive the sun’s lesser glow.’
“The numerous bodies which were
“‘Ramu, someone has connived to put me spectacularly healed through Lahiri Mahasaya
in a difficult position. I have no healing eventually had to feed the flames of
power.’ cremation.
But the silent spiritual awakenings
“‘Sir, the Infinite One within you can he effected, the Christlike disciples he
certainly heal.’ fashioned, are his imperishable miracles.”
“‘That is indeed different, Ramu. God’s I never became a Sanskrit scholar;
limit is nowhere! He who ignites the stars and Kebalananda taught me a diviner syntax.
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.*
“‘Keep your mind concentrated there,
and frequently chant the name of the prophet
Rama† 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
*The seat of the “single” or spiritual eye. At death the
consciousness of man is usually drawn to this holy
spot, accounting for the upraised eyes found in the ‡Ahankara, egoism; literally, “I do.” The root cause of
dead.
dualism or illusion of maya, whereby the subject (ego)
†The central sacred figure of the Sanskrit epic, appears as object; the creatures imagine themselves to
Ramayana. be creators.
35
CHAPTER: 5
A “Perfume Saint” Displays his Wonders
“To every thing there is a season, and a time “You have indeed penetrated the
to every purpose under the heaven.” bewilderment of my thoughts!” I smiled
gratefully.
“The confusion of benign and
I did not have this wisdom of Solomon to
terrible aspects in nature, as symbolized by
comfort me; I gazed searchingly about me, on
Kali, has puzzled wiser heads than mine!”
any excursion from home, for the face of my
destined guru. But my path did not cross his “Few there be who solve her mystery!
own until after the completion of my high Good and evil is the challenging riddle which
school studies.
life places sphinxlike before every
intelligence. Attempting no solution, most
Two years elapsed between my flight
men pay forfeit with their lives, penalty now
with Amar toward the Himalayas, and the
even as in the days of Thebes. Here and there,
great day of Sri Yukteswar’s arrival into my
a towering lonely figure never cries defeat.
life.
During that interim I met a number of
From the maya† of duality he plucks the
sages—the “Perfume Saint,” the “Tiger
cleaveless truth of unity.”
Swami,” Nagendra Nath Bhaduri, Master
Mahasaya, and the famous Bengali scientist, “You speak with conviction, sir.”
Jagadis Chandra Bose. “I have long exercised an honest
My encounter with the “Perfume Saint” introspection, the exquisitely painful approach
had two preambles, one harmonious and the to wisdom.
Self-scrutiny, relentless
other humorous. observance of one’s thoughts, is a stark and
shattering experience. It pulverizes the
“God is simple. Everything else is
stoutest ego. But true self-analysis
complex. Do not seek absolute values in the
mathematically operates to produce seers. The
relative world of nature.”
way of ‘self-expression,’ individual
These philosophical finalities gently acknowledgments, results in egotists, sure of
entered my ear as I stood silently before a
temple image of Kali.* Turning, I confronted
†Cosmic illusion; literally, “the measurer.” Maya is the
a tall man whose garb, or lack of it, revealed magical power in creation by which limitations and
him a wandering sadhu.
divisions are apparently present in the Immeasurable
and Inseparable.
Emerson wrote the following poem, to which he
gave the title of Maya:
*Kali represents the eternal principle in nature. She is Illusion works impenetrable,
traditionally pictured as a four-armed woman, standing Weaving webs innumerable,
on the form of the God Shiva or the Infinite, because Her gay pictures never fail,
nature or the phenomenal world is rooted in the
Noumenon.
The four arms symbolize cardinal
Crowd each other, veil on veil,
attributes, two beneficent, two destructive, indicating Charmer who will be believed
the essential duality of matter or creation. By man who thirsts to be deceived.
the right to their private interpretations of God “Only the shallow man loses
and the universe.” responsiveness to the woes of others’ lives, as
he sinks into narrow suffering of his own.”
“Truth humbly retires, no doubt, before
The sadhu’s austere face was noticeably
such arrogant originality.” I was enjoying the
softened.
“The one who practices a scalpel
discussion.
self-dissection will know an expansion of
“Man can understand no eternal verity universal pity. Release is given him from the
until he has freed himself from pretensions. deafening demands of his ego. The love of
The human mind, bared to a centuried slime, God flowers on such soil.
The creature finally
is teeming with repulsive life of countless turns to his Creator, if for no other reason
world-delusions. Struggles of the battlefields than to ask in anguish: ‘Why, Lord, why?’ By
pale into insignificance here, when man first ignoble whips of pain, man is driven at last
contends with inward enemies!
No mortal into the Infinite Presence, whose beauty alone
foes these, to be overcome by harrowing array should lure him.”
of might! Omnipresent, unresting, pursuing
The sage and I were present in Calcutta’s
man even in sleep, subtly equipped with a
Kalighat Temple, whither I had gone to view
miasmic weapon, these soldiers of ignorant
its famed magnificence.
With a sweeping
lusts seek to slay us all. Thoughtless is the
gesture, my chance companion dismissed the
man who buries his ideals, surrendering to the
ornate dignity.
common fate. Can he seem other than
impotent, wooden, ignominious?” “Bricks and mortar sing us no audible
tune; the heart opens only to the human chant
“Respected Sir, have you no sympathy
of being.”
for the bewildered masses?”
We strolled to the inviting sunshine at the
The sage was silent for a moment, then
entrance, where throngs of devotees were
answered obliquely.
passing to and fro.
“To love both the invisible God,
“You are young.” The sage surveyed me
Repository of All Virtues, and visible man,
thoughtfully.
“India too is young. The ancient
apparently possessed of none, is often
rishis* laid down ineradicable patterns of
baffling! But ingenuity is equal to the maze.
spiritual living. Their hoary dictums suffice
Inner research soon exposes a unity in all
for this day and land. Not outmoded, not
human minds—the stalwart kinship of selfish
unsophisticated against the guiles of
motive.
In one sense at least, the brotherhood
materialism, the disciplinary precepts mold
of man stands revealed. An aghast humility
India still. By millenniums—more than
follows this leveling discovery. It ripens into
embarrassed scholars care to compute!—the
compassion for one’s fellows, blind to the
skeptic Time has validated Vedic worth.
Take
healing potencies of the soul awaiting
it for your heritage.”
exploration.”
“The saints of every age, sir, have felt
like yourself for the sorrows of the world.” *The rishis, literally “seers,” were the authors of the
Vedas in an indeterminable antiquity.
37
As I was reverently bidding farewell to crowd of people were sitting, Orient-wise,
the eloquent sadhu, he revealed a clairvoyant here and there on a thick orange-colored
perception: carpet.
An awed whisper reached my ear:
“After you leave here today, an unusual “Behold Gandha Baba on the leopard
experience will come your way.” skin. He can give the natural perfume of any
flower to a scentless one, or revive a wilted
I quitted the temple precincts and
blossom, or make a person’s skin exude
wandered along aimlessly.
Turning a corner, I
delightful fragrance.”
ran into an old acquaintance—one of those
long-winded fellows whose conversational I looked directly at the saint; his quick
powers ignore time and embrace eternity. gaze rested on mine. He was plump and
bearded, with dark skin and large, gleaming
“I will let you go in a very short while, if
eyes.
you will tell me all that has happened during
the six years of our separation.” “Son, I am glad to see you.
Say what you
want. Would you like some perfume?”
“What a paradox! I must leave you now.”
“What for?” I thought his remark rather
But he held me by the hand, forcing out
childish.
tidbits of information. He was like a ravenous
wolf, I thought in amusement; the longer I “To experience the miraculous way of
spoke, the more hungrily he sniffed for news.
enjoying perfumes.”
Inwardly I petitioned the Goddess Kali to “Harnessing God to make odors?”
devise a graceful means of escape.
“What of it? God makes perfume
My companion left me abruptly. I sighed anyway.”
with relief and doubled my pace, dreading
any relapse into the garrulous fever. Hearing “Yes, but He fashions frail bottles of
rapid footsteps behind me, I quickened my petals for fresh use and discard.
Can you
speed. I dared not look back. But with a materialize flowers?”
bound, the youth rejoined me, jovially “I materialize perfumes, little friend.”
clasping my shoulder.
“Then scent factories will go out of
“I forgot to tell you of Gandha Baba business.”
(Perfume Saint), who is gracing yonder
“I will permit them to keep their trade!
house.” He pointed to a dwelling a few yards
My own purpose is to demonstrate the power
distant.
“Do meet him; he is interesting. You
of God.”
may have an unusual experience. Good-by,”
and he actually left me.
“Sir, is it necessary to prove God? Isn’t
He performing miracles in everything,
The similarly worded prediction of the
everywhere?”
sadhu at Kalighat Temple flashed to my
mind. Definitely intrigued, I entered the house “Yes, but we too should manifest some of
and was ushered into a commodious parlor. A His infinite creative variety.”
38
“How long did it take to master your Tibet.
The Tibetan yogi, I was assured, had
art?” attained the age of over a thousand years.
“Twelve years.” “His disciple Gandha Baba does not
always perform his perfume-feats in the
“For manufacturing scents by astral
simple verbal manner you have just
means! It seems, my honored saint, you have
witnessed.” The student spoke with obvious
been wasting a dozen years for fragrances
pride in his master.
“His procedure differs
which you can obtain with a few rupees from
widely, to accord with diversity in
a florist’s shop.”
temperaments. He is marvelous! Many
“Perfumes fade with flowers.” members of the Calcutta intelligentsia are
“Perfumes fade with death. Why should I among his followers.”
desire that which pleases the body only?” I inwardly resolved not to add myself to
“Mr.
Philosopher, you please my mind. their number. A guru too literally
Now, stretch forth your right hand.” He made “marvelous” was not to my liking. With polite
a gesture of blessing. thanks to Gandha Baba, I departed.
Sauntering home, I reflected on the three
I was a few feet away from Gandha
varied encounters the day had brought forth.
Baba; no one else was near enough to contact
my body.
I extended my hand, which the yogi My sister Uma met me as I entered our
did not touch. Gurpar Road door.
“What perfume do you want?” “You are getting quite stylish, using
perfumes!”
“Rose.”
Without a word, I motioned her to smell
“Be it so.”
my hand.
To my great surprise, the charming
“What an attractive rose fragrance!
It is
fragrance of rose was wafted strongly from
unusually strong!”
the center of my palm. I smilingly took a
large white scentless flower from a near-by Thinking it was “strongly unusual,” I
vase. silently placed the astrally scented blossom
under her nostrils.
“Can this odorless blossom be permeated
with jasmine?” “Oh, I love jasmine!” She seized the
flower.
A ludicrous bafflement passed over
“Be it so.”
her face as she repeatedly sniffed the odor of
A jasmine fragrance instantly shot from jasmine from a type of flower she well knew
the petals. I thanked the wonder-worker and to be scentless. Her reactions disarmed my
seated myself by one of his students. He suspicion that Gandha Baba had induced an
informed me that Gandha Baba, whose proper auto-suggestive state whereby I alone could
name was Vishudhananda, had learned many detect the fragrances.
astonishing yoga secrets from a master in
39
Later I heard from a friend, Alakananda, vibrations, and not inner sensations
that the “Perfume Saint” had a power which I hypnotically produced.†
wish were possessed by the starving millions Performances of miracles such as shown
of Asia and, today, of Europe as well.
by the “Perfume Saint” are spectacular but
“I was present with a hundred other spiritually useless. Having little purpose
guests at Gandha Baba’s home in Burdwan,” beyond entertainment, they are digressions
Alakananda told me. “It was a gala occasion. from a serious search for God.
Because the yogi was reputed to have the Hypnotism has been used by physicians
power of extracting objects out of thin air, I in minor operations as a sort of psychical
laughingly requested him to materialize some chloroform for persons who might be
out-of-season tangerines.
Immediately the endangered by an anesthetic. But a hypnotic
luchis* which were present on all the banana- state is harmful to those often subjected to it;
leaf plates became puffed up. Each of the a negative psychological effect ensues which
bread-envelopes proved to contain a peeled in time deranges the brain cells.
Hypnotism is
tangerine. I bit into my own with some trespass into the territory of another’s
trepidation, but found it delicious.” consciousness. Its temporary phenomena have
Years later I understood by inner nothing in common with the miracles
realization how Gandha Baba accomplished performed by men of divine realization.
his materializations.
The method, alas! is
beyond the reach of the world’s hungry †Laymen scarcely realize the vast strides of twentieth-
century science. Transmutation of metals and other
hordes.
alchemical dreams are seeing fulfillment every day in
The different sensory stimuli to which centers of scientific research over the world.
The
eminent French chemist, M. Georges Claude,
man reacts—tactual, visual, gustatory, performed “miracles” at Fontainebleau in before
auditory, and olfactory—are produced by a scientific assemblage through his chemical
knowledge of oxygen transformations. His “magician’s
vibratory variations in electrons and protons.
wand” was simple oxygen, bubbling in a tube on a
The vibrations in turn are regulated by table. The scientist “turned a handful of sand into
“lifetrons,” subtle life forces or finer-than- precious stones, iron into a state resembling melted
chocolate and, after depriving flowers of their tints,
atomic energies intelligently charged with the turned them into the consistency of glass.
five distinctive sensory idea-substances.
“M. Claude explained how the sea could be turned
by oxygen transformations into many millions of
Gandha Baba, tuning himself with the pounds of horsepower; how water which boils is not
cosmic force by certain yogic practices, was necessarily burning; how little mounds of sand, by a
single whiff of the oxygen blowpipe, could be changed
able to guide the lifetrons to rearrange their into sapphires, rubies, and topazes; and he predicted
vibratory structure and objectivize the desired the time when it will be possible for men to walk on
the bottom of the ocean minus the diver’s equipment.
result.
His perfume, fruit and other miracles
Finally the scientist amazed his onlookers by turning
were actual materializations of mundane their faces black by taking the red out of the sun’s
rays.”
This noted French scientist has produced liquid air
by an expansion method in which he has been able to
separate the various gases of the air, and has
discovered various means of mechanical utilization of
*Flat, round Indian bread.
differences of temperature in sea water.
40
Awake in God, true saints effect changes in religious life thus: “To lay aside what you
this dream-world by means of a will have in your head (selfish desires and
harmoniously attuned to the Creative Cosmic ambitions); to freely bestow what you have in
Dreamer. your hand; and never to flinch from the blows
of adversity!”
Ostentatious display of unusual powers
are decried by masters.
The Persian mystic, Neither the impartial sage at Kalighat
Abu Said, once laughed at certain fakirs who Temple nor the Tibetan-trained yogi had
were proud of their miraculous powers over satisfied my yearning for a guru. My heart
water, air, and space. needed no tutor for its recognitions, and cried
its own “Bravos!” the more resoundingly
“A frog is also at home in the water!”
because unoften summoned from silence.
Abu Said pointed out in gentle scorn.
“The
When I finally met my master, he taught me
crow and the vulture easily fly in the air; the
by sublimity of example alone the measure of
Devil is simultaneously present in the East
a true man.