A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

Autobiography of a YOGI

P >> Paramhansa Yogananda >> Autobiography of a YOGI




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

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

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

It was probably in an effort to stir spiritual ardor in my young
breast that the swami had condescended to tell me of his powers of
astral radio and television. {FN3-2} But instead of enthusiasm, I
experienced only an awe-stricken fear. Inasmuch as I was destined
to undertake my divine search through one particular guru-Sri
Yukteswar, whom I had not yet met-I felt no inclination to accept
Pranabananda as my teacher. I glanced at him doubtfully, wondering
if it were he or his counterpart before me.

[Illustration: Swami Pranabananda, "The Saint With Two Bodies", An
Exalted Disciple of Lahiri Mahasaya--see pranabananda.jpg]

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

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

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

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

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

"'What can I do? You must meditate more profoundly.'

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

"Lahiri Mahasaya extended his hand in a benign gesture. 'You may
go now and meditate. I have interceded for you with Brahma.' {FN3-3}

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

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

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

"'Divine Guru, I can no longer work in the office. Please release
me. Brahma keeps me continuously intoxicated.'

"'Apply for a pension from your company.'

"'What reason shall I give, so early in my service?'

"'Say what you feel.'

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

"'At work, I find an overpowering sensation rising in my spine.
{FN3-4} It permeates my whole body, unfitting me for the performance
of my duties.'

"Without further questioning the physician recommended me highly
for a pension, which I soon received. I know the divine will of
Lahiri Mahasaya worked through the doctor and the railroad officials,
including your father. Automatically they obeyed the great guru's
spiritual direction, and freed me for a life of unbroken communion
with the Beloved." {FN3-5}

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

"Your life belongs to the path of renunciation and yoga. I shall
see you again, with your father, later on." The years brought
fulfillment to both these predictions. {FN3-6}

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

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

{FN3-1} CHOTO MAHASAYA is the term by which a number of Indian
saints addressed me. It translates "little sir.".

{FN3-2} In its own way, physical science is affirming the validity
of laws discovered by yogis through mental science. For example,
a demonstration that man has televisional powers was given on Nov.
26, 1934 at the Royal University of Rome. "Dr. Giuseppe Calligaris,
professor of neuro-psychology, pressed certain points of a subject's
body and the subject responded with minute descriptions of other
persons and objects on the opposite side of a wall. Dr. Calligaris
told the other professors that if certain areas on the skin are
agitated, the subject is given super-sensorial impressions enabling
him to see objects that he could not otherwise perceive. To enable
his subject to discern things on the other side of a wall, Professor
Calligaris pressed on a spot to the right of the thorax for fifteen
minutes. Dr. 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.".

{FN3-3} God in His aspect of Creator; from Sanskrit root BRIH, to
expand. When Emerson's poem BRAHMA appeared in the ATLANTIC MONTHLY
in 1857, most the readers were bewildered. Emerson chuckled. "Tell
them," he said, "to say 'Jehovah' instead of 'Brahma' and they will
not feel any perplexity."

{FN3-4} In deep meditation, the first experience of Spirit is on the
altar of the spine, and then in the brain. The torrential bliss is
overwhelming, but the yogi learns to control its outward manifestations.

{FN3-5} After his retirement, Pranabananda wrote one of the most
profound commentaries on the BHAGAVAD GITA, available in Bengali
and Hindi.

{FN3-6} See chapter 27.



CHAPTER: 4

MY INTERRUPTED FLIGHT TOWARD THE HIMALAYAS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Is this your love for the Lord? Can't you stand the little test
of a treacherous companion?"

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

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

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

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

"Are you running away from home in anger?"

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

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

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

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

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

"What is your name?"

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

"What is your friend's name?"

"I call him Thompson."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"'I am not the murderer you are seeking.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A clever scheme had been prearranged by Ananta. Before seeing me
at Hardwar, he had stopped in Benares to ask a certain scriptural
authority to interview me later. Both the pundit and his son had
promised to undertake my dissuasion from the path of a SANNYASI.
{FN4-1}

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

"You will meet continual misfortune, and be unable to find God, if
you insist on deserting your ordinary responsibilities! You cannot
work out your past karma {FN4-2} without worldly experiences."

Krishna's immortal words rose to my lips in reply: "'Even he with
the worst of karma who ceaselessly meditates on Me quickly loses
the effects of his past bad actions. Becoming a high-souled being,
he soon attains perennial peace. Arjuna, know this for certain:
the devotee who puts his trust in Me never perishes!'" {FN4-3}

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I turned away. To Ananta I remarked that I would not engage in
further discussion with our hosts. My brother agreed to an immediate
departure; we soon entrained for Calcutta.

[Illustration: I stand behind my elder brother, Ananta.--see
ananta.jpg]

[Illustration: Last Solstice Festival celebrated by Sri Yukteswar,
December, 1935. My Guru is seated in the center; I am at his
right, in the large courtyard of his hermitage in Serampore.--see
festival.jpg]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Ananta, {FN4-4} you are a born sleuthhound!" My glance of amusement
was not without some exasperation. "And I shall tell Jatinda I am
glad he was prompted by no mood of treachery, as it appeared, but
only by the prudent instinct of self-preservation!"

At home in Calcutta, Father touchingly requested me to curb my roving
feet until, at least, the completion of my high school studies.
In my absence, he had lovingly hatched a plot by arranging for
a saintly pundit, Swami Kebalananda, {FN4-5} to come regularly to
the house.

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

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

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

Copyright (c) 2007. famouswriterz.com. All rights reserved.