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Autobiography of a YOGI

P >> Paramhansa Yogananda >> Autobiography of a YOGI




President Wilson mentioned his beautiful fourteen points, but said:
"After all, if this endeavor of ours to arrive at peace fails,
we have our armaments to fall back upon." I want to reverse that
position, and I say: "Our armaments have failed already. Let us
now be in search of something new; let us try the force of love and
God which is truth." When we have got that, we shall want nothing
else.


By the Mahatma's training of thousands of true SATYAGRAHIS (those
who have taken the eleven rigorous vows mentioned in the first part
of this chapter), who in turn spread the message; by patiently
educating the Indian masses to understand the spiritual and
eventually material benefits of nonviolence; by arming his people
with nonviolent weapons--non-cooperation with injustice, the willingness
to endure indignities, prison, death itself rather than resort to
arms; by enlisting world sympathy through countless examples of
heroic martyrdom among SATYAGRAHIS, Gandhi has dramatically portrayed
the practical nature of nonviolence, its solemn power to settle
disputes without war.

Gandhi has already won through nonviolent means a greater number
of political concessions for his land than have ever been won by
any leader of any country except through bullets. Nonviolent methods
for eradication of all wrongs and evils have been strikingly applied
not only in the political arena but in the delicate and complicated
field of Indian social reform. Gandhi and his followers have removed
many longstanding feuds between Hindus and Mohammedans; hundreds
of thousands of Moslems look to the Mahatma as their leader.
The untouchables have found in him their fearless and triumphant
champion. "If there be a rebirth in store for me," Gandhi wrote,
"I wish to be born a pariah in the midst of pariahs, because thereby
I would be able to render them more effective service."

The Mahatma is indeed a "great soul," but it was illiterate millions
who had the discernment to bestow the title. This gentle prophet
is honored in his own land. The lowly peasant has been able to rise
to Gandhi's high challenge. The Mahatma wholeheartedly believes in
the inherent nobility of man. The inevitable failures have never
disillusioned him. "Even if the opponent plays him false twenty times,"
he writes, "the SATYAGRAHI is ready to trust him the twenty-first
time, for an implicit trust in human nature is the very essence of
the creed." {FN44-18}

"Mahatmaji, you are an exceptional man. You must not expect the
world to act as you do." A critic once made this observation.

"It is curious how we delude ourselves, fancying that the body can
be improved, but that it is impossible to evoke the hidden powers
of the soul," Gandhi replied. "I am engaged in trying to show that
if I have any of those powers, I am as frail a mortal as any of
us and that I never had anything extraordinary about me nor have I
now. I am a simple individual liable to err like any other fellow
mortal. I own, however, that I have enough humility to confess
my errors and to retrace my steps. I own that I have an immovable
faith in God and His goodness, and an unconsumable passion for truth
and love. But is that not what every person has latent in him? If
we are to make progress, we must not repeat history but make new
history. We must add to the inheritance left by our ancestors. If we
may make new discoveries and inventions in the phenomenal world,
must we declare our bankruptcy in the spiritual domain? Is it
impossible to multiply the exceptions so as to make them the rule?
Must man always be brute first and man after, if at all?" {FN44-19}

Americans may well remember with pride the successful nonviolent
experiment of William Penn in founding his 17th century colony in
Pennsylvania. There were "no forts, no soldiers, no militia, even
no arms." Amidst the savage frontier wars and the butcheries that
went on between the new settlers and the Red Indians, the Quakers
of Pennsylvania alone remained unmolested. "Others were slain; others
were massacred; but they were safe. Not a Quaker woman suffered
assault; not a Quaker child was slain, not a Quaker man was tortured."
When the Quakers were finally forced to give up the government of
the state, "war broke out, and some Pennsylvanians were killed. But
only three Quakers were killed, three who had so far fallen from
their faith as to carry weapons of defence."

"Resort to force in the Great War (I) failed to bring tranquillity,"
Franklin D. Roosevelt has pointed out. "Victory and defeat were
alike sterile. That lesson the world should have learned."

"The more weapons of violence, the more misery to mankind," Lao-tzu
taught. "The triumph of violence ends in a festival of mourning."

"I am fighting for nothing less than world peace," Gandhi
has declared. "If the Indian movement is carried to success on a
nonviolent SATYAGRAHA basis, it will give a new meaning to patriotism
and, if I may say so in all humility, to life itself."

Before the West dismisses Gandhi's program as one of an impractical
dreamer, let it first reflect on a definition of SATYAGRAHA by the
Master of Galilee:

"Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye, and
a tooth for a tooth: but I say unto you, That ye resist not evil:
{FN44-20} but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn
to him the other also."

Gandhi's epoch has extended, with the beautiful precision of
cosmic timing, into a century already desolated and devastated by
two World Wars. A divine handwriting appears on the granite wall
of his life: a warning against the further shedding of blood among
brothers.

MAHATMA GANDHI'S HANDWRITING IN HINDI

[Illustration--see gandhi2.jpg]

Mahatma Gandhi visited my high school with yoga training at Ranchi.
He graciously wrote the above lines in the Ranchi guest-book. The
translation is: "This institution has deeply impressed my mind.
I cherish high hopes that this school will encourage the further
practical use of the spinning wheel."

(SIGNED) MOHANDAS GANDHI September 17, 1925

[Illustration--see gandhiflag.jpg]

A national flag for India was designed in 1921 by Gandhi. The
stripes are saffron, white and green; the CHARKA (spinning wheel)
in the center is dark blue. "The CHARKA symbolizes energy,"
he wrote, "and reminds us that during the past eras of prosperity
in India's history, hand spinning and other domestic crafts were
prominent."

{FN44-1} His family name is Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. He never
refers to himself as "Mahatma."

{FN44-2} The literal translation from Sanskrit is "holding to
truth." SATYAGRAHA is the famous nonviolence movement led by Gandhi.

{FN44-3} False and alas! malicious reports were recently circulated
that Miss Slade has severed all her ties with Gandhi and forsaken
her vows. Miss Slade, the Mahatma's SATYAGRAHA disciple for twenty
years, issued a signed statement to the UNITED PRESS, dated Dec.
29, 1945, in which she explained that a series of baseless rumors
arose after she had departed, with Gandhi's blessings, for a small
site in northeastern India near the Himalayas, for the purpose of
founding there her now-flourishing KISAN ASHRAM (center for medical
and agricultural aid to peasant farmers). Mahatma Gandhi plans to
visit the new ashram during 1946.

{FN44-4} Miss Slade reminded me of another distinguished Western
woman, Miss Margaret Woodrow Wilson, eldest daughter of America's
great president. I met her in New York; she was intensely interested
in India. Later she went to Pondicherry, where she spent the last
five years of her life, happily pursuing a path of discipline at
the feet of Sri Aurobindo Ghosh. This sage never speaks; he silently
greets his disciples on three annual occasions only.

{FN44-5} For years in America I had been observing periods of
silence, to the consternation of callers and secretaries.

{FN44-6} Harmlessness; nonviolence; the foundation rock of Gandhi's
creed. He was born into a family of strict Jains, who revere AHIMSA
as the root-virtue. Jainism, a sect of Hinduism, was founded in the
6th century B.C. by Mahavira, a contemporary of Buddha. Mahavira
means "great hero"; may he look down the centuries on his heroic
son Gandhi!

{FN44-7} Hindi is the lingua franca for the whole of India. An
Indo-Aryan language based largely on Sanskrit roots, Hindi is the
chief vernacular of northern India. The main dialect of Western
Hindi is Hindustani, written both in the DEVANAGARI (Sanskrit)
characters and in Arabic characters. Its subdialect, Urdu, is spoken
by Moslems.

{FN44-8} Gandhi has described his life with a devastating candor
in THE STORY OF MY EXPERIMENTS WITH TRUTH (Ahmedabad: Navajivan
Press, 1927-29, 2 vol.) This autobiography has been summarized in
MAHATMA GANDHI, HIS OWN STORY, edited by C. F. Andrews, with an
introduction by John Haynes Holmes (New York: Macmillan Co., 1930).

Many autobiographies replete with famous names and colorful
events are almost completely silent on any phase of inner analysis
or development. One lays down each of these books with a certain
dissatisfaction, as though saying: "Here is a man who knew many
notable persons, but who never knew himself." This reaction is
impossible with Gandhi's autobiography; he exposes his faults and
subterfuges with an impersonal devotion to truth rare in annals of
any age.

{FN44-9} Kasturabai Gandhi died in imprisonment at Poona on February
22, 1944. The usually unemotional Gandhi wept silently. Shortly
after her admirers had suggested a Memorial Fund in her honor, 125
lacs of rupees (nearly four million dollars) poured in from all
over India. Gandhi has arranged that the fund be used for village
welfare work among women and children. He reports his activities
in his English weekly, HARIJAN.

{FN44-10} I sent a shipment to Wardha, soon after my return to
America. The plants, alas! died on the way, unable to withstand
the rigors of the long ocean transportation.

{FN44-11} Thoreau, Ruskin, and Mazzini are three other Western
writers whose sociological views Gandhi has studied carefully.

{FN44-12} The sacred scripture given to Persia about 1000 B.C. by
Zoroaster.

{FN44-13} The unique feature of Hinduism among the world religions
is that it derives not from a single great founder but from the
impersonal Vedic scriptures. Hinduism thus gives scope for worshipful
incorporation into its fold of prophets of all ages and all lands.
The Vedic scriptures regulate not only devotional practices but all
important social customs, in an effort to bring man's every action
into harmony with divine law.

{FN44-14} A comprehensive Sanskrit word for law; conformity to law
or natural righteousness; duty as inherent in the circumstances in
which a man finds himself at any given time. The scriptures define
DHARMA as "the natural universal laws whose observance enables man
to save himself from degradation and suffering."

{FN44-15} MATTHEW 7:21.

{FN44-16} MATTHEW 26:52.

{FN44-17} "Let not a man glory in this, that he love his country;
Let him rather glory in this, that he love his kind."-PERSIAN
PROVERB.

{FN44-18} "Then came Peter to him and said, Lord, how oft shall my
brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus
saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until
seventy times seven."-MATTHEW 18:21-22.

{FN44-19} Charles P. Steinmetz, the great electrical engineer, was
once asked by Mr. Roger W. Babson: "What line of research will see
the greatest development during the next fifty years?" "I think the
greatest discovery will be made along spiritual lines," Steinmetz
replied. "Here is a force which history clearly teaches has been
the greatest power in the development of men. Yet we have merely
been playing with it and have never seriously studied it as we
have the physical forces. Someday people will learn that material
things do not bring happiness and are of little use in making men
and women creative and powerful. Then the scientists of the world
will turn their laboratories over to the study of God and prayer
and the spiritual forces which as yet have hardly been scratched.
When this day comes, the world will see more advancement in one
generation than it has seen in the past four."

{FN44-20} That is, resist not evil with evil. (MATTHEW 5:38-39)



CHAPTER: 45

THE BENGALI "JOY-PERMEATED" MOTHER

"Sir, please do not leave India without a glimpse of Nirmala Devi.
Her sanctity is intense; she is known far and wide as Ananda Moyi Ma
(Joy-Permeated Mother)." My niece, Amiyo Bose, gazed at me earnestly.

"Of course! I want very much to see the woman saint." I added, "I
have read of her advanced state of God-realization. A little article
about her appeared years ago in EAST-WEST."

"I have met her," Amiyo went on. "She recently visited my own little
town of Jamshedpur. At the entreaty of a disciple, Ananda Moyi Ma
went to the home of a dying man. She stood by his bedside; as her
hand touched his forehead, his death-rattle ceased. The disease
vanished at once; to the man's glad astonishment, he was well."

A few days later I heard that the Blissful Mother was staying at
the home of a disciple in the Bhowanipur section of Calcutta. Mr.
Wright and I set out immediately from my father's Calcutta home. As
the Ford neared the Bhowanipur house, my companion and I observed
an unusual street scene.

Ananda Moyi Ma was standing in an open-topped automobile, blessing
a throng of about one hundred disciples. She was evidently on the
point of departure. Mr. Wright parked the Ford some distance away,
and accompanied me on foot toward the quiet assemblage. The woman
saint glanced in our direction; she alit from her car and walked
toward us.

"Father, you have come!" With these fervent words she put her arm
around my neck and her head on my shoulder. Mr. Wright, to whom I
had just remarked that I did not know the saint, was hugely enjoying
this extraordinary demonstration of welcome. The eyes of the one
hundred chelas were also fixed with some surprise on the affectionate
tableau.

I had instantly seen that the saint was in a high state of SAMADHI.
Utterly oblivious to her outward garb as a woman, she knew herself
as the changeless soul; from that plane she was joyously greeting
another devotee of God. She led me by the hand into her automobile.

"Ananda Moyi Ma, I am delaying your journey!" I protested.

"Father, I am meeting you for the first time in this life, after
ages!" she said. "Please do not leave yet."

We sat together in the rear seats of the car. The Blissful Mother
soon entered the immobile ecstatic state. Her beautiful eyes
glanced heavenward and, half-opened, became stilled, gazing into
the near-far inner Elysium. The disciples chanted gently: "Victory
to Mother Divine!"

I had found many men of God-realization in India, but never before
had I met such an exalted woman saint. Her gentle face was burnished
with the ineffable joy that had given her the name of Blissful
Mother. Long black tresses lay loosely behind her unveiled head. A
red dot of sandalwood paste on her forehead symbolized the spiritual
eye, ever open within her. Tiny face, tiny hands, tiny feet-a
contrast to her spiritual magnitude!

I put some questions to a near-by woman chela while Ananda Moyi Ma
remained entranced.

"The Blissful Mother travels widely in India; in many parts she has
hundreds of disciples," the chela told me. "Her courageous efforts
have brought about many desirable social reforms. Although a Brahmin,
the saint recognizes no caste distinctions. {FN45-1} A group of
us always travel with her, looking after her comforts. We have to
mother her; she takes no notice of her body. If no one gave her
food, she would not eat, or make any inquiries. Even when meals
are placed before her, she does not touch them. To prevent her
disappearance from this world, we disciples feed her with our own
hands. For days together she often stays in the divine trance,
scarcely breathing, her eyes unwinking. One of her chief disciples
is her husband. Many years ago, soon after their marriage, he took
the vow of silence."

The chela pointed to a broad-shouldered, fine-featured man with
long hair and hoary beard. He was standing quietly in the midst of
the gathering, his hands folded in a disciple's reverential attitude.

Refreshed by her dip in the Infinite, Ananda Moyi Ma was now focusing
her consciousness on the material world.

"Father, please tell me where you stay." Her voice was clear and
melodious.

"At present, in Calcutta or Ranchi; but soon I shall be returning
to America."

"America?"

"Yes. An Indian woman saint would be sincerely appreciated there
by spiritual seekers. Would you like to go?"

"If Father can take me, I will go."

This reply caused her near-by disciples to start in alarm.

"Twenty or more of us always travel with the Blissful Mother," one
of them told me firmly. "We could not live without her. Wherever
she goes, we must go."

Reluctantly I abandoned the plan, as possessing an impractical
feature of spontaneous enlargement!

"Please come at least to Ranchi, with your disciples," I said on
taking leave of the saint. "As a divine child yourself, you will
enjoy the little ones in my school."

"Whenever Father takes me, I will gladly go."

A short time later the Ranchi VIDYALAYA was in gala array for the
saint's promised visit. The youngsters looked forward to any day
of festivity-no lessons, hours of music, and a feast for the climax!

"Victory! Ananda Moyi Ma, ki jai!" This reiterated chant from
scores of enthusiastic little throats greeted the saint's party
as it entered the school gates. Showers of marigolds, tinkle of
cymbals, lusty blowing of conch shells and beat of the MRIDANGA
drum! The Blissful Mother wandered smilingly over the sunny VIDYALAYA
grounds, ever carrying within her the portable paradise.

"It is beautiful here," Ananda Moyi Ma said graciously as I led her
into the main building. She seated herself with a childlike smile
by my side. The closest of dear friends, she made one feel, yet an
aura of remoteness was ever around her-the paradoxical isolation
of Omnipresence.

"Please tell me something of your life."

"Father knows all about it; why repeat it?" She evidently felt that
the factual history of one short incarnation was beneath notice.

I laughed, gently repeating my question.

"Father, there is little to tell." She spread her graceful hands
in a deprecatory gesture. "My consciousness has never associated
itself with this temporary body. Before I came on this earth, Father,
'I was the same.' As a little girl, 'I was the same.' I grew into
womanhood, but still 'I was the same.' When the family in which
I had been born made arrangements to have this body married, 'I
was the same.' And when, passion-drunk, my husband came to me and
murmured endearing words, lightly touching my body, he received a
violent shock, as if struck by lightning, for even then 'I was the
same.'

"My husband knelt before me, folded his hands, and implored my
pardon.

"'Mother,' he said, 'because I have desecrated your bodily temple
by touching it with the thought of lust-not knowing that within it
dwelt not my wife but the Divine Mother-I take this solemn vow: I
shall be your disciple, a celibate follower, ever caring for you
in silence as a servant, never speaking to anyone again as long as
I live. May I thus atone for the sin I have today committed against
you, my guru.'

"Even when I quietly accepted this proposal of my husband's, 'I
was the same.' And, Father, in front of you now, 'I am the same.'
Ever afterward, though the dance of creation change around me in
the hall of eternity, 'I shall be the same.'"

Ananda Moyi Ma sank into a deep meditative state. Her form was
statue-still; she had fled to her ever-calling kingdom. The dark
pools of her eyes appeared lifeless and glassy. This expression
is often present when saints remove their consciousness from the
physical body, which is then hardly more than a piece of soulless
clay. We sat together for an hour in the ecstatic trance. She
returned to this world with a gay little laugh.

"Please, Ananda Moyi Ma," I said, "come with me to the garden. Mr.
Wright will take some pictures."

"Of course, Father. Your will is my will." Her glorious eyes retained
the unchanging divine luster as she posed for many photographs.

Time for the feast! Ananda Moyi Ma squatted on her blanket-seat,
a disciple at her elbow to feed her. Like an infant, the saint
obediently swallowed the food after the chela had brought it to
her lips. It was plain that the Blissful Mother did not recognize
any difference between curries and sweetmeats!

As dusk approached, the saint left with her party amidst a shower
of rose petals, her hands raised in blessing on the little lads.
Their faces shone with the affection she had effortlessly awakened.

"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all
thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength:" Christ
has proclaimed, "this is the first commandment." {FN45-2}

Casting aside every inferior attachment, Ananda Moyi Ma offers her
sole allegiance to the Lord. Not by the hairsplitting distinctions
of scholars but by the sure logic of faith, the childlike saint has
solved the only problem in human life-establishment of unity with
God. Man has forgotten this stark simplicity, now befogged by a
million issues. Refusing a monotheistic love to God, the nations
disguise their infidelity by punctilious respect before the outward
shrines of charity. These humanitarian gestures are virtuous, because
for a moment they divert man's attention from himself, but they do
not free him from his single responsibility in life, referred to
by Jesus as the first commandment. The uplifting obligation to love
God is assumed with man's first breath of an air freely bestowed
by his only Benefactor.

On one other occasion after her Ranchi visit I had opportunity to
see Ananda Moyi Ma. She stood among her disciples some months later
on the Serampore station platform, waiting for the train.

"Father, I am going to the Himalayas," she told me. "Generous
disciples have built me a hermitage in Dehra Dun."

As she boarded the train, I marveled to see that whether amidst a
crowd, on a train, feasting, or sitting in silence, her eyes never
looked away from God. Within me I still hear her voice, an echo of
measureless sweetness:

"Behold, now and always one with the Eternal, 'I am ever the same.'"

{FN45-1} I find some further facts of Ananda Moyi Ma's life, printed
in EAST-WEST. The saint was born in 1893 at Dacca in central Bengal.
Illiterate, she has yet stunned the intellectuals by her wisdom.
Her verses in Sanskrit have filled scholars with wonderment. She
has brought consolation to bereaved persons, and effected miraculous
cures, by her mere presence.

{FN45-2} MARK 12:30.



CHAPTER: 46

THE WOMAN YOGI WHO NEVER EATS

"Sir, whither are we bound this morning?" Mr. Wright was driving
the Ford; he took his eyes off the road long enough to gaze at me
with a questioning twinkle. From day to day he seldom knew what
part of Bengal he would be discovering next.

"God willing," I replied devoutly, "we are on our way to see an
eighth wonder of the world-a woman saint whose diet is thin air!"

"Repetition of wonders-after Therese Neumann." But Mr. Wright laughed
eagerly just the same; he even accelerated the speed of the car.
More extraordinary grist for his travel diary! Not one of an average
tourist, that!

The Ranchi school had just been left behind us; we had risen before
the sun. Besides my secretary and myself, three Bengali friends
were in the party. We drank in the exhilarating air, the natural
wine of the morning. Our driver guided the car warily among the
early peasants and the two-wheeled carts, slowly drawn by yoked,
hump-shouldered bullocks, inclined to dispute the road with a
honking interloper.

"Sir, we would like to know more of the fasting saint."

"Her name is Giri Bala," I informed my companions. "I first heard
about her years ago from a scholarly gentleman, Sthiti Lal Nundy.
He often came to the Gurpar Road home to tutor my brother Bishnu."

"'I know Giri Bala well,' Sthiti Babu told me. 'She employs a
certain yoga technique which enables her to live without eating. I
was her close neighbor in Nawabganj near Ichapur. {FN46-1} I made
it a point to watch her closely; never did I find evidence that
she was taking either food or drink. My interest finally mounted so
high that I approached the Maharaja of Burdwan {FN46-2} and asked
him to conduct an investigation. Astounded at the story, he invited
her to his palace. She agreed to a test and lived for two months
locked up in a small section of his home. Later she returned for a
palace visit of twenty days; and then for a third test of fifteen
days. The Maharaja himself told me that these three rigorous
scrutinies had convinced him beyond doubt of her non-eating state.'

"This story of Sthiti Babu's has remained in my mind for over
twenty-five years," I concluded. "Sometimes in America I wondered
if the river of time would not swallow the YOGINI {FN46-3} before
I could meet her. She must be quite aged now. I do not even know
where, or if, she lives. But in a few hours we shall reach Purulia;
her brother has a home there."

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