I MEET MY MASTER, SRI YUKTESWAR
“Faith in God can produce any miracle except one-passing an
examination without study.” Distastefully I closed the book I had
picked up in an idle moment.
“The writer’s exception shows his complete lack of faith,” I thought.
“Poor chap, he has great respect for the midnight oil!”
My promise to Father had been that I would complete my high school
studies. I cannot pretend to diligence. The passing months found me
less frequently in the classroom than in secluded spots along the
Calcutta bathing GHATS. The adjoining crematory grounds, especially
gruesome at night, are considered highly attractive by the yogi.
He who would find the Deathless Essence must not be dismayed by a
few unadorned skulls. Human inadequacy becomes clear in the gloomy
abode of miscellaneous bones. My midnight vigils were thus of a
different nature from the scholar’s.
The week of final examinations at the Hindu High School was fast
approaching. This interrogatory period, like the sepulchral haunts,
inspires a well-known terror. My mind was nevertheless at peace.
Braving the ghouls, I was exhuming a knowledge not found in lecture
halls. But it lacked the art of Swami Pranabananda, who easily
appeared in two places at one time. My educational dilemma was
plainly a matter for the Infinite Ingenuity. This was my reasoning,
though to many it seems illogic. The devotee’s irrationality springs
from a thousand inexplicable demonstrations of God’s instancy in
trouble.
“Hello, Mukunda! I catch hardly a glimpse of you these days!” A
classmate accosted me one afternoon on Gurpar Road.
“Hello, Nantu! My invisibility at school has actually placed me
there in a decidedly awkward position.” I unburdened myself under
his friendly gaze.
Nantu, who was a brilliant student, laughed heartily; my predicament
was not without a comic aspect.
“You are utterly unprepared for the finals! I suppose it is up to
me to help you!”
The simple words conveyed divine promise to my ears; with alacrity
I visited my friend’s home. He kindly outlined the solutions to
various problems he considered likely to be set by the instructors.
“These questions are the bait which will catch many trusting boys
in the examination trap. Remember my answers, and you will escape
without injury.”
The night was far gone when I departed. Bursting with unseasoned
erudition, I devoutly prayed it would remain for the next few
critical days. Nantu had coached me in my various subjects but,
under press of time, had forgotten my course in Sanskrit. Fervently
I reminded God of the oversight.
I set out on a short walk the next morning, assimilating my new
knowledge to the rhythm of swinging footsteps. As I took a short
cut through the weeds of a corner lot, my eye fell on a few loose
printed sheets. A triumphant pounce proved them to be Sanskrit verse.
I sought out a pundit for aid in my stumbling interpretation. His
rich voice filled the air with the edgeless, honeyed beauty of the
ancient tongue. {FN10-1}
“These exceptional stanzas cannot possibly be of aid in your Sanskrit
test.” The scholar dismissed them skeptically.
But familiarity with that particular poem enabled me on the following
day to pass the Sanskrit examination. Through the discerning help
Nantu had given, I also attained the minimum grade for success in
all my other subjects.
Father was pleased that I had kept my word and concluded my secondary
school course. My gratitude sped to the Lord, whose sole guidance
I perceived in my visit to Nantu and my walk by the unhabitual route
of the debris-filled lot. Playfully He had given a dual expression
to His timely design for my rescue.
I came across the discarded book whose author had denied God
precedence in the examination halls. I could not restrain a chuckle
at my own silent comment:
“It would only add to this fellow’s confusion, if I were to tell
him that divine meditation among the cadavers is a short cut to a
high school diploma!”
In my new dignity, I was now openly planning to leave home. Together
with a young friend, Jitendra Mazumdar, {FN10-2} I decided to join a
Mahamandal hermitage in Benares, and receive its spiritual discipline.
A desolation fell over me one morning at thought of separation from
my family. Since Mother’s death, my affection had grown especially
tender for my two younger brothers, Sananda and Bishnu. I rushed
to my retreat, the little attic which had witnessed so many scenes
in my turbulent SADHANA. {FN10-3} After a two-hour flood of tears,
I felt singularly transformed, as by some alchemical cleanser. All
attachment {FN10-4} disappeared; my resolution to seek God as the
Friend of friends set like granite within me. I quickly completed
my travel preparations.
“I make one last plea.” Father was distressed as I stood before him
for final blessing. “Do not forsake me and your grieving brothers
and sisters.”
“Revered Father, how can I tell my love for you! But even greater
is my love for the Heavenly Father, who has given me the gift of
a perfect father on earth. Let me go, that I someday return with
a more divine understanding.”
With reluctant parental consent, I set out to join Jitendra, already
in Benares at the hermitage. On my arrival the young head swami,
Dyananda, greeted me cordially. Tall and thin, of thoughtful mien,
he impressed me favorably. His fair face had a Buddhalike composure.
I was pleased that my new home possessed an attic, where I managed
to spend the dawn and morning hours. The ashram members, knowing
little of meditation practices, thought I should employ my whole
time in organizational duties. They gave me praise for my afternoon
work in their office.
“Don’t try to catch God so soon!” This ridicule from a fellow
resident accompanied one of my early departures toward the attic. I
went to Dyananda, busy in his small sanctum overlooking the Ganges.
“Swamiji, {FN10-5} I don’t understand what is required of me here.
I am seeking direct perception of God. Without Him, I cannot be
satisfied with affiliation or creed or performance of good works.”
The orange-robed ecclesiastic gave me an affectionate pat. Staging
a mock rebuke, he admonished a few near-by disciples. “Don’t bother
Mukunda. He will learn our ways.”
I politely concealed my doubt. The students left the room, not overly
bent with their chastisement. Dyananda had further words for me.
“Mukunda, I see your father is regularly sending you money. Please
return it to him; you require none here. A second injunction for
your discipline concerns food. Even when you feel hunger, don’t
mention it.”
Whether famishment gleamed in my eye, I knew not. That I was hungry,
I knew only too well. The invariable hour for the first hermitage
meal was twelve noon. I had been accustomed in my own home to a
large breakfast at nine o’clock.
The three-hour gap became daily more interminable. Gone were the
Calcutta years when I could rebuke the cook for a ten-minute delay.
Now I tried to control my appetite; one day I undertook a twenty-four
hour fast. With double zest I awaited the following midday.
“Dyanandaji’s train is late; we are not going to eat until he
arrives.” Jitendra brought me this devastating news. As gesture
of welcome to the swami, who had been absent for two weeks, many
delicacies were in readiness. An appetizing aroma filled the air.
Nothing else offering, what else could be swallowed except pride
over yesterday’s achievement of a fast?
“Lord hasten the train!” The Heavenly Provider, I thought, was hardly
included in the interdiction with which Dyananda had silenced me.
Divine Attention was elsewhere, however; the plodding clock covered
the hours. Darkness was descending as our leader entered the door.
My greeting was one of unfeigned joy.
“Dyanandaji will bathe and meditate before we can serve food.”
Jitendra approached me again as a bird of ill omen.
I was in near-collapse. My young stomach, new to deprivation,
protested with gnawing vigor. Pictures I had seen of famine victims
passed wraithlike before me.
“The next Benares death from starvation is due at once in this
hermitage,” I thought. Impending doom averted at nine o’clock.
Ambrosial summons! In memory that meal is vivid as one of life’s
perfect hours.
Intense absorption yet permitted me to observe that Dyananda ate
absent-mindedly. He was apparently above my gross pleasures.
“Swamiji, weren’t you hungry?” Happily surfeited, I was alone with
the leader in his study.
“O yes! I have spent the last four days without food or drink.
I never eat on trains, filled with the heterogenous vibrations of
worldly people. Strictly I observe the SHASTRIC {FN10-6} rules for
monks of my particular order.
“Certain problems of our organizational work lie on my mind.
Tonight at home I neglected my dinner. What’s the hurry? Tomorrow
I’ll make it a point to have a proper meal.” He laughed merrily.
Shame spread within me like a suffocation. But the past day of my
torture was not easily forgotten; I ventured a further remark.
“Swamiji, I am puzzled. Following your instruction, suppose I never
asked for food, and nobody gives me any. I should starve to death.”
“Die then!” This alarming counsel split the air. “Die if you must
Mukunda! Never admit that you live by the power of food and not by
the power of God! He who has created every form of nourishment, He
who has bestowed appetite, will certainly see that His devotee is
sustained! Do not imagine that rice maintains you, or that money
or men support you! Could they aid if the Lord withdraws your
life-breath? They are His indirect instruments merely. Is it by
any skill of yours that food digests in your stomach? Use the sword
of your discrimination, Mukunda! Cut through the chains of agency
and perceive the Single Cause!”
I found his incisive words entering some deep marrow. Gone was
an age-old delusion by which bodily imperatives outwit the soul.
There and then I tasted the Spirit’s all-sufficiency. In how many
strange cities, in my later life of ceaseless travel, did occasion
arise to prove the serviceability of this lesson in a Benares
hermitage!
The sole treasure which had accompanied me from Calcutta was the
SADHU’S silver amulet bequeathed to me by Mother. Guarding it for
years, I now had it carefully hidden in my ashram room. To renew
my joy in the talismanic testimony, one morning I opened the locked
box. The sealed covering untouched, lo! the amulet was gone.
Mournfully I tore open its envelope and made unmistakably sure. It
had vanished, in accordance with the SADHU’S prediction, into the
ether whence he had summoned it.
My relationship with Dyananda’s followers grew steadily worse. The
household was alienated, hurt by my determined aloofness. My strict
adherence to meditation on the very Ideal for which I had left
home and all worldly ambitions called forth shallow criticism on
all sides.
Torn by spiritual anguish, I entered the attic one dawn, resolved
to pray until answer was vouchsafed.
“Merciful Mother of the Universe, teach me Thyself through visions,
or through a guru sent by Thee!”
The passing hours found my sobbing pleas without response. Suddenly
I felt lifted as though bodily to a sphere uncircumscribed.
“Thy Master cometh today!” A divine womanly voice came from everywhere
and nowhere.
This supernal experience was pierced by a shout from a definite
locale. A young priest nicknamed Habu was calling me from the
downstairs kitchen.
“Mukunda, enough of meditation! You are needed for an errand.”
Another day I might have replied impatiently; now I wiped
my tear-swollen face and meekly obeyed the summons. Together Habu
and I set out for a distant market place in the Bengali section of
Benares. The ungentle Indian sun was not yet at zenith as we made
our purchases in the bazaars. We pushed our way through the colorful
medley of housewives, guides, priests, simply-clad widows, dignified
Brahmins, and the ubiquitous holy bulls. Passing an inconspicuous
lane, I turned my head and surveyed the narrow length.
A Christlike man in the ocher robes of a swami stood motionless at
the end of the road. Instantly and anciently familiar he seemed;
my gaze fed hungrily for a trice. Then doubt assailed me.
“You are confusing this wandering monk with someone known to you,”
I thought. “Dreamer, walk on.”
After ten minutes, I felt heavy numbness in my feet. As though
turned to stone, they were unable to carry me farther. Laboriously
I turned around; my feet regained normalcy. I faced the opposite
direction; again the curious weight oppressed me.
“The saint is magnetically drawing me to him!” With this thought,
I heaped my parcels into the arms of Habu. He had been observing
my erratic footwork with amazement, and now burst into laughter.
“What ails you? Are you crazy?”
My tumultuous emotion prevented any retort; I sped silently away.
Retracing my steps as though wing-shod, I reached the narrow lane.
My quick glance revealed the quiet figure, steadily gazing in my
direction. A few eager steps and I was at his feet.
“Gurudeva!” {FN10-7} The divine face was none other than he of my
thousand visions. These halcyon eyes, in leonine head with pointed
beard and flowing locks, had oft peered through gloom of my nocturnal
reveries, holding a promise I had not fully understood.
“O my own, you have come to me!” My guru uttered the words again
and again in Bengali, his voice tremulous with joy. “How many years
I have waited for you!”
We entered a oneness of silence; words seemed the rankest
superfluities. Eloquence flowed in soundless chant from heart of
master to disciple. With an antenna of irrefragable insight I sensed
that my guru knew God, and would lead me to Him. The obscuration
of this life disappeared in a fragile dawn of prenatal memories.
Dramatic time! Past, present, and future are its cycling scenes.
This was not the first sun to find me at these holy feet!
My hand in his, my guru led me to his temporary residence in the
Rana Mahal section of the city. His athletic figure moved with firm
tread. Tall, erect, about fifty-five at this time, he was active
and vigorous as a young man. His dark eyes were large, beautiful with
plumbless wisdom. Slightly curly hair softened a face of striking
power. Strength mingled subtly with gentleness.
As we made our way to the stone balcony of a house overlooking the
Ganges, he said affectionately:
“I will give you my hermitages and all I possess.”
“Sir, I come for wisdom and God-contact. Those are your treasure-troves
I am after!”
The swift Indian twilight had dropped its half-curtain before my
master spoke again. His eyes held unfathomable tenderness.
“I give you my unconditional love.”
Precious words! A quarter-century elapsed before I had another
auricular proof of his love. His lips were strange to ardor; silence
became his oceanic heart.
“Will you give me the same unconditional love?” He gazed at me with
childlike trust.
“I will love you eternally, Gurudeva!”
“Ordinary love is selfish, darkly rooted in desires and satisfactions.
Divine love is without condition, without boundary, without change.
The flux of the human heart is gone forever at the transfixing touch
of pure love.” He added humbly, “If ever you find me falling from
a state of God-realization, please promise to put my head on your
lap and help to bring me back to the Cosmic Beloved we both worship.”
He rose then in the gathering darkness and guided me to an inner
room. As we ate mangoes and almond sweetmeats, he unobtrusively
wove into his conversation an intimate knowledge of my nature. I
was awe-struck at the grandeur of his wisdom, exquisitely blended
with an innate humility.
“Do not grieve for your amulet. It has served its purpose.” Like
a divine mirror, my guru apparently had caught a reflection of my
whole life.
“The living reality of your presence, Master, is joy beyond any
symbol.”
“It is time for a change, inasmuch as you are unhappily situated
in the hermitage.”
I had made no references to my life; they now seemed superfluous!
By his natural, unemphatic manner, I understood that he wished no
astonished ejaculations at his clairvoyance.
“You should go back to Calcutta. Why exclude relatives from your
love of humanity?”
His suggestion dismayed me. My family was predicting my return,
though I had been unresponsive to many pleas by letter. “Let the
young bird fly in the metaphysical skies,” Ananta had remarked.
“His wings will tire in the heavy atmosphere. We shall yet see him
swoop toward home, fold his pinions, and humbly rest in our family
nest.” This discouraging simile fresh in my mind, I was determined
to do no “swooping” in the direction of Calcutta.
“Sir, I am not returning home. But I will follow you anywhere.
Please give me your address, and your name.”
“Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri. My chief hermitage is in Serampore, on
Rai Ghat Lane. I am visiting my mother here for only a few days.”
I wondered at God’s intricate play with His devotees. Serampore is
but twelve miles from Calcutta, yet in those regions I had never
caught a glimpse of my guru. We had had to travel for our meeting
to the ancient city of Kasi (Benares), hallowed by memories of
Lahiri Mahasaya. Here too the feet of Buddha, Shankaracharya and
other Yogi—Christs had blessed the soil.
“You will come to me in four weeks.” For the first time, Sri
Yukteswar’s voice was stern. “Now I have told my eternal affection,
and have shown my happiness at finding you-that is why you disregard
my request. The next time we meet, you will have to reawaken my
interest: I won’t accept you as a disciple easily. There must be
complete surrender by obedience to my strict training.”
I remained obstinately silent. My guru easily penetrated my
difficulty.
“Do you think your relatives will laugh at you?”
“I will not return.”
“You will return in thirty days.”
“Never.” Bowing reverently at his feet, I departed without lightening
the controversial tension. As I made my way in the midnight darkness,
I wondered why the miraculous meeting had ended on an inharmonious
note. The dual scales of MAYA, that balance every joy with a grief!
My young heart was not yet malleable to the transforming fingers
of my guru.
The next morning I noticed increased hostility in the attitude
of the hermitage members. My days became spiked with invariable
rudeness. In three weeks, Dyananda left the ashram to attend a
conference in Bombay; pandemonium broke over my hapless head.
“Mukunda is a parasite, accepting hermitage hospitality without
making proper return.” Overhearing this remark, I regretted for the
first time that I had obeyed the request to send back my money to
Father. With heavy heart, I sought out my sole friend, Jitendra.
“I am leaving. Please convey my respectful regrets to Dyanandaji
when he returns.”
“I will leave also! My attempts to meditate here meet with no more
favor than your own.” Jitendra spoke with determination.
“I have met a Christlike saint. Let us visit him in Serampore.”
And so the “bird” prepared to “swoop” perilously close to Calcutta!
{FN10-1} SANSKRITA, polished; complete. Sanskrit is the eldest
sister of all Indo-European tongues. Its alphabetical script is
DEVANAGARI, literally “divine abode.” “Who knows my grammar knows
God!” Panini, great philologist of ancient India, paid this tribute
to the mathematical and psychological perfection in Sanskrit. He
who would track language to its lair must indeed end as omniscient.
{FN10-2} He was not Jatinda (Jotin Ghosh), who will be remembered
for his timely aversion to tigers!
{FN10-3} Path or preliminary road to God.
{FN10-4} Hindu scriptures teach that family attachment is delusive
if it prevents the devotee from seeking the Giver of all boons,
including the one of loving relatives, not to mention life itself.
Jesus similarly taught: “Who is my mother? and who are my brethren?”
(MATTHEW 12:48.)
{FN10-5} JI is a customary respectful suffix, particularly used
in direct address; thus “swamiji,” “guruji,” “Sri Yukteswarji,”
“paramhansaji.”
{FN10-6} Pertaining to the SHASTRAS, literally, “sacred books,”
comprising four classes of scripture: the SHRUTI, SMRITI, PURANA,
and TANTRA. These comprehensive treatises cover every aspect
of religious and social life, and the fields of law, medicine,
architecture, art, etc. The SHRUTIS are the “directly heard” or
“revealed” scriptures, the VEDAS. The SMRITIS or “remembered” lore
was finally written down in a remote past as the world’s longest
epic poems, the MAHABHARATA and the RAMAYANA. PURANAS are literally
“ancient” allegories; TANTRAS literally mean “rites” or “rituals”;
these treatises convey profound truths under a veil of detailed
symbolism.
{FN10-7} “Divine teacher,” the customary Sanskrit term for one’s
spiritual preceptor. I have rendered it in English as simply
“Master.”