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.’
[Illustration: GIRI BALA, This great woman yogi has not taken food
or drink since 1880. I am pictured with her, in 1936, at her home
in the isolated Bengal village of Biur. Her non-eating state has
been rigorously investigated by the Maharaja of Burdwan. She employs
a certain yoga technique to recharge her body with cosmic energy
from the ether, sun, and air.—see giribala.jpg]
“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.”
By ten-thirty our little group was conversing with the brother,
Lambadar Dey, a lawyer of Purulia.
“Yes, my sister is living. She sometimes stays with me here, but at
present she is at our family home in Biur.” Lambadar Babu glanced
doubtfully at the Ford. “I hardly think, Swamiji, that any automobile
has ever penetrated into the interior as far as Biur. It might be
best if you all resign yourselves to the ancient jolt of the bullock
cart!”
As one voice our party pledged loyalty to the Pride of Detroit.
“The Ford comes from America,” I told the lawyer. “It would be a
shame to deprive it of an opportunity to get acquainted with the
heart of Bengal!”
“May Ganesh {FN46-4} go with you!” Lambadar Babu said, laughing.
He added courteously, “If you ever get there, I am sure Giri Bala
will be glad to see you. She is approaching her seventies, but
continues in excellent health.”
“Please tell me, sir, if it is absolutely true that she eats
nothing?” I looked directly into his eyes, those telltale windows
of the mind.
“It is true.” His gaze was open and honorable. “In more than five
decades I have never seen her eat a morsel. If the world suddenly
came to an end, I could not be more astonished than by the sight
of my sister’s taking food!”
We chuckled together over the improbability of these two cosmic
events.
“Giri Bala has never sought an inaccessible solitude for her yoga
practices,” Lambadar Babu went on. “She has lived her entire life
surrounded by her family and friends. They are all well accustomed
now to her strange state. Not one of them who would not be stupefied
if Giri Bala suddenly decided to eat anything! Sister is naturally
retiring, as befits a Hindu widow, but our little circle in Purulia
and in Biur all know that she is literally an ‘exceptional’ woman.”
The brother’s sincerity was manifest. Our little party thanked him
warmly and set out toward Biur. We stopped at a street shop for
curry and LUCHIS, attracting a swarm of urchins who gathered round
to watch Mr. Wright eating with his fingers in the simple Hindu
manner. {FN46-5} Hearty appetites caused us to fortify ourselves
against an afternoon which, unknown at the moment, was to prove
fairly laborious.
Our way now led east through sun-baked rice fields into the Burdwan
section of Bengal. On through roads lined with dense vegetation;
the songs of the MAYNAS and the stripe-throated BULBULS streamed
out from trees with huge, umbrellalike branches. A bullock cart
now and then, the RINI, RINI, MANJU, MANJU squeak of its axle and
iron-shod wooden wheels contrasting sharply in mind with the SWISH,
SWISH of auto tires over the aristocratic asphalt of the cities.
“Dick, halt!” My sudden request brought a jolting protest from the
Ford. “That overburdened mango tree is fairly shouting an invitation!”
The five of us dashed like children to the mango-strewn earth; the
tree had benevolently shed its fruits as they had ripened.
“Full many a mango is born to lie unseen,” I paraphrased, “and
waste its sweetness on the stony ground.”
“Nothing like this in America, Swamiji, eh?” laughed Sailesh
Mazumdar, one of my Bengali students.
“No,” I admitted, covered with mango juice and contentment. “How
I have missed this fruit in the West! A Hindu’s heaven without
mangoes is inconceivable!”
I picked up a rock and downed a proud beauty hidden on the highest
limb.
“Dick,” I asked between bites of ambrosia, warm with the tropical
sun, “are all the cameras in the car?”
“Yes, sir; in the baggage compartment.”
“If Giri Bala proves to be a true saint, I want to write about her
in the West. A Hindu YOGINI with such inspiring powers should not
live and die unknown-like most of these mangoes.”
Half an hour later I was still strolling in the sylvan peace.
“Sir,” Mr. Wright remarked, “we should reach Giri Bala before the
sun sets, to have enough light for photographs.” He added with a
grin, “The Westerners are a skeptical lot; we can’t expect them to
believe in the lady without any pictures!”
This bit of wisdom was indisputable; I turned my back on temptation
and reentered the car.
“You are right, Dick,” I sighed as we sped along, “I sacrifice the
mango paradise on the altar of Western realism. Photographs we must
have!”
The road became more and more sickly: wrinkles of ruts, boils of
hardened clay, the sad infirmities of old age! Our group dismounted
occasionally to allow Mr. Wright to more easily maneuver the Ford,
which the four of us pushed from behind.
“Lambadar Babu spoke truly,” Sailesh acknowledged. “The car is not
carrying us; we are carrying the car!”
Our climb-in, climb-out auto tedium was beguiled ever and anon by
the appearance of a village, each one a scene of quaint simplicity.
“Our way twisted and turned through groves of palms among ancient,
unspoiled villages nestling in the forest shade,” Mr. Wright has
recorded in his travel diary, under date of May 5, 1936. “Very
fascinating are these clusters of thatched mud huts, decorated with
one of the names of God on the door; many small, naked children
innocently playing about, pausing to stare or run wildly from
this big, black, bullockless carriage tearing madly through their
village. The women merely peep from the shadows, while the men
lazily loll beneath the trees along the roadside, curious beneath
their nonchalance. In one place, all the villagers were gaily
bathing in the large tank (in their garments, changing by draping
dry cloths around their bodies, dropping the wet ones). Women
bearing water to their homes, in huge brass jars.
“The road led us a merry chase over mount and ridge; we bounced and
tossed, dipped into small streams, detoured around an unfinished
causeway, slithered across dry, sandy river beds and finally, about
5:00 P.M., we were close to our destination, Biur. This minute
village in the interior of Bankura District, hidden in the protection
of dense foliage, is unapproachable by travelers during the rainy
season, when the streams are raging torrents and the roads serpentlike
spit the mud-venom.
“Asking for a guide among a group of worshipers on their way home
from a temple prayer (out in the lonely field), we were besieged by
a dozen scantily clad lads who clambered on the sides of the car,
eager to conduct us to Giri Bala.
“The road led toward a grove of date palms sheltering a group of
mud huts, but before we had reached it, the Ford was momentarily
tipped at a dangerous angle, tossed up and dropped down. The narrow
trail led around trees and tank, over ridges, into holes and deep
ruts. The car became anchored on a clump of bushes, then grounded
on a hillock, requiring a lift of earth clods; on we proceeded,
slowly and carefully; suddenly the way was stopped by a mass of
brush in the middle of the cart track, necessitating a detour down
a precipitous ledge into a dry tank, rescue from which demanded some
scraping, adzing, and shoveling. Again and again the road seemed
impassable, but the pilgrimage must go on; obliging lads fetched
spades and demolished the obstacles (shades of Ganesh!) while
hundreds of children and parents stared.
“Soon we were threading our way along the two ruts of antiquity,
women gazing wide-eyed from their hut doors, men trailing alongside
and behind us, children scampering to swell the procession. Ours
was perhaps the first auto to traverse these roads; the ‘bullock
cart union’ must be omnipotent here! What a sensation we created-a
group piloted by an American and pioneering in a snorting car
right into their hamlet fastness, invading the ancient privacy and
sanctity!
“Halting by a narrow lane we found ourselves within a hundred feet
of Giri Bala’s ancestral home. We felt the thrill of fulfillment
after the long road struggle crowned by a rough finish. We approached
a large, two-storied building of brick and plaster, dominating the
surrounding adobe huts; the house was under the process of repair,
for around it was the characteristically tropical framework of
bamboos.
“With feverish anticipation and suppressed rejoicing we stood
before the open doors of the one blessed by the Lord’s ‘hungerless’
touch. Constantly agape were the villagers, young and old, bare
and dressed, women aloof somewhat but inquisitive too, men and
boys unabashedly at our heels as they gazed on this unprecedented
spectacle.
“Soon a short figure came into view in the doorway-Giri Bala! She
was swathed in a cloth of dull, goldish silk; in typically Indian
fashion, she drew forward modestly and hesitatingly, peering
slightly from beneath the upper fold of her SWADESHI cloth. Her
eyes glistened like smouldering embers in the shadow of her head
piece; we were enamored by a most benevolent and kindly face, a face
of realization and understanding, free from the taint of earthly
attachment.
“Meekly she approached and silently assented to our snapping a
number of pictures with our ‘still’ and ‘movie’ cameras. {FN46-6}
Patiently and shyly she endured our photo techniques of posture
adjustment and light arrangement. Finally we had recorded for
posterity many photographs of the only woman in the world who is
known to have lived without food or drink for over fifty years.
(Therese Neumann, of course, has fasted since 1923.) Most motherly
was Giri Bala’s expression as she stood before us, completely
covered in the loose-flowing cloth, nothing of her body visible
but her face with its downcast eyes, her hands, and her tiny feet.
A face of rare peace and innocent poise-a wide, childlike, quivering
lip, a feminine nose, narrow, sparkling eyes, and a wistful smile.”
Mr. Wright’s impression of Giri Bala was shared by myself; spirituality
enfolded her like her gently shining veil. She PRONAMED before me
in the customary gesture of greeting from a householder to a monk.
Her simple charm and quiet smile gave us a welcome beyond that of
honeyed oratory; forgotten was our difficult, dusty trip.
The little saint seated herself cross-legged on the verandah. Though
bearing the scars of age, she was not emaciated; her olive-colored
skin had remained clear and healthy in tone.
“Mother,” I said in Bengali, “for over twenty-five years I have
thought eagerly of this very pilgrimage! I heard about your sacred
life from Sthiti Lal Nundy Babu.”
She nodded in acknowledgment. “Yes, my good neighbor in Nawabganj.”
“During those years I have crossed the oceans, but I never forgot
my early plan to someday see you. The sublime drama that you are
here playing so inconspicuously should be blazoned before a world
that has long forgotten the inner food divine.”
The saint lifted her eyes for a minute, smiling with serene interest.
“Baba (honored father) knows best,” she answered meekly.
I was happy that she had taken no offense; one never knows how
great yogis or yoginis will react to the thought of publicity. They
shun it, as a rule, wishing to pursue in silence the profound soul
research. An inner sanction comes to them when the proper time
arrives to display their lives openly for the benefit of seeking
minds.
“Mother,” I went on, “please forgive me, then, for burdening you
with many questions. Kindly answer only those that please you; I
shall understand your silence, also.”
She spread her hands in a gracious gesture. “I am glad to reply,
insofar as an insignificant person like myself can give satisfactory
answers.”
“Oh, no, not insignificant!” I protested sincerely. “You are a
great soul.”
“I am the humble servant of all.” She added quaintly, “I love to
cook and feed people.”
A strange pastime, I thought, for a non-eating saint!
“Tell me, Mother, from your own lips-do you live without food?”
“That is true.” She was silent for a few moments; her next remark
showed that she had been struggling with mental arithmetic. “From
the age of twelve years four months down to my present age of
sixty-eight—a period of over fifty-six years—I have not eaten
food or taken liquids.”
“Are you never tempted to eat?”
“If I felt a craving for food, I would have to eat.” Simply yet
regally she stated this axiomatic truth, one known too well by a
world revolving around three meals a day!
“But you do eat something!” My tone held a note of remonstrance.
“Of course!” She smiled in swift understanding.
“Your nourishment derives from the finer energies of the air and
sunlight, {FN46-7} and from the cosmic power which recharges your
body through the medulla oblongata.”
“Baba knows.” Again she acquiesced, her manner soothing and
unemphatic.
“Mother, please tell me about your early life. It holds a deep
interest for all of India, and even for our brothers and sisters
beyond the seas.”
Giri Bala put aside her habitual reserve, relaxing into a conversational
mood.
“So be it.” Her voice was low and firm. “I was born in these forest
regions. My childhood was unremarkable save that I was possessed
by an insatiable appetite. I had been betrothed in early years.
“‘Child,’ my mother often warned me, ‘try to control your greed.
When the time comes for you to live among strangers in your husband’s
family, what will they think of you if your days are spent in
nothing but eating?’
“The calamity she had foreseen came to pass. I was only twelve
when I joined my husband’s people in Nawabganj. My mother-in-law
shamed me morning, noon, and night about my gluttonous habits.
Her scoldings were a blessing in disguise, however; they roused my
dormant spiritual tendencies. One morning her ridicule was merciless.
“‘I shall soon prove to you,’ I said, stung to the quick, ‘that I
shall never touch food again as long as I live.’
“My mother-in-law laughed in derision. ‘So!’ she said, ‘how can
you live without eating, when you cannot live without overeating?’
“This remark was unanswerable! Yet an iron resolution scaffolded
my spirit. In a secluded spot I sought my Heavenly Father.
“‘Lord,’ I prayed incessantly, ‘please send me a guru, one who can
teach me to live by Thy light and not by food.’
“A divine ecstasy fell over me. Led by a beatific spell, I set out
for the Nawabganj GHAT on the Ganges. On the way I encountered the
priest of my husband’s family.
“‘Venerable sir,’ I said trustingly, ‘kindly tell me how to live
without eating.’
“He stared at me without reply. Finally he spoke in a consoling
manner. ‘Child,’ he said, ‘come to the temple this evening; I will
conduct a special VEDIC ceremony for you.’
“This vague answer was not the one I was seeking; I continued toward
the GHAT. The morning sun pierced the waters; I purified myself in
the Ganges, as though for a sacred initiation. As I left the river
bank, my wet cloth around me, in the broad glare of day my master
materialized himself before me!
“‘Dear little one,’ he said in a voice of loving compassion, ‘I
am the guru sent here by God to fulfill your urgent prayer. He was
deeply touched by its very unusual nature! From today you shall
live by the astral light, your bodily atoms fed from the infinite
current.’”
Giri Bala fell into silence. I took Mr. Wright’s pencil and pad
and translated into English a few items for his information.
The saint resumed the tale, her gentle voice barely audible. “The
GHAT was deserted, but my guru cast round us an aura of guarding
light, that no stray bathers later disturb us. He initiated me
into a KRIA technique which frees the body from dependence on the
gross food of mortals. The technique includes the use of a certain
MANTRA {FN46-8} and a breathing exercise more difficult than the
average person could perform. No medicine or magic is involved;
nothing beyond the KRIA.”
In the manner of the American newspaper reporter, who had unknowingly
taught me his procedure, I questioned Giri Bala on many matters
which I thought would be of interest to the world. She gave me,
bit by bit, the following information:
“I have never had any children; many years ago I became a widow.
I sleep very little, as sleep and waking are the same to me. I
meditate at night, attending to my domestic duties in the daytime. I
slightly feel the change in climate from season to season. I have
never been sick or experienced any disease. I feel only slight
pain when accidentally injured. I have no bodily excretions. I
can control my heart and breathing. I often see my guru as well as
other great souls, in vision.”
“Mother,” I asked, “why don’t you teach others the method of living
without food?”
My ambitious hopes for the world’s starving millions were nipped
in the bud.
“No.” She shook her head. “I was strictly commanded by my guru
not to divulge the secret. It is not his wish to tamper with God’s
drama of creation. The farmers would not thank me if I taught
many people to live without eating! The luscious fruits would lie
uselessly on the ground. It appears that misery, starvation, and
disease are whips of our karma which ultimately drive us to seek
the true meaning of life.”
“Mother,” I said slowly, “what is the use of your having been
singled out to live without eating?”
“To prove that man is Spirit.” Her face lit with wisdom. “To
demonstrate that by divine advancement he can gradually learn to
live by the Eternal Light and not by food.”
The saint sank into a deep meditative state. Her gaze was directed
inward; the gentle depths of her eyes became expressionless. She
gave a certain sigh, the prelude to the ecstatic breathless trance.
For a time she had fled to the questionless realm, the heaven of
inner joy.
The tropical darkness had fallen. The light of a small kerosene
lamp flickered fitfully over the faces of a score of villagers
squatting silently in the shadows. The darting glowworms and distant
oil lanterns of the huts wove bright eerie patterns into the velvet
night. It was the painful hour of parting; a slow, tedious journey
lay before our little party.
“Giri Bala,” I said as the saint opened her eyes, “please give me
a keepsake-a strip of one of your SARIS.”
She soon returned with a piece of Benares silk, extending it in
her hand as she suddenly prostrated herself on the ground.
“Mother,” I said reverently, “rather let me touch your own blessed
feet!”
{FN46-1} In northern Bengal.
{FN46-2} H. H. Sir Bijay Chand Mahtab, now dead. His family doubtless
possesses some record of the Maharaja’s three investigations of
Giri Bala.
{FN46-3} Woman yogi.
{FN46-4} “Remover of Obstacles,” the god of good fortune.
{FN46-5} Sri Yukteswar used to say: “The Lord has given us the fruits
of the good earth. We like to see our food, to smell it, to taste
it—the Hindu likes also to touch it!” One does not mind HEARING
it, either, if no one else is present at the meal!
{FN46-6} Mr. Wright also took moving pictures of Sri Yukteswar
during his last Winter Solstice Festival in Serampore.
{FN46-7} “What we eat is radiation; our food is so much quanta
of energy,” Dr. George W. Crile of Cleveland told a gathering of
medical men on May 17, 1933 in Memphis. “This all-important radiation,
which releases electrical currents for the body’s electrical circuit,
the nervous system, is given to food by the sun’s rays. Atoms, Dr.
Crile says, are solar systems. Atoms are the vehicles that are
filled with solar radiance as so many coiled springs. These countless
atomfuls of energy are taken in as food. Once in the human body,
these tense vehicles, the atoms, are discharged in the body’s
protoplasm, the radiance furnishing new chemical energy, new
electrical currents. ‘Your body is made up of such atoms,’ Dr.
Crile said. ‘They are your muscles, brains, and sensory organs,
such as the eyes and ears.’”
Someday scientists will discover how man can live directly on solar
energy. “Chlorophyll is the only substance known in nature that
somehow possesses the power to act as a ‘sunlight trap,’” William
L. Laurence writes in the NEW YORK TIMES. “It ‘catches’ the energy
of sunlight and stores it in the plant. Without this no life could
exist. We obtain the energy we need for living from the solar
energy stored in the plant-food we eat or in the flesh of the
animals that eat the plants. The energy we obtain from coal or oil
is solar energy trapped by the chlorophyll in plant life millions
of years ago. We live by the sun through the agency of chlorophyll.”
{FN46-8} Potent vibratory chant. The literal translation of Sanskrit
MANTRA is “instrument of thought,” signifying the ideal, inaudible
sounds which represent one aspect of creation; when vocalized as
syllables, a MANTRA constitutes a universal terminology. The infinite
powers of sound derive from AUM, the “Word” or creative hum of the
Cosmic Motor.