Autobiography of a Yogi
{FN11-4} Brindaban, in the Muttra district of United Provinces, is
the Hindu Jerusalem. Here Lord Krishna displayed his glories for
the benefit of mankind..
{FN11-5} Hari; an endearing name by which Lord Krishna is known to
his devotees.
{FN11-6} An Indian sweetmeat..
{FN11-7} A mythological gem with power to grant desires.
{FN11-8} Spiritual initiation; from the Sanskrit root DIKSH, to
dedicate oneself.
CHAPTER: 12
YEARS IN MY MASTER’S HERMITAGE
“You have come.” Sri Yukteswar greeted me from a tiger skin on the
floor of a balconied sitting room. His voice was cold, his manner
unemotional.
“Yes, dear Master, I am here to follow you.” Kneeling, I touched
his feet.
“How can that be? You ignore my wishes.”
“No longer, Guruji! Your wish shall be my law!”
“That is better! Now I can assume responsibility for your life.”
“I willingly transfer the burden, Master.”
“My first request, then, is that you return home to your family.
I want you to enter college in Calcutta. Your education should be
continued.”
“Very well, sir.” I hid my consternation. Would importunate books
pursue me down the years? First Father, now Sri Yukteswar!
“Someday you will go to the West. Its people will lend ears more
receptive to India’s ancient wisdom if the strange Hindu teacher
has a university degree.”
“You know best, Guruji.” My gloom departed. The reference to the
West I found puzzling, remote; but my opportunity to please Master
by obedience was vitally immediate.
“You will be near in Calcutta; come here whenever you find time.”
“Every day if possible, Master! Gratefully I accept your authority
in every detail of my life-on one condition.”
“Yes?”
“That you promise to reveal God to me!”
An hour-long verbal tussle ensued. A master’s word cannot be
falsified; it is not lightly given. The implications in the pledge
open out vast metaphysical vistas. A guru must be on intimate
terms indeed with the Creator before he can obligate Him to appear!
I sensed Sri Yukteswar’s divine unity, and was determined, as his
disciple, to press my advantage.
“You are of exacting disposition!” Then Master’s consent rang out
with compassionate finality:
“Let your wish be my wish.”
Lifelong shadow lifted from my heart; the vague search, hither and
yon, was over. I had found eternal shelter in a true guru.
“Come; I will show you the hermitage.” Master rose from his tiger
mat. I glanced about me; my gaze fell with astonishment on a wall
picture, garlanded with a spray of jasmine.
“Lahiri Mahasaya!”
“Yes, my divine guru.” Sri Yukteswar’s tone was reverently vibrant.
“Greater he was, as man and yogi, than any other teacher whose life
came within the range of my investigations.”
Silently I bowed before the familiar picture. Soul-homage sped to
the peerless master who, blessing my infancy, had guided my steps
to this hour.
Led by my guru, I strolled over the house and its grounds.
Large, ancient and well-built, the hermitage was surrounded by a
massive-pillared courtyard. Outer walls were moss-covered; pigeons
fluttered over the flat gray roof, unceremoniously sharing the
ashram quarters. A rear garden was pleasant with jackfruit, mango,
and plantain trees. Balustraded balconies of upper rooms in the
two-storied building faced the courtyard from three sides. A spacious
ground-floor hall, with high ceiling supported by colonnades, was
used, Master said, chiefly during the annual festivities of DURGAPUJA.
{FN12-1} A narrow stairway led to Sri Yukteswar’s sitting room,
whose small balcony overlooked the street. The ashram was plainly
furnished; everything was simple, clean, and utilitarian. Several
Western styled chairs, benches, and tables were in evidence.
Master invited me to stay overnight. A supper of vegetable curry was
served by two young disciples who were receiving hermitage training.
“Guruji, please tell me something of your life.” I was squatting
on a straw mat near his tiger skin. The friendly stars were very
close, it seemed, beyond the balcony.
“My family name was Priya Nath Karar. I was born {FN12-2} here
in Serampore, where Father was a wealthy businessman. He left me
this ancestral mansion, now my hermitage. My formal schooling was
little; I found it slow and shallow. In early manhood, I undertook
the responsibilities of a householder, and have one daughter, now
married. My middle life was blessed with the guidance of Lahiri
Mahasaya. After my wife died, I joined the Swami Order and received
the new name of Sri Yukteswar Giri. {FN12-3} Such are my simple
annals.”
Master smiled at my eager face. Like all biographical sketches,
his words had given the outward facts without revealing the inner
man.
“Guruji, I would like to hear some stories of your childhood.”
“I will tell you a few-each one with a moral!” Sri Yukteswar’s
eyes twinkled with his warning. “My mother once tried to frighten
me with an appalling story of a ghost in a dark chamber. I went
there immediately, and expressed my disappointment at having missed
the ghost. Mother never told me another horror-tale. Moral: Look
fear in the face and it will cease to trouble you.
“Another early memory is my wish for an ugly dog belonging to
a neighbor. I kept my household in turmoil for weeks to get that
dog. My ears were deaf to offers of pets with more prepossessing
appearance. Moral: Attachment is blinding; it lends an imaginary
halo of attractiveness to the object of desire.
“A third story concerns the plasticity of the youthful mind. I
heard my mother remark occasionally: ‘A man who accepts a job under
anyone is a slave.’ That impression became so indelibly fixed that
even after my marriage I refused all positions. I met expenses by
investing my family endowment in land. Moral: Good and positive
suggestions should instruct the sensitive ears of children. Their
early ideas long remain sharply etched.”
Master fell into tranquil silence. Around midnight he led me to
a narrow cot. Sleep was sound and sweet the first night under my
guru’s roof.
Sri Yukteswar chose the following morning to grant me his KRIYA YOGA
initiation. The technique I had already received from two disciples
of Lahiri Mahasaya-Father and my tutor, Swami Kebalananda-but in
Master’s presence I felt transforming power. At his touch, a great
light broke upon my being, like glory of countless suns blazing
together. A flood of ineffable bliss, overwhelming my heart to an
innermost core, continued during the following day. It was late
that afternoon before I could bring myself to leave the hermitage.
“You will return in thirty days.” As I reached my Calcutta home,
the fulfillment of Master’s prediction entered with me. None of my
relatives made the pointed remarks I had feared about the reappearance
of the “soaring bird.”
I climbed to my little attic and bestowed affectionate glances,
as though on a living presence. “You have witnessed my meditations,
and the tears and storms of my SADHANA. Now I have reached the
harbor of my divine teacher.”
“Son, I am happy for us both.” Father and I sat together in the
evening calm. “You have found your guru, as in miraculous fashion
I once found my own. The holy hand of Lahiri Mahasaya is guarding
our lives. Your master has proved no inaccessible Himalayan saint,
but one near-by. My prayers have been answered: you have not in
your search for God been permanently removed from my sight.”
Father was also pleased that my formal studies would be resumed;
he made suitable arrangements. I was enrolled the following day at
the Scottish Church College in Calcutta.
Happy months sped by. My readers have doubtless made the perspicacious
surmise that I was little seen in the college classrooms. The
Serampore hermitage held a lure too irresistible. Master accepted
my ubiquitous presence without comment. To my relief, he seldom
referred to the halls of learning. Though it was plain to all that
I was never cut out for a scholar, I managed to attain minimum
passing grades from time to time.
Daily life at the ashram flowed smoothly, infrequently varied. My
guru awoke before dawn. Lying down, or sometimes sitting on the bed,
he entered a state of SAMADHI. {FN12-4} It was simplicity itself
to discover when Master had awakened: abrupt halt of stupendous
snores. {FN12-5} A sigh or two; perhaps a bodily movement. Then a
soundless state of breathlessness: he was in deep yogic joy.
Breakfast did not follow; first came a long walk by the Ganges.
Those morning strolls with my guru-how real and vivid still! In
the easy resurrection of memory, I often find myself by his side:
the early sun is warming the river. His voice rings out, rich with
the authenticity of wisdom.
A bath; then the midday meal. Its preparation, according to Master’s
daily directions, had been the careful task of young disciples. My
guru was a vegetarian. Before embracing monkhood, however, he had
eaten eggs and fish. His advice to students was to follow any simple
diet which proved suited to one’s constitution.
Master ate little; often rice, colored with turmeric or juice of
beets or spinach and lightly sprinkled with buffalo GHEE or melted
butter. Another day he might have lentil-DHAL or CHANNA {FN12-6}
curry with vegetables. For dessert, mangoes or oranges with rice
pudding, or jackfruit juice.
Visitors appeared in the afternoons. A steady stream poured from
the world into the hermitage tranquillity. Everyone found in Master
an equal courtesy and kindness. To a man who has realized himself
as a soul, not the body or the ego, the rest of humanity assumes
a striking similarity of aspect.
The impartiality of saints is rooted in wisdom. Masters have escaped
MAYA; its alternating faces of intellect and idiocy no longer cast
an influential glance. Sri Yukteswar showed no special consideration
to those who happened to be powerful or accomplished; neither did
he slight others for their poverty or illiteracy. He would listen
respectfully to words of truth from a child, and openly ignore a
conceited pundit.
Eight o’clock was the supper hour, and sometimes found lingering
guests. My guru would not excuse himself to eat alone; none left his
ashram hungry or dissatisfied. Sri Yukteswar was never at a loss,
never dismayed by unexpected visitors; scanty food would emerge
a banquet under his resourceful direction. Yet he was economical;
his modest funds went far. “Be comfortable within your purse,”
he often said. “Extravagance will buy you discomfort.” Whether in
the details of hermitage entertainment, or his building and repair
work, or other practical concerns, Master manifested the originality
of a creative spirit.
Quiet evening hours often brought one of my guru’s discourses,
treasures against time. His every utterance was measured and chiseled
by wisdom. A sublime self-assurance marked his mode of expression:
it was unique. He spoke as none other in my experience ever spoke.
His thoughts were weighed in a delicate balance of discrimination
before he permitted them an outward garb. The essence of truth,
all-pervasive with even a physiological aspect, came from him like
a fragrant exudation of the soul. I was conscious always that I
was in the presence of a living manifestation of God. The weight
of his divinity automatically bowed my head before him.
If late guests detected that Sri Yukteswar was becoming engrossed
with the Infinite, he quickly engaged them in conversation. He was
incapable of striking a pose, or of flaunting his inner withdrawal.
Always one with the Lord, he needed no separate time for communion.
A self-realized master has already left behind the stepping stone