Autobiography of a Yogi
by impersonal analysis and indomitable will. Every natural passion
can be mastered.
“Conserve your powers. Be like the capacious ocean, absorbing
within all the tributary rivers of the senses. Small yearnings are
openings in the reservoir of your inner peace, permitting healing
waters to be wasted in the desert soil of materialism. The forceful
activating impulse of wrong desire is the greatest enemy to the
happiness of man. Roam in the world as a lion of self-control;
see that the frogs of weakness don’t kick you around.”
The devotee is finally freed from all instinctive compulsions. He
transforms his need for human affection into aspiration for God
alone, a love solitary because omnipresent.
Sri Yukteswar’s mother lived in the Rana Mahal district of Benares
where I had first visited my guru. Gracious and kindly, she was
yet a woman of very decided opinions. I stood on her balcony one
day and watched mother and son talking together. In his quiet,
sensible way, Master was trying to convince her about something.
He was apparently unsuccessful, for she shook her head with great
vigor.
“Nay, nay, my son, go away now! Your wise words are not for me! I
am not your disciple!”
Sri Yukteswar backed away without further argument, like a scolded
child. I was touched at his great respect for his mother even in
her unreasonable moods. She saw him only as her little boy, not as a
sage. There was a charm about the trifling incident; it supplied
a sidelight on my guru’s unusual nature, inwardly humble and
outwardly unbendable.
The monastic regulations do not allow a swami to retain connection
with worldly ties after their formal severance. He cannot perform
the ceremonial family rites which are obligatory on the householder.
Yet Shankara, the ancient founder of the Swami Order, disregarded
the injunctions. At the death of his beloved mother, he cremated her
body with heavenly fire which he caused to spurt from his upraised
hand.
Sri Yukteswar also ignored the restrictions, in a fashion less
spectacular. When his mother passed on, he arranged the crematory
services by the holy Ganges in Benares, and fed many Brahmins in
conformance with age-old custom.
The SHASTRIC prohibitions were intended to help swamis overcome
narrow identifications. Shankara and Sri Yukteswar had wholly merged
their beings in the Impersonal Spirit; they needed no rescue by
rule. Sometimes, too, a master purposely ignores a canon in order
to uphold its principle as superior to and independent of form. Thus
Jesus plucked ears of corn on the day of rest. To the inevitable
critics he said: “The sabbath was made for man, and not man for
the sabbath.” {FN12-20}
Outside of the scriptures, seldom was a book honored by Sri
Yukteswar’s perusal. Yet he was invariably acquainted with the
latest scientific discoveries and other advancements of knowledge.
A brilliant conversationalist, he enjoyed an exchange of views on
countless topics with his guests. My guru’s ready wit and rollicking
laugh enlivened every discussion. Often grave, Master was never
gloomy. “To seek the Lord, one need not disfigure his face,” he
would remark. “Remember that finding God will mean the funeral of
all sorrows.”
Among the philosophers, professors, lawyers and scientists who came
to the hermitage, a number arrived for their first visit with the
expectation of meeting an orthodox religionist. A supercilious
smile or a glance of amused tolerance occasionally betrayed that
the newcomers anticipated nothing more than a few pious platitudes.
Yet their reluctant departure would bring an expressed conviction
that Sri Yukteswar had shown precise insight into their specialized
fields.
My guru ordinarily was gentle and affable to guests; his welcome was
given with charming cordiality. Yet inveterate egotists sometimes
suffered an invigorating shock. They confronted in Master either
a frigid indifference or a formidable opposition: ice or iron!
A noted chemist once crossed swords with Sri Yukteswar. The
visitor would not admit the existence of God, inasmuch as science
has devised no means of detecting Him.
“So you have inexplicably failed to isolate the Supreme Power in
your test tubes!” Master’s gaze was stern. “I recommend an unheard-of
experiment. Examine your thoughts unremittingly for twenty-four
hours. Then wonder no longer at God’s absence.”
A celebrated pundit received a similar jolt. With ostentatious
zeal, the scholar shook the ashram rafters with scriptural lore.
Resounding passages poured from the MAHABHARATA, the UPANISHADS,
{FN12-21} the BHASYAS {FN12-22} of Shankara.
“I am waiting to hear you.” Sri Yukteswar’s tone was inquiring, as
though utter silence had reigned. The pundit was puzzled.
“Quotations there have been, in superabundance.” Master’s words
convulsed me with mirth, as I squatted in my corner, at a respectful
distance from the visitor. “But what original commentary can you
supply, from the uniqueness of your particular life? What holy
text have you absorbed and made your own? In what ways have these
timeless truths renovated your nature? Are you content to be a
hollow victrola, mechanically repeating the words of other men?”
“I give up!” The scholar’s chagrin was comical. “I have no inner
realization.”
For the first time, perhaps, he understood that discerning placement
of the comma does not atone for a spiritual coma.
“These bloodless pedants smell unduly of the lamp,” my guru remarked
after the departure of the chastened one. “They prefer philosophy
to be a gentle intellectual setting-up exercise. Their elevated
thoughts are carefully unrelated either to the crudity of outward
action or to any scourging inner discipline!”
Master stressed on other occasions the futility of mere book
learning.
“Do not confuse understanding with a larger vocabulary,” he remarked.
“Sacred writings are beneficial in stimulating desire for inward
realization, if one stanza at a time is slowly assimilated. Continual
intellectual study results in vanity and the false satisfaction of
an undigested knowledge.”
Sri Yukteswar related one of his own experiences in scriptural
edification. The scene was a forest hermitage in eastern Bengal,
where he observed the procedure of a renowned teacher, Dabru Ballav.
His method, at once simple and difficult, was common in ancient
India.
Dabru Ballav had gathered his disciples around him in the sylvan
solitudes. The holy BHAGAVAD GITA was open before them. Steadfastly
they looked at one passage for half an hour, then closed their eyes.
Another half hour slipped away. The master gave a brief comment.
Motionless, they meditated again for an hour. Finally the guru
spoke.
“Have you understood?”
“Yes, sir.” One in the group ventured this assertion.
“No; not fully. Seek the spiritual vitality that has given these
words the power to rejuvenate India century after century.” Another
hour disappeared in silence. The master dismissed the students,
and turned to Sri Yukteswar.
“Do you know the BHAGAVAD GITA?”
“No, sir, not really; though my eyes and mind have run through its
pages many times.”
“Thousands have replied to me differently!” The great sage smiled
at Master in blessing. “If one busies himself with an outer display
of scriptural wealth, what time is left for silent inward diving
after the priceless pearls?”
Sri Yukteswar directed the study of his own disciples by the same
intensive method of one-pointedness. “Wisdom is not assimilated
with the eyes, but with the atoms,” he said. “When your conviction
of a truth is not merely in your brain but in your being, you may
diffidently vouch for its meaning.” He discouraged any tendency a
student might have to construe book-knowledge as a necessary step
to spiritual realization.
“The RISHIS wrote in one sentence profundities that commentating
scholars busy themselves over for generations,” he remarked. “Endless
literary controversy is for sluggard minds. What more liberating
thought than ‘God is’-nay, ‘God’?”
But man does not easily return to simplicity. It is seldom “God”
for him, but rather learned pomposities. His ego is pleased, that
he can grasp such erudition.
Men who were pridefully conscious of high worldly position were likely,
in Master’s presence, to add humility to their other possessions.
A local magistrate once arrived for an interview at the seaside
hermitage in Puri. The man, who held a reputation for ruthlessness, had
it well within his power to oust us from the ashram. I cautioned
my guru about the despotic possibilities. But he seated himself
with an uncompromising air, and did not rise to greet the visitor.
Slightly nervous, I squatted near the door. The man had to content
himself with a wooden box; my guru did not request me to fetch
a chair. There was no fulfillment of the magistrate’s obvious
expectation that his importance would be ceremoniously acknowledged.
A metaphysical discussion ensued. The guest blundered through
misinterpretations of the scriptures. As his accuracy sank, his
ire rose.
“Do you know that I stood first in the M. A. examination?” Reason
had forsaken him, but he could still shout.
“Mr. Magistrate, you forget that this is not your courtroom,” Master
replied evenly. “From your childish remarks I would have surmised
that your college career was unremarkable. A university degree,
in any case, is not remotely related to Vedic realization. Saints
are not produced in batches every semester like accountants.”
After a stunned silence, the visitor laughed heartily.
“This is my first encounter with a heavenly magistrate,” he said.
Later he made a formal request, couched in the legal terms which
were evidently part and parcel of his being, to be accepted as a
“probationary” disciple.
My guru personally attended to the details connected with the
management of his property. Unscrupulous persons on various occasions
attempted to secure possession of Master’s ancestral land. With
determination and even by instigating lawsuits, Sri Yukteswar
outwitted every opponent. He underwent these painful experiences from
a desire never to be a begging guru, or a burden on his disciples.
His financial independence was one reason why my alarmingly
outspoken Master was innocent of the cunnings of diplomacy. Unlike
those teachers who have to flatter their supporters, my guru was
impervious to the influences, open or subtle, of others’ wealth.
Never did I hear him ask or even hint for money for any purpose.
His hermitage training was given free and freely to all disciples.
An insolent court deputy arrived one day at the Serampore ashram
to serve Sri Yukteswar with a legal summons. A disciple named Kanai
and myself were also present. The officer’s attitude toward Master
was offensive.
“It will do you good to leave the shadows of your hermitage and breathe
the honest air of a courtroom.” The deputy grinned contemptuously.
I could not contain myself.
“Another word of your impudence and you will be on the floor!” I
advanced threateningly.
“You wretch!” Kanai’s shout was simultaneous with my own. “Dare
you bring your blasphemies into this sacred ashram?”
But Master stood protectingly in front of his abuser. “Don’t get
excited over nothing. This man is only doing his rightful duty.”
The officer, dazed at his varying reception, respectfully offered
a word of apology and sped away.
Amazing it was to find that a master with such a fiery will could
be so calm within. He fitted the Vedic definition of a man of God:
“Softer than the flower, where kindness is concerned; stronger than
the thunder, where principles are at stake.”
There are always those in this world who, in Browning’s words,
“endure no light, being themselves obscure.” An outsider occasionally