Autobiography of a Yogi
berated Sri Yukteswar for an imaginary grievance. My imperturbable
guru listened politely, analyzing himself to see if any shred of
truth lay within the denunciation. These scenes would bring to my
mind one of Master’s inimitable observations: “Some people try to
be tall by cutting off the heads of others!”
The unfailing composure of a saint is impressive beyond any sermon.
“He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that
ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.” {FN12-23}
I often reflected that my majestic Master could easily have been
an emperor or world-shaking warrior had his mind been centered on
fame or worldly achievement. He had chosen instead to storm those
inner citadels of wrath and egotism whose fall is the height of a
man.
{FN12-1} “Worship of Durga.” This is the chief festival of the
Bengali year and lasts for nine days around the end of September.
Immediately following is the ten-day festival of DASHAHARA (“the One
who removes ten sins”-three of body, three of mind, four of speech).
Both PUJAS are sacred to Durga, literally “the Inaccessible,” an
aspect of Divine Mother, Shakti, the female creative force personified.
{FN12-2} Sri Yukteswar was born on May 10, 1855.
{FN12-3} YUKTESWAR means “united to God.” GIRI is a classificatory
distinction of one of the ten ancient Swami branches. SRI means
“holy”; it is not a name but a title of respect.
{FN12-4} Literally, “to direct together.” SAMADHI is a superconscious
state of ecstasy in which the yogi perceives the identity of soul
and Spirit.
{FN12-5} Snoring, according to physiologists, is an indication of
utter relaxation (to the oblivious practitioner, solely).
{FN12-6} DHAL is a thick soup made from split peas or other pulses.
CHANNA is a cheese of fresh curdled milk, cut into squares and
curried with potatoes.
{FN12-7} The omnipresent powers of a yogi, whereby he sees, hears,
tastes, smells, and feels his oneness in creation without the use
of sensory organs, have been described as follows in the TAITTIRIYA
ARANYAKA: “The blind man pierced the pearl; the fingerless put a
thread into it; the neckless wore it; and the tongueless praised
it.”
{FN12-8} The cobra swiftly strikes at any moving object within its
range. Complete immobility is usually one’s sole hope of safety.
{FN12-9} Lahiri Mahasaya actually said “Priya” (first or given
name), not “Yukteswar” (monastic name, not received by my guru
during Lahiri Mahasaya’s lifetime). (See page 109.) “Yukteswar” is
substituted here, and in a few other places in this book, in order
to avoid the confusion, to reader, of two names.
{FN12-10} “Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire,
when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have
them.”-MARK 11:24. Masters who possess the Divine Vision are fully
able to transfer their realizations to advanced disciples, as Lahiri
Mahasaya did for Sri Yukteswar on this occasion.
{FN12-11} “And one of them smote the servant of the high priest,
and cut off his right ear. And Jesus answered and said, Suffer ye
thus far. And he touched his ear and healed him.”-LUKE 22:50-51.
{FN12-12} “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast
ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their
feet, and turn again and rend you.”-MATTHEW 7:6.
{FN12-13} Disciples; from Sanskrit verb root, “to serve.”
{FN12-14} He was once ill in Kashmir, when I was absent from him.
(See chapter 23.)
{FN12-15} A courageous medical man, Charles Robert Richet, awarded
the Nobel Prize in physiology, wrote as follows: “Metaphysics is not
yet officially a science, recognized as such. But it is going to be.
. . . At Edinburgh, I was able to affirm before 100 physiologists
that our five senses are not our only means of knowledge and that
a fragment of reality sometimes reaches the intelligence in other
ways. . . . Because a fact is rare is no reason that it does
not exist. Because a study is difficult, is that a reason for not
understanding it? . . . Those who have railed at metaphysics as
an occult science will be as ashamed of themselves as those who
railed at chemistry on the ground that pursuit of the philosopher’s
stone was illusory. . . . In the matter of principles there are only
those of Lavoisier, Claude Bernard, and Pasteur-the EXPERIMENTAL
everywhere and always. Greetings, then, to the new science which
is going to change the orientation of human thought.”
{FN12-16} SAMADHI: perfect union of the individualized soul with
the Infinite Spirit.
{FN12-17} The subconsciously guided rationalizations of the mind
are utterly different from the infallible guidance of truth which
issues from the superconsciousness. Led by French scientists of
the Sorbonne, Western thinkers are beginning to investigate the
possibility of divine perception in man.
“For the past twenty years, students of psychology, influenced by
Freud, gave all their time to searching the subconscious realms,”
Rabbi Israel H. Levinthal pointed out in 1929. “It is true that
the subconscious reveals much of the mystery that can explain human
actions, but not all of our actions. It can explain the abnormal,
but not deeds that are above the normal. The latest psychology,
sponsored by the French schools, has discovered a new region in man,
which it terms the superconscious. In contrast to the subconscious
which represents the submerged currents of our nature, it reveals
the heights to which our nature can reach. Man represents a triple,
not a double, personality; our conscious and subconscious being
is crowned by a superconsciousness. Many years ago the English
psychologist, F. W. H. Myers, suggested that ‘hidden in the
deep of our being is a rubbish heap as well as a treasure house.’
In contrast to the psychology that centers all its researches
on the subconscious in man’s nature, this new psychology of the
superconscious focuses its attention upon the treasure-house, the
region that alone can explain the great, unselfish, heroic deeds
of men.”
{FN12-18} JNANA, wisdom, and BHAKTI, devotion: two of the main
paths to God.
{FN12-19} “Man in his waking state puts forth innumerable efforts
for experiencing sensual pleasures; when the entire group of sensory
organs is fatigued, he forgets even the pleasure on hand and goes
to sleep in order to enjoy rest in the soul, his own nature,”
Shankara, the great Vedantist, has written. “Ultra-sensual bliss
is thus extremely easy of attainment and is far superior to sense
delights which always end in disgust.”
{FN12-20} MARK 2:27.
{FN12-21} The UPANISHADS or VEDANTA (literally, “end of the Vedas”),
occur in certain parts of the VEDAS as essential summaries. The
UPANISHADS furnish the doctrinal basis of the Hindu religion. They
received the following tribute from Schopenhauer: “How entirely
does the UPANISHAD breathe throughout the holy spirit of the VEDAS!
How is everyone who has become familiar with that incomparable book
stirred by that spirit to the very depths of his soul! From every
sentence deep, original, and sublime thoughts arise, and the whole
is pervaded by a high and holy and earnest spirit. . . . The access
to the VEDAS by means of the UPANISHADS is in my eyes the greatest
privilege this century may claim before all previous centuries.”
{FN12-22} Commentaries. Shankara peerlessly expounded the UPANISHADS.
{FN12-23} PROVERBS 16:32.
CHAPTER: 13
THE SLEEPLESS SAINT
“Please permit me to go to the Himalayas. I hope in unbroken solitude
to achieve continuous divine communion.”
I actually once addressed these ungrateful words to my Master.
Seized by one of the unpredictable delusions which occasionally
assail the devotee, I felt a growing impatience with hermitage
duties and college studies. A feebly extenuating circumstance is
that my proposal was made when I had been only six months with Sri
Yukteswar. Not yet had I fully surveyed his towering stature.
“Many hillmen live in the Himalayas, yet possess no God-perception.”
My guru’s answer came slowly and simply. “Wisdom is better sought
from a man of realization than from an inert mountain.”
Ignoring Master’s plain hint that he, and not a hill, was my teacher,
I repeated my plea. Sri Yukteswar vouchsafed no reply. I took his
silence for consent, a precarious interpretation readily accepted
at one’s convenience.
In my Calcutta home that evening, I busied myself with travel
preparations. Tying a few articles inside a blanket, I remembered
a similar bundle, surreptitiously dropped from my attic window a
few years earlier. I wondered if this were to be another ill-starred
flight toward the Himalayas. The first time my spiritual elation had
been high; tonight conscience smote heavily at thought of leaving
my guru.
The following morning I sought out Behari Pundit, my Sanskrit
professor at Scottish Church College.
“Sir, you have told me of your friendship with a great disciple of
Lahiri Mahasaya. Please give me his address.”
“You mean Ram Gopal Muzumdar. I call him the ‘sleepless saint.’
He is always awake in an ecstatic consciousness. His home is at
Ranbajpur, near Tarakeswar.”
I thanked the pundit, and entrained immediately for Tarakeswar.
I hoped to silence my misgivings by wringing a sanction from the
“sleepless saint” to engage myself in lonely Himalayan meditation.
Behari’s friend, I heard, had received illumination after many
years of KRIYA YOGA practice in isolated caves.
At Tarakeswar I approached a famous shrine. Hindus regard it with
the same veneration that Catholics give to the Lourdes sanctuary in
France. Innumerable healing miracles have occurred at Tarakeswar,
including one for a member of my family.
“I sat in the temple there for a week,” my eldest aunt once told
me. “Observing a complete fast, I prayed for the recovery of your
Uncle Sarada from a chronic malady. On the seventh day I found a
herb materialized in my hand! I made a brew from the leaves, and
gave it to your uncle. His disease vanished at once, and has never
reappeared.”
I entered the sacred Tarakeswar shrine; the altar contains nothing
but a round stone. Its circumference, beginningless and endless,
makes it aptly significant of the Infinite. Cosmic abstractions are
not alien even to the humblest Indian peasant; he has been accused
by Westerners, in fact, of living on abstractions!
My own mood at the moment was so austere that I felt disinclined
to bow before the stone symbol. God should be sought, I reflected,
only within the soul.
I left the temple without genuflection and walked briskly toward
the outlying village of Ranbajpur. My appeal to a passer-by for
guidance caused him to sink into long cogitation.
“When you come to a crossroad, turn right and keep going,” he
finally pronounced oracularly.
Obeying the directions, I wended my way alongside the banks of
a canal. Darkness fell; the outskirts of the jungle village were
alive with winking fireflies and the howls of near-by jackals. The
moonlight was too faint to supply any reassurance; I stumbled on
for two hours.
Welcome clang of a cowbell! My repeated shouts eventually brought
a peasant to my side.
“I am looking for Ram Gopal Babu.”
“No such person lives in our village.” The man’s tone was surly.
“You are probably a lying detective.”
Hoping to allay suspicion in his politically troubled mind,
I touchingly explained my predicament. He took me to his home and
offered a hospitable welcome.
“Ranbajpur is far from here,” he remarked. “At the crossroad, you
should have turned left, not right.”
My earlier informant, I thought sadly, was a distinct menace to
travelers. After a relishable meal of coarse rice, lentil-DHAL,
and curry of potatoes with raw bananas, I retired to a small hut