Autobiography of a Yogi
clouds and rain passed away tracelessly.
“You see how God feels for us,” Master replied after I had expressed
my gratitude. “The Lord responds to all and works for all. Just as
He sent rain at my plea, so He fulfills any sincere desire of the
devotee. Seldom do men realize how often God heeds their prayers.
He is not partial to a few, but listens to everyone who approaches
Him trustingly. His children should ever have implicit faith in
the loving-kindness of their Omnipresent Father.” {FN15-6}
Sri Yukteswar sponsored four yearly festivals, at the equinoxes
and solstices, when his students gathered from far and near. The
winter solstice celebration was held in Serampore; the first one
I attended left me with a permanent blessing.
The festivities started in the morning with a barefoot procession
along the streets. The voices of a hundred students rang out with
sweet religious songs; a few musicians played the flute and KHOL
KARTAL (drums and cymbals). Enthusiastic townspeople strewed the
path with flowers, glad to be summoned from prosaic tasks by our
resounding praise of the Lord’s blessed name. The long tour ended
in the courtyard of the hermitage. There we encircled our guru,
while students on upper balconies showered us with marigold blossoms.
Many guests went upstairs to receive a pudding of CHANNA and
oranges. I made my way to a group of brother disciples who were
serving today as cooks. Food for such large gatherings had to
be cooked outdoors in huge cauldrons. The improvised wood-burning
brick stoves were smoky and tear-provoking, but we laughed merrily
at our work. Religious festivals in India are never considered
troublesome; each one does his part, supplying money, rice,
vegetables, or his personal services.
Master was soon in our midst, supervising the details of the feast.
Busy every moment, he kept pace with the most energetic young
student.
A SANKIRTAN (group chanting), accompanied by the harmonium and
hand-played Indian drums, was in progress on the second floor. Sri
Yukteswar listened appreciatively; his musical sense was acutely
perfect.
“They are off key!” Master left the cooks and joined the artists.
The melody was heard again, this time correctly rendered.
In India, music as well as painting and the drama is considered a
divine art. Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva-the Eternal Trinity-were the
first musicians. The Divine Dancer Shiva is scripturally represented
as having worked out the infinite modes of rhythm in His cosmic
dance of universal creation, preservation, and dissolution, while
Brahma accentuated the time-beat with the clanging cymbals, and
Vishnu sounded the holy MRIDANGA or drum. Krishna, an incarnation
of Vishnu, is always shown in Hindu art with a flute, on which
he plays the enrapturing song that recalls to their true home the
human souls wandering in MAYA-delusion. Saraswati, goddess of wisdom,
is symbolized as performing on the VINA, mother of all stringed
instruments. The SAMA VEDA of India contains the world’s earliest
writings on musical science.
The foundation stone of Hindu music is the RAGAS or fixed melodic
scales. The six basic RAGAS branch out into 126 derivative RAGINIS
(wives) and PUTRAS (sons). Each RAGA has a minimum of five notes:
a leading note (VADI or king), a secondary note (SAMAVADI or prime
minister), helping notes (ANUVADI, attendants), and a dissonant
note (VIVADI, the enemy).
Each one of the six basic RAGAS has a natural correspondence with
a certain hour of the day, season of the year, and a presiding
deity who bestows a particular potency. Thus, (1) the HINDOLE RAGA
is heard only at dawn in the spring, to evoke the mood of universal
love; (2) DEEPAKA RAGA is played during the evening in summer, to
arouse compassion; (3) MEGHA RAGA is a melody for midday in the
rainy season, to summon courage; (4) BHAIRAVA RAGA is played in the
mornings of August, September, October, to achieve tranquillity;
(5) SRI RAGA is reserved for autumn twilights, to attain pure love;
(6) MALKOUNSA RAGA is heard at midnights in winter, for valor.
The ancient rishis discovered these laws of sound alliance between
nature and man. Because nature is an objectification of AUM,
the Primal Sound or Vibratory Word, man can obtain control over
all natural manifestations through the use of certain MANTRAS or
chants. {FN15-7} Historical documents tell of the remarkable powers
possessed by Miyan Tan Sen, sixteenth century court musician for
Akbar the Great. Commanded by the Emperor to sing a night RAGA
while the sun was overhead, Tan Sen intoned a MANTRA which instantly
caused the whole palace precincts to become enveloped in darkness.
Indian music divides the octave into 22 SRUTIS or demi-semitones.
These microtonal intervals permit fine shades of musical expression
unattainable by the Western chromatic scale of 12 semitones. Each
one of the seven basic notes of the octave is associated in Hindu
mythology with a color, and the natural cry of a bird or beast-DO
with green, and the peacock; RE with red, and the skylark; MI with
golden, and the goat; FA with yellowish white, and the heron; SOL
with black, and the nightingale; LA with yellow, and the horse; SI
with a combination of all colors, and the elephant.
Three scales-major, harmonic minor, melodic minor-are the only
ones which Occidental music employs, but Indian music outlines 72
THATAS or scales. The musician has a creative scope for endless
improvisation around the fixed traditional melody or RAGA; he
concentrates on the sentiment or definitive mood of the structural
theme and then embroiders it to the limits of his own originality.
The Hindu musician does not read set notes; he clothes anew at each
playing the bare skeleton of the RAGA, often confining himself to
a single melodic sequence, stressing by repetition all its subtle
microtonal and rhythmic variations. Bach, among Western composers,
had an understanding of the charm and power of repetitious sound
slightly differentiated in a hundred complex ways.
Ancient Sanskrit literature describes 120 TALAS or time-measures.
The traditional founder of Hindu music, Bharata, is said to have
isolated 32 kinds of TALA in the song of a lark. The origin of TALA
or rhythm is rooted in human movements-the double time of walking,
and the triple time of respiration in sleep, when inhalation is
twice the length of exhalation. India has always recognized the
human voice as the most perfect instrument of sound. Hindu music
therefore largely confines itself to the voice range of three
octaves. For the same reason, melody (relation of successive notes)
is stressed, rather than harmony (relation of simultaneous notes).
The deeper aim of the early rishi-musicians was to blend the singer
with the Cosmic Song which can be heard through awakening of man’s
occult spinal centers. Indian music is a subjective, spiritual,
and individualistic art, aiming not at symphonic brilliance but at
personal harmony with the Oversoul. The Sanskrit word for musician
is BHAGAVATHAR, “he who sings the praises of God.” The SANKIRTANS
or musical gatherings are an effective form of yoga or spiritual
discipline, necessitating deep concentration, intense absorption
in the seed thought and sound. Because man himself is an expression
of the Creative Word, sound has the most potent and immediate effect
on him, offering a way to remembrance of his divine origin.
The SANKIRTAN issuing from Sri Yukteswar’s second-story sitting
room on the day of the festival was inspiring to the cooks amidst
the steaming pots. My brother disciples and I joyously sang the
refrains, beating time with our hands.
By sunset we had served our hundreds of visitors with KHICHURI (rice
and lentils), vegetable curry, and rice pudding. We laid cotton
blankets over the courtyard; soon the assemblage was squatting
under the starry vault, quietly attentive to the wisdom pouring from
Sri Yukteswar’s lips. His public speeches emphasized the value of
KRIYA YOGA, and a life of self-respect, calmness, determination,
simple diet, and regular exercise.
A group of very young disciples then chanted a few sacred hymns; the
meeting concluded with SANKIRTAN. From ten o’clock until midnight,
the ashram residents washed pots and pans, and cleared the courtyard.
My guru called me to his side.
“I am pleased over your cheerful labors today and during the past
week of preparations. I want you with me; you may sleep in my bed
tonight.”
This was a privilege I had never thought would fall to my lot. We
sat awhile in a state of intense divine tranquillity. Hardly ten
minutes after we had gotten into bed, Master rose and began to
dress.
“What is the matter, sir?” I felt a tinge of unreality in the
unexpected joy of sleeping beside my guru.
“I think that a few students who missed their proper train connections
will be here soon. Let us have some food ready.”
“Guruji, no one would come at one o’clock in the morning!”
“Stay in bed; you have been working very hard. But I am going to
cook.”
At Sri Yukteswar’s resolute tone, I jumped up and followed him to
the small daily-used kitchen adjacent to the second-floor inner
balcony. Rice and DHAL were soon boiling.
My guru smiled affectionately. “Tonight you have conquered fatigue
and fear of hard work; you shall never be bothered by them in the
future.”
As he uttered these words of lifelong blessing, footsteps sounded
in the courtyard. I ran downstairs and admitted a group of students.
“Dear brother, how reluctant we are to disturb Master at this hour!”
One man addressed me apologetically. “We made a mistake about train
schedules, but felt we could not return home without a glimpse of
our guru.”
“He has been expecting you and is even now preparing your food.”
Sri Yukteswar’s welcoming voice rang out; I led the astonished
visitors to the kitchen. Master turned to me with twinkling eyes.
“Now that you have finished comparing notes, no doubt you are
satisfied that our guests really did miss their train!”
I followed him to his bedroom a half hour later, realizing fully
that I was about to sleep beside a godlike guru.
{FN15-1} Puri, about 310 miles south of Calcutta, is a famous
pilgrimage city for devotees of Krishna; his worship is celebrated
there with two immense annual festivals, SNANAYATRA and RATHAYATRA.
{FN15-2} The 1939 discovery of a radio microscope revealed
a new world of hitherto unknown rays. “Man himself as well as all
kinds of supposedly inert matter constantly emits the rays that
this instrument ‘sees,’” reported the ASSOCIATED PRESS. “Those
who believe in telepathy, second sight, and clairvoyance, have in
this announcement the first scientific proof of the existence of
invisible rays which really travel from one person to another. The
radio device actually is a radio frequency spectroscope. It does
the same thing for cool, nonglowing matter that the spectroscope
does when it discloses the kinds of atoms that make the stars. . .
. The existence of such rays coming from man and all living things
has been suspected by scientists for many years. Today is the first
experimental proof of their existence. The discovery shows that
every atom and every molecule in nature is a continuous radio
broadcasting station. . . . Thus even after death the substance
that was a man continues to send out its delicate rays. The wave
lengths of these rays range from shorter than anything now used
in broadcasting to the longest kind of radio waves. The jumble of
these rays is almost inconceivable. There are millions of them. A
single very large molecule may give off 1,000,000 different wave
lengths at the same time. The longer wave lengths of this sort
travel with the ease and speed of radio waves. . . . There is one