Autobiography of a Yogi
in with the plans, {FN16-3} knowing that my love for God was more
overwhelming than any astrological persuasion from the past.
“The deeper the self-realization of a man, the more he influences
the whole universe by his subtle spiritual vibrations, and the
less he himself is affected by the phenomenal flux.” These words
of Master’s often returned inspiringly to my mind.
Occasionally I told astrologers to select my worst periods, according
to planetary indications, and I would still accomplish whatever
task I set myself. It is true that my success at such times has
been accompanied by extraordinary difficulties. But my conviction
has always been justified: faith in the divine protection, and the
right use of man’s God-given will, are forces formidable beyond
any the “inverted bowl” can muster.
The starry inscription at one’s birth, I came to understand, is not
that man is a puppet of his past. Its message is rather a prod to
pride; the very heavens seek to arouse man’s determination to be
free from every limitation. God created each man as a soul, dowered
with individuality, hence essential to the universal structure,
whether in the temporary role of pillar or parasite. His freedom
is final and immediate, if he so wills; it depends not on outer
but inner victories.
Sri Yukteswar discovered the mathematical application of a 24,000-year
equinoctial cycle to our present age. {FN16-4} The cycle is divided
into an Ascending Arc and a Descending Arc, each of 12,000 years.
Within each Arc fall four YUGAS or Ages, called KALI, DWAPARA,
TRETA, and SATYA, corresponding to the Greek ideas of Iron, Bronze,
Silver, and Golden Ages.
My guru determined by various calculations that the last KALI YUGA
or Iron Age, of the Ascending Arc, started about A.D. 500. The Iron
Age, 1200 years in duration, is a span of materialism; it ended
about A.D. 1700. That year ushered in DWAPARA YUGA, a 2400-year
period of electrical and atomic-energy developments, the age of
telegraph, radio, airplanes, and other space-annihilators.
The 3600-year period of TRETA YUGA will start in A.D. 4100; its
age will be marked by common knowledge of telepathic communications
and other time-annihilators. During the 4800 years of SATYA YUGA,
final age in an ascending arc, the intelligence of a man will be
completely developed; he will work in harmony with the divine plan.
A descending arc of 12,000 years, starting with a descending
Golden Age of 4800 years, then begins {FN16-5} for the world; man
gradually sinks into ignorance. These cycles are the eternal rounds
of MAYA, the contrasts and relativities of the phenomenal universe.
{FN16-6} Man, one by one, escapes from creation’s prison of duality
as he awakens to consciousness of his inseverable divine unity with
the Creator.
Master enlarged my understanding not only of astrology but of the
world’s scriptures. Placing the holy texts on the spotless table of
his mind, he was able to dissect them with the scalpel of intuitive
reasoning, and to separate errors and interpolations of scholars
from the truths as originally expressed by the prophets.
“Fix one’s vision on the end of the nose.” This inaccurate
interpretation of a BHAGAVAD GITA stanza, {FN16-7} widely accepted
by Eastern pundits and Western translators, used to arouse Master’s
droll criticism.
“The path of a yogi is singular enough as it is,” he remarked. “Why
counsel him that he must also make himself cross-eyed? The true
meaning of NASIKAGRAM is ‘origin of the nose,’ not ‘end of the
nose.’ The nose begins at the point between the two eyebrows, the
seat of spiritual vision.” {FN16-8} Because of one SANKHYA {FN16-9}
aphorism, “ISWAR-ASHIDHA,”-“A Lord of Creation cannot be deduced”
or “God is not proved,” {FN16-10}—many scholars call the whole
philosophy atheistical.
“The verse is not nihilistic,” Sri Yukteswar explained. “It merely
signifies that to the unenlightened man, dependent on his senses
for all final judgments, proof of God must remain unknown and
therefore non-existent. True SANKHYA followers, with unshakable
insight born of meditation, understand that the Lord is both existent
and knowable.”
Master expounded the Christian Bible with a beautiful clarity.
It was from my Hindu guru, unknown to the roll call of Christian
membership, that I learned to perceive the deathless essence of
the Bible, and to understand the truth in Christ’s assertion-surely
the most thrillingly intransigent ever uttered: “Heaven and earth
shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.” {FN16-11}
The great masters of India mold their lives by the same godly ideals
which animated Jesus; these men are his proclaimed kin: “Whosoever
shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my
brother, and sister, and mother.” {FN16-12} “If ye continue in my
word,” Christ pointed out, “then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye
shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” {FN16-13}
Freemen all, lords of themselves, the Yogi-Christs of India are part
of the immortal fraternity: those who have attained a liberating
knowledge of the One Father.
“The Adam and Eve story is incomprehensible to me!” I observed with
considerable heat one day in my early struggles with the allegory.
“Why did God punish not only the guilty pair, but also the innocent
unborn generations?”
Master was more amused by my vehemence than my ignorance. “GENESIS
is deeply symbolic, and cannot be grasped by a literal interpretation,”
he explained. “Its ‘tree of life’ is the human body. The spinal
cord is like an upturned tree, with man’s hair as its roots, and
afferent and efferent nerves as branches. The tree of the nervous
system bears many enjoyable fruits, or sensations of sight, sound,
smell, taste, and touch. In these, man may rightfully indulge; but
he was forbidden the experience of sex, the ‘apple’ at the center
of the bodily garden. {FN16-14}
“The ‘serpent’ represents the coiled-up spinal energy which stimulates
the sex nerves. ‘Adam’ is reason, and ‘Eve’ is feeling. When the
emotion or Eve-consciousness in any human being is overpowered by
the sex impulse, his reason or Adam also succumbs. {FN16-15}
“God created the human species by materializing the bodies of man
and woman through the force of His will; He endowed the new species
with the power to create children in a similar ‘immaculate’ or divine
manner. {FN16-16} Because His manifestation in the individualized
soul had hitherto been limited to animals, instinct-bound and
lacking the potentialities of full reason, God made the first human
bodies, symbolically called Adam and Eve. To these, for advantageous
upward evolution, He transferred the souls or divine essence of two
animals. {FN16-17} In Adam or man, reason predominated; in Eve or
woman, feeling was ascendant. Thus was expressed the duality or
polarity which underlies the phenomenal worlds. Reason and feeling
remain in a heaven of cooperative joy so long as the human mind is
not tricked by the serpentine energy of animal propensities.
“The human body was therefore not solely a result of evolution from
beasts, but was produced by an act of special creation by God. The
animal forms were too crude to express full divinity; the human being
was uniquely given a tremendous mental capacity-the ‘thousand-petaled
lotus’ of the brain-as well as acutely awakened occult centers in
the spine.
“God, or the Divine Consciousness present within the first created
pair, counseled them to enjoy all human sensibilities, but not to
put their concentration on touch sensations. {FN16-18} These were
banned in order to avoid the development of the sex organs, which
would enmesh humanity in the inferior animal method of propagation.
The warning not to revive subconsciously-present bestial memories
was not heeded. Resuming the way of brute procreation, Adam and
Eve fell from the state of heavenly joy natural to the original
perfect man.
“Knowledge of ‘good and evil’ refers to the cosmic dualistic
compulsion. Falling under the sway of MAYA through misuse of his
feeling and reason, or Eve-and Adam-consciousness, man relinquishes
his right to enter the heavenly garden of divine self-sufficiency.
{FN16-19} The personal responsibility of every human being is to
restore his ‘parents’ or dual nature to a unified harmony or Eden.”
As Sri Yukteswar ended his discourse, I glanced with new respect
at the pages of GENESIS.
“Dear Master,” I said, “for the first time I feel a proper filial
obligation toward Adam and Eve!”
{FN16-1} From astronomical references in ancient Hindu scriptures,
scholars have been able to correctly ascertain the dates of the
authors. The scientific knowledge of the rishis was very great; in
the KAUSHITAKI BRAHMANA we find precise astronomical passages which
show that in 3100 B.C. the Hindus were far advanced in astronomy,
which had a practical value in determining the auspicious times
for astrological ceremonies. In an article in EAST-WEST, February,
1934, the following summary is given of the JYOTISH or body
of Vedic astronomical treatises: “It contains the scientific lore
which kept India at the forefront of all ancient nations and made
her the mecca of seekers after knowledge. The very ancient BRAHMAGUPTA,
one of the JYOTISH works, is an astronomical treatise dealing with
such matters as the heliocentric motion of the planetary bodies
in our solar system, the obliquity of the ecliptic, the earth’s
spherical form, the reflected light of the moon, the earth’s daily
axial revolution, the presence of fixed stars in the Milky Way, the
law of gravitation, and other scientific facts which did not dawn
in the Western world until the time of Copernicus and Newton.”
It is now well-known that the so-called “Arabic numerals,” without
whose symbols advanced mathematics is difficult, came to Europe in
the 9th century, via the Arabs, from India, where that system of
notation had been anciently formulated. Further light on India’s
vast scientific heritage will be found in Dr. P. C. Ray’s HISTORY
OF HINDU CHEMISTRY, and in Dr. B. N. Seal’s POSITIVE SCIENCES OF
THE ANCIENT HINDUS.
{FN16-2} The blessing which flows from the mere sight of a saint.
{FN16-3} One of the girls whom my family selected as a possible
bride for me, afterwards married my cousin, Prabhas Chandra Ghose.
{FN16-4} A series of thirteen articles on the historical verification
of Sri Yukteswar’s YUGA theory appeared in the magazine EAST-WEST
(Los Angeles) from September, 1932, to September, 1933.
{FN16-5} In the year A.D. 12,500.
{FN16-6} The Hindu scriptures place the present world-age as
occurring within the KALI YUGA of a much longer universal cycle than
the simple 24,000-year equinoctial cycle with which Sri Yukteswar
was concerned. The universal cycle of the scriptures is 4,300,560,000
years in extent, and measures out a Day of Creation or the length
of life assigned to our planetary system in its present form. This
vast figure given by the rishis is based on a relationship between
the length of the solar year and a multiple of Pi (3.1416, the
ratio of the circumference to the diameter of a circle).
The life span for a whole universe, according to the ancient seers,
is 314,159,000,000,000 solar years, or “One Age of Brahma.”
Scientists estimate the present age of the earth to be about two
billion years, basing their conclusions on a study of lead pockets
left as a result of radioactivity in rocks. The Hindu scriptures
declare that an earth such as ours is dissolved for one of two
reasons: the inhabitants as a whole become either completely good
or completely evil. The world-mind thus generates a power which
releases the captive atoms held together as an earth.
Dire pronouncements are occasionally published regarding an imminent