Autobiography of a Yogi
but to past or present misuse by man of his individuality or free
will, given to him simultaneous with a soul, and revocable never.
Identifying himself with a shallow ego, man takes for granted that
it is he who thinks, wills, feels, digests meals, and keeps himself
alive, never admitting through reflection (only a little would
suffice!) that in his ordinary life he is naught but a puppet
of past actions (karma) and of nature or environment. Each man’s
intellectual reactions, feelings, moods, and habits are circumscribed
by effects of past causes, whether of this or a prior life. Lofty
above such influences, however, is his regal soul. Spurning the
transitory truths and freedoms, the KRIYA YOGI passes beyond all
disillusionment into his unfettered Being. All scriptures declare
man to be not a corruptible body, but a living soul; by KRIYA he
is given a method to prove the scriptural truth.
“Outward ritual cannot destroy ignorance, because they are not
mutually contradictory,” wrote Shankara in his famous CENTURY OF
VERSES. “Realized knowledge alone destroys ignorance. . . . Knowledge
cannot spring up by any other means than inquiry. ‘Who am I? How
was this universe born? Who is its maker? What is its material
cause?’ This is the kind of inquiry referred to.” The intellect
has no answer for these questions; hence the rishis evolved yoga
as the technique of spiritual inquiry.
KRIYA YOGA is the real “fire rite” often extolled in the BHAGAVAD
GITA. The purifying fires of yoga bring eternal illumination, and
thus differ much from outward and little-effective religious fire
ceremonies, where perception of truth is oft burnt, to solemn
chanted accompaniment, along with the incense!
The advanced yogi, withholding all his mind, will, and feeling from
false identification with bodily desires, uniting his mind with
superconscious forces in the spinal shrines, thus lives in this
world as God hath planned, not impelled by impulses from the past
nor by new witlessnesses of fresh human motivations. Such a yogi
receives fulfillment of his Supreme Desire, safe in the final haven
of inexhaustibly blissful Spirit.
The yogi offers his labyrinthine human longings to a monotheistic
bonfire dedicated to the unparalleled God. This is indeed the true
yogic fire ceremony, in which all past and present desires are fuel
consumed by love divine. The Ultimate Flame receives the sacrifice
of all human madness, and man is pure of dross. His bones stripped
of all desirous flesh, his karmic skeleton bleached in the antiseptic
suns of wisdom, he is clean at last, inoffensive before man and
Maker.
Referring to yoga’s sure and methodical efficacy, Lord Krishna
praises the technological yogi in the following words: “The yogi
is greater than body-disciplining ascetics, greater even than the
followers of the path of wisdom (JNANA YOGA), or of the path of
action (KARMA YOGA); be thou, O disciple Arjuna, a yogi!” {FN26-14}
{FN26-1} The noted scientist, Dr. George W. Crile of Cleveland,
explained before a 1940 meeting of the American Association for
the Advancement of Science the experiments by which he had proved
that all bodily tissues are electrically negative, except the
brain and nervous system tissues which remain electrically positive
because they take up revivifying oxygen at a more rapid rate.
{FN26-2} BHAGAVAD GITA, IV:29.
{FN26-3} BHAGAVAD GITA IV:1-2.
{FN26-4} The author of MANAVA DHARMA SHASTRAS. These institutes of
canonized common law are effective in India to this day. The French
scholar, Louis Jacolliot, writes that the date of Manu “is lost
in the night of the ante-historical period of India; and no scholar
has dared to refuse him the title of the most ancient lawgiver in the
world.” In LA BIBLE DANS L’INDE, pages 33-37, Jacolliot reproduces
parallel textual references to prove that the Roman CODE OF JUSTINIAN
follows closely the LAWS OF MANU.
{FN26-5} The start of the materialistic ages, according to Hindu
scriptural reckonings, was 3102 B.C. This was the beginning of the
Descending Dwapara Age (see page 174). Modern scholars, blithely
believing that 10,000 years ago all men were sunk in a barbarous
Stone Age, summarily dismiss as “myths” all records and traditions
of very ancient civilizations in India, China, Egypt, and other
lands.
{FN26-6} Patanjali’s APHORISMS, II:1. In using the words KRIYA
YOGA, Patanjali was referring to either the exact technique taught
by Babaji, or one very similar to it. That it was a definite
technique of life control is proved by Patanjali’s APHORISM II:49.
{FN26-7} Patanjali’s APHORISMS, I:27.
{FN26-8} “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God. . . . All things were made by him; and
without him was not any thing made that was made.”-JOHN 1:1-3. AUM
(OM) of the VEDAS became the sacred word AMIN of the Moslems, HUM
of the Tibetans, and AMEN of the Christians (its meaning in Hebrew
being SURE, FAITHFUL). “These things saith the Amen, the faithful
and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God.”-REVELATIONS
3:14.
{FN26-9} APHORISMS II:49..
{FN26-10} I CORINTHIANS 15:31. “Our rejoicing” is the correct
translation; not, as usually given, “your rejoicing.” St. Paul was
referring to the OMNIPRESENCE of the Christ consciousness..
{FN26-11} KALPA means time or aeon. SABIKALPA means subject to time
or change; some link with PRAKRITI or matter remains. NIRBIKALPA
means timeless, changeless; this is the highest state of SAMADHI.
{FN26-12} According to the LINCOLN LIBRARY OF ESSENTIAL INFORMATION,
p. 1030, the giant tortoise lives between 200 and 300 years.
{FN26-13} Shakespeare: SONNET #146.
{FN26-14} BHAGAVAD GITA, VI:46.
CHAPTER: 27
FOUNDING A YOGA SCHOOL AT RANCHI
“Why are you averse to organizational work?”
Master’s question startled me a bit. It is true that my private
conviction at the time was that organizations were “hornets’ nests.”
“It is a thankless task, sir,” I answered. “No matter what the
leader does or does not, he is criticized.”
“Do you want the whole divine CHANNA (milk curd) for yourself alone?”
My guru’s retort was accompanied by a stern glance. “Could you or
anyone else achieve God-contact through yoga if a line of generous-hearted
masters had not been willing to convey their knowledge to others?”
He added, “God is the Honey, organizations are the hives; both are
necessary. Any FORM is useless, of course, without the spirit, but
why should you not start busy hives full of the spiritual nectar?”
His counsel moved me deeply. Although I made no outward reply, an
adamant resolution arose in my breast: I would share with my fellows,
so far as lay in my power, the unshackling truths I had learned at
my guru’s feet. “Lord,” I prayed, “may Thy Love shine forever on
the sanctuary of my devotion, and may I be able to awaken that Love
in other hearts.”
On a previous occasion, before I had joined the monastic order,
Sri Yukteswar had made a most unexpected remark.
“How you will miss the companionship of a wife in your old age!” he
had said. “Do you not agree that the family man, engaged in useful
work to maintain his wife and children, thus plays a rewarding role
in God’s eyes?”
“Sir,” I had protested in alarm, “you know that my desire in this
life is to espouse only the Cosmic Beloved.”
Master had laughed so merrily that I understood his observation
was made merely as a test of my faith.
“Remember,” he had said slowly, “that he who discards his worldly
duties can justify himself only by assuming some kind of responsibility
toward a much larger family.”
The ideal of an all-sided education for youth had always been close
to my heart. I saw clearly the arid results of ordinary instruction,
aimed only at the development of body and intellect. Moral and
spiritual values, without whose appreciation no man can approach
happiness, were yet lacking in the formal curriculum. I determined to
found a school where young boys could develop to the full stature
of manhood. My first step in that direction was made with seven
children at Dihika, a small country site in Bengal.
A year later, in 1918, through the generosity of Sir Manindra
Chandra Nundy, the Maharaja of Kasimbazar, I was able to transfer my
fast-growing group to Ranchi. This town in Bihar, about two hundred
miles from Calcutta, is blessed with one of the most healthful
climates in India. The Kasimbazar Palace at Ranchi was transformed
into the headquarters for the new school, which I called BRAHMACHARYA
VIDYALAYA {FN27-1} in accordance with the educational ideals
of the rishis. Their forest ashrams had been the ancient seats of
learning, secular and divine, for the youth of India.
At Ranchi I organized an educational program for both grammar
and high school grades. It included agricultural, industrial,
commercial, and academic subjects. The students were also taught
yoga concentration and meditation, and a unique system of physical
development, “Yogoda,” whose principles I had discovered in 1916.
Realizing that man’s body is like an electric battery, I reasoned
that it could be recharged with energy through the direct agency of
the human will. As no action, slight or large, is possible without
WILLING, man can avail himself of his prime mover, will, to renew
his bodily tissues without burdensome apparatus or mechanical
exercises. I therefore taught the Ranchi students my simple “Yogoda”
techniques by which the life force, centred in man’s medulla
oblongata, can be consciously and instantly recharged from the
unlimited supply of cosmic energy.
The boys responded wonderfully to this training, developing
extraordinary ability to shift the life energy from one part of
the body to another part, and to sit in perfect poise in difficult
body postures. {FN27-2} They performed feats of strength and
endurance which many powerful adults could not equal. My youngest
brother, Bishnu Charan Ghosh, joined the Ranchi school; he later
became a leading physical culturist in Bengal. He and one of his
students traveled to Europe and America, giving exhibitions of
strength and skill which amazed the university savants, including
those at Columbia University in New York.
At the end of the first year at Ranchi, applications for admission
reached two thousand. But the school, which at that time was solely
residential, could accommodate only about one hundred. Instruction
for day students was soon added.
In the VIDYALAYA I had to play father-mother to the little children,
and to cope with many organizational difficulties. I often remembered
Christ’s words: “Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath
left house, or brethren or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife,
or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel’s, but he shall
receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses and brethren, and
sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions;
and in the world to come eternal life.” {FN27-3} Sri Yukteswar had
interpreted these words: “The devotee who forgoes the life-experiences
of marriage and family, and exchanges the problems of a small
household and limited activities for the larger responsibilities
of service to society in general, is undertaking a task which is
often accompanied by persecution from a misunderstanding world,
but also by a divine inner contentment.”
One day my father arrived in Ranchi to bestow a paternal blessing,
long withheld because I had hurt him by refusing his offer of a