Autobiography of a Yogi
old Bengali song, “Light the Lamp of Thy Love.” Bhola and I chanted
joyously as we strolled over the VIDYALAYA grounds.
About two years after founding the Ranchi school, I received an
invitation from Rabindranath to visit him at Santiniketan in order
to discuss our educational ideals. I went gladly. The poet was
seated in his study when I entered; I thought then, as at our first
meeting, that he was as striking a model of superb manhood as any
painter could desire. His beautifully chiseled face, nobly patrician,
was framed in long hair and flowing beard. Large, melting eyes; an
angelic smile; and a voice of flutelike quality which was literally
enchanting. Stalwart, tall, and grave, he combined an almost
womanly tenderness with the delightful spontaneity of a child. No
idealized conception of a poet could find more suitable embodiment
than in this gentle singer.
Tagore and I were soon deep in a comparative study of our schools,
both founded along unorthodox lines. We discovered many identical
features-outdoor instruction, simplicity, ample scope for the
child’s creative spirit. Rabindranath, however, laid considerable
stress on the study of literature and poetry, and the self-expression
through music and song which I had already noted in the case of
Bhola. The Santiniketan children observed periods of silence, but
were given no special yoga training.
The poet listened with flattering attention to my description of the
energizing “Yogoda” exercises and the yoga concentration techniques
which are taught to all students at Ranchi.
Tagore told me of his own early educational struggles. “I fled from
school after the fifth grade,” he said, laughing. I could readily
understand how his innate poetic delicacy had been affronted by
the dreary, disciplinary atmosphere of a schoolroom.
“That is why I opened Santiniketan under the shady trees and
the glories of the sky.” He motioned eloquently to a little group
studying in the beautiful garden. “A child is in his natural setting
amidst the flowers and songbirds. Only thus may he fully express
the hidden wealth of his individual endowment. True education can
never be crammed and pumped from without; rather it must aid in
bringing spontaneously to the surface the infinite hoards of wisdom
within.” {FN29-2}
I agreed. “The idealistic and hero-worshiping instincts of the young
are starved on an exclusive diet of statistics and chronological
eras.”
The poet spoke lovingly of his father, Devendranath, who had inspired
the Santiniketan beginnings.
“Father presented me with this fertile land, where he had already
built a guest house and temple,” Rabindranath told me. “I started
my educational experiment here in 1901, with only ten boys. The
eight thousand pounds which came with the Nobel Prize all went for
the upkeep of the school.”
The elder Tagore, Devendranath, known far and wide as “Maharishi,”
was a very remarkable man, as one may discover from his AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
Two years of his manhood were spent in meditation in the Himalayas. In
turn, his father, Dwarkanath Tagore, had been celebrated throughout
Bengal for his munificent public benefactions. From this illustrious
tree has sprung a family of geniuses. Not Rabindranath alone; all
his relatives have distinguished themselves in creative expression.
His brothers, Gogonendra and Abanindra, are among the foremost artists
{FN29-3} of India; another brother, Dwijendra, is a deep-seeing
philosopher, at whose gentle call the birds and woodland creatures
respond.
Rabindranath invited me to stay overnight in the guest house. It
was indeed a charming spectacle, in the evening, to see the poet
seated with a group in the patio. Time unfolded backward: the scene
before me was like that of an ancient hermitage-the joyous singer
encircled by his devotees, all aureoled in divine love. Tagore
knitted each tie with the cords of harmony. Never assertive, he drew
and captured the heart by an irresistible magnetism. Rare blossom
of poesy blooming in the garden of the Lord, attracting others by
a natural fragrance!
In his melodious voice, Rabindranath read to us a few of his exquisite
poems, newly created. Most of his songs and plays, written for the
delectation of his students, have been composed at Santiniketan.
The beauty of his lines, to me, lies in his art of referring to
God in nearly every stanza, yet seldom mentioning the sacred Name.
“Drunk with the bliss of singing,” he wrote, “I forget myself and
call thee friend who art my lord.”
The following day, after lunch, I bade the poet a reluctant farewell.
I rejoice that his little school has now grown to an international
university, “Viswa-Bharati,” where scholars of all lands have found
an ideal setting.
“Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by
narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms toward perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the
dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by Thee into ever-widening
thought and action;
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country
awake!” {FN29-4}
RABINDRANATH TAGORE
{FN29-1} The English writer and publicist, close friend of Mahatma
Gandhi. Mr. Andrews is honored in India for his many services to
his adopted land.
{FN29-2} “The soul having been often born, or, as the Hindus say,
‘traveling the path of existence through thousands of births’ . .
. there is nothing of which she has not gained the knowledge; no
wonder that she is able to recollect . . . what formerly she knew.
. . . For inquiry and learning is reminiscence all.”-EMERSON.
{FN29-3} Rabindranath, too, in his sixties, engaged in a serious
study of painting. Exhibitions of his “futuristic” work were given
some years ago in European capitals and New York.
{FN29-4} GITANJALI (New York: Macmillan Co.). A thoughtful study
of the poet will be found in THE PHILOSOPHY OF RABINDRANATH TAGORE,
by the celebrated scholar, Sir S. Radhakrishnan (Macmillan, 1918).
Another expository volume is B. K. Roy’s RABINDRANATH TAGORE: THE MAN
AND HIS POETRY (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1915). BUDDHA AND THE GOSPEL
OF BUDDHISM (New York: Putnam’s, 1916), by the eminent Oriental art
authority, Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, contains a number of illustrations
in color by the poet’s brother, Abanindra Nath Tagore.
CHAPTER: 30
THE LAW OF MIRACLES
The great novelist Leo Tolstoy wrote a delightful story, THE THREE
HERMITS. His friend Nicholas Roerich {FN30-1} has summarized the
tale, as follows:
“On an island there lived three old hermits. They were so simple that
the only prayer they used was: ‘We are three; Thou art Three-have
mercy on us!’ Great miracles were manifested during this naive
prayer.
“The local bishop {FN30-2} came to hear about the three hermits
and their inadmissible prayer, and decided to visit them in order
to teach them the canonical invocations. He arrived on the island,
told the hermits that their heavenly petition was undignified, and
taught them many of the customary prayers. The bishop then left
on a boat. He saw, following the ship, a radiant light. As it
approached, he discerned the three hermits, who were holding hands
and running upon the waves in an effort to overtake the vessel.
“‘We have forgotten the prayers you taught us,’ they cried as they
reached the bishop, ‘and have hastened to ask you to repeat them.’
The awed bishop shook his head.
“‘Dear ones,’ he replied humbly, ‘continue to live with your old
prayer!’”
How did the three saints walk on the water?
How did Christ resurrect his crucified body?
How did Lahiri Mahasaya and Sri Yukteswar perform their miracles?
Modern science has, as yet, no answer; though with the advent of the
atomic bomb and the wonders of radar, the scope of the world-mind
has been abruptly enlarged. The word “impossible” is becoming less
prominent in the scientific vocabulary.
The ancient Vedic scriptures declare that the physical world operates
under one fundamental law of MAYA, the principle of relativity and
duality. God, the Sole Life, is an Absolute Unity; He cannot appear
as the separate and diverse manifestations of a creation except
under a false or unreal veil. That cosmic illusion is MAYA. Every
great scientific discovery of modern times has served as a confirmation
of this simple pronouncement of the rishis.
Newton’s Law of Motion is a law of MAYA: “To every action there
is always an equal and contrary reaction; the mutual actions of
any two bodies are always equal and oppositely directed.” Action
and reaction are thus exactly equal. “To have a single force is
impossible. There must be, and always is, a pair of forces equal
and opposite.”
Fundamental natural activities all betray their mayic origin.
Electricity, for example, is a phenomenon of repulsion and attraction;
its electrons and protons are electrical opposites. Another example:
the atom or final particle of matter is, like the earth itself,
a magnet with positive and negative poles. The entire phenomenal
world is under the inexorable sway of polarity; no law of physics,
chemistry, or any other science is ever found free from inherent
opposite or contrasted principles.
Physical science, then, cannot formulate laws outside of MAYA, the
very texture and structure of creation. Nature herself is MAYA;
natural science must perforce deal with her ineluctable quiddity.
In her own domain, she is eternal and inexhaustible; future scientists
can do no more than probe one aspect after another of her varied
infinitude. Science thus remains in a perpetual flux, unable to reach
finality; fit indeed to formulate the laws of an already existing
and functioning cosmos, but powerless to detect the Law Framer
and Sole Operator. The majestic manifestations of gravitation and
electricity have become known, but what gravitation and electricity
are, no mortal knoweth. {FN30-3}
To surmount MAYA was the task assigned to the human race by the
millennial prophets. To rise above the duality of creation and perceive
the unity of the Creator was conceived of as man’s highest goal.
Those who cling to the cosmic illusion must accept its essential law
of polarity: flow and ebb, rise and fall, day and night, pleasure
and pain, good and evil, birth and death. This cyclic pattern
assumes a certain anguishing monotony, after man has gone through
a few thousand human births; he begins to cast a hopeful eye beyond
the compulsions of MAYA.
To tear the veil of MAYA is to pierce the secret of creation. The
yogi who thus denudes the universe is the only true monotheist.
All others are worshiping heathen images. So long as man remains
subject to the dualistic delusions of nature, the Janus-faced MAYA
is his goddess; he cannot know the one true God.
The world illusion, MAYA, is individually called AVIDYA, literally,
“not-knowledge,” ignorance, delusion. MAYA or AVIDYA can never be
destroyed through intellectual conviction or analysis, but solely
through attaining the interior state of NIRBIKALPA SAMADHI. The
Old Testament prophets, and seers of all lands and ages, spoke from
that state of consciousness. Ezekiel says (43:1-2): “Afterwards