Autobiography of a Yogi
consciousness transferred to the captain’s dead body by the gory
shore. Utter confusion of mind came upon me.
“Lord,” I prayed, “am I dead or alive?”
A dazzling play of light filled the whole horizon. A soft rumbling
vibration formed itself into words:
“What has life or death to do with Light? In the image of My Light
I have made you. The relativities of life and death belong to the
cosmic dream. Behold your dreamless being! Awake, my child, awake!”
As steps in man’s awakening, the Lord inspires scientists to
discover, at the right time and place, the secrets of His creation.
Many modern discoveries help men to apprehend the cosmos as a varied
expression of one power-light, guided by divine intelligence. The
wonders of the motion picture, of radio, of television, of radar,
of the photo-electric cell-the all-seeing “electric eye,” of atomic
energies, are all based on the electromagnetic phenomenon of light.
The motion picture art can portray any miracle. From the impressive
visual standpoint, no marvel is barred to trick photography. A man’s
transparent astral body can be seen rising from his gross physical
form, he can walk on the water, resurrect the dead, reverse the
natural sequence of developments, and play havoc with time and
space. Assembling the light images as he pleases, the photographer
achieves optical wonders which a true master produces with actual
light rays.
The lifelike images of the motion picture illustrate many truths
concerning creation. The Cosmic Director has written His own plays,
and assembled the tremendous casts for the pageant of the centuries.
From the dark booth of eternity, He pours His creative beam through
the films of successive ages, and the pictures are thrown on the
screen of space. Just as the motion-picture images appear to be real,
but are only combinations of light and shade, so is the universal
variety a delusive seeming. The planetary spheres, with their
countless forms of life, are naught but figures in a cosmic motion
picture, temporarily true to five sense perceptions as the scenes
are cast on the screen of man’s consciousness by the infinite
creative beam.
A cinema audience can look up and see that all screen images are
appearing through the instrumentality of one imageless beam of
light. The colorful universal drama is similarly issuing from the
single white light of a Cosmic Source. With inconceivable ingenuity
God is staging an entertainment for His human children, making them
actors as well as audience in His planetary theater.
One day I entered a motion picture house to view a newsreel of the
European battlefields. World War I was still being waged in the
West; the newsreel recorded the carnage with such realism that I
left the theater with a troubled heart.
“Lord,” I prayed, “why dost Thou permit such suffering?”
To my intense surprise, an instant answer came in the form of
a vision of the actual European battlefields. The horror of the
struggle, filled with the dead and dying, far surpassed in ferocity
any representation of the newsreel.
“Look intently!” A gentle voice spoke to my inner consciousness. “You
will see that these scenes now being enacted in France are nothing
but a play of chiaroscuro. They are the cosmic motion picture, as
real and as unreal as the theater newsreel you have just seen-a
play within a play.”
My heart was still not comforted. The divine voice went on: “Creation
is light and shadow both, else no picture is possible. The good
and evil of MAYA must ever alternate in supremacy. If joy were
ceaseless here in this world, would man ever seek another? Without
suffering he scarcely cares to recall that he has forsaken his
eternal home. Pain is a prod to remembrance. The way of escape is
through wisdom! The tragedy of death is unreal; those who shudder
at it are like an ignorant actor who dies of fright on the stage
when nothing more is fired at him than a blank cartridge. My sons
are the children of light; they will not sleep forever in delusion.”
Although I had read scriptural accounts of MAYA, they had not given
me the deep insight that came with the personal visions and their
accompanying words of consolation. One’s values are profoundly
changed when he is finally convinced that creation is only a vast
motion picture, and that not in it, but beyond it, lies his own
reality.
As I finished writing this chapter, I sat on my bed in the lotus
posture. My room was dimly lit by two shaded lamps. Lifting my gaze,
I noticed that the ceiling was dotted with small mustard-colored
lights, scintillating and quivering with a radiumlike luster.
Myriads of pencilled rays, like sheets of rain, gathered into a
transparent shaft and poured silently upon me.
At once my physical body lost its grossness and became metamorphosed
into astral texture. I felt a floating sensation as, barely touching
the bed, the weightless body shifted slightly and alternately to
left and right. I looked around the room; the furniture and walls
were as usual, but the little mass of light had so multiplied that
the ceiling was invisible. I was wonder-struck.
“This is the cosmic motion picture mechanism.” A voice spoke
as though from within the light. “Shedding its beam on the white
screen of your bed sheets, it is producing the picture of your
body. Behold, your form is nothing but light!”
I gazed at my arms and moved them back and forth, yet could not feel
their weight. An ecstatic joy overwhelmed me. This cosmic stem of
light, blossoming as my body, seemed a divine replica of the light
beams streaming out of the projection booth in a cinema house and
manifesting as pictures on the screen.
For a long time I experienced this motion picture of my body in the
dimly lighted theater of my own bedroom. Despite the many visions
I have had, none was ever more singular. As my illusion of a solid
body was completely dissipated, and my realization deepened that
the essence of all objects is light, I looked up to the throbbing
stream of lifetrons and spoke entreatingly.
“Divine Light, please withdraw this, my humble bodily picture, into
Thyself, even as Elijah was drawn up to heaven by a flame.”
This prayer was evidently startling; the beam disappeared. My body
resumed its normal weight and sank on the bed; the swarm of dazzling
ceiling lights flickered and vanished. My time to leave this earth
had apparently not arrived.
“Besides,” I thought philosophically, “the prophet Elijah might
well be displeased at my presumption!”
{FN30-1} This famous Russian artist and philosopher has been living
for many years in India near the Himalayas. “From the peaks comes
revelation,” he has written. “In caves and upon the summits lived
the rishis. Over the snowy peaks of the Himalayas burns a bright
glow, brighter than stars and the fantastic flashes of lightning.”
{FN30-2} The story may have a historical basis; an editorial note
informs us that the bishop met the three monks while he was sailing
from Archangel to the Slovetsky Monastery, at the mouth of the
Dvina River.
{FN30-3} Marconi, the great inventor, made the following admission
of scientific inadequacy before the finalities: “The inability
of science to solve life is absolute. This fact would be truly
frightening were it not for faith. The mystery of life is certainly
the most persistent problem ever placed before the thought of man.”
{FN30-4} A clue to the direction taken by Einstein’s genius is given
by the fact that he is a lifelong disciple of the great philosopher
Spinoza, whose best-known work is ETHICS DEMONSTRATED IN GEOMETRICAL
ORDER.
{FN30-5} I TIMOTHY 6:15-16.
{FN30-6} GENESIS 1:26.
CHAPTER: 31
AN INTERVIEW WITH THE SACRED MOTHER
“Reverend Mother, I was baptized in infancy by your prophet-husband.
He was the guru of my parents and of my own guru Sri Yukteswarji.
Will you therefore give me the privilege of hearing a few incidents
in your sacred life?”
I was addressing Srimati Kashi Moni, the life-companion of Lahiri
Mahasaya. Finding myself in Benares for a short period, I was
fulfilling a long-felt desire to visit the venerable lady. She
received me graciously at the old Lahiri homestead in the Garudeswar
Mohulla section of Benares. Although aged, she was blooming like a
lotus, silently emanating a spiritual fragrance. She was of medium
build, with a slender neck and fair skin. Large, lustrous eyes
softened her motherly face.
“Son, you are welcome here. Come upstairs.”
Kashi Moni led the way to a very small room where, for a time, she
had lived with her husband. I felt honored to witness the shrine
in which the peerless master had condescended to play the human
drama of matrimony. The gentle lady motioned me to a pillow seat
by her side.
“It was years before I came to realize the divine stature of my
husband,” she began. “One night, in this very room, I had a vivid
dream. Glorious angels floated in unimaginable grace above me. So
realistic was the sight that I awoke at once; the room was strangely
enveloped in dazzling light.
“My husband, in lotus posture, was levitated in the center of
the room, surrounded by angels who were worshiping him with the
supplicating dignity of palm-folded hands. Astonished beyond measure,
I was convinced that I was still dreaming.
“‘Woman,’ Lahiri Mahasaya said, ‘you are not dreaming. Forsake your
sleep forever and forever.’ As he slowly descended to the floor,
I prostrated myself at his feet.
“‘Master,’ I cried, ‘again and again I bow before you! Will you
pardon me for having considered you as my husband? I die with shame
to realize that I have remained asleep in ignorance by the side of
one who is divinely awakened. From this night, you are no longer
my husband, but my guru. Will you accept my insignificant self as
your disciple?’ {FN31-1}
“The master touched me gently. ‘Sacred soul, arise. You are
accepted.’ He motioned toward the angels. ‘Please bow in turn to
each of these holy saints.’
“When I had finished my humble genuflections, the angelic voices
sounded together, like a chorus from an ancient scripture.
“‘Consort of the Divine One, thou art blessed. We salute thee.’
They bowed at my feet and lo! their refulgent forms vanished. The
room darkened.
“My guru asked me to receive initiation into KRIYA YOGA.
“‘Of course,’ I responded. ‘I am sorry not to have had its blessing
earlier in my life.’
“‘The time was not ripe.’ Lahiri Mahasaya smiled consolingly. ‘Much
of your karma I have silently helped you to work out. Now you are
willing and ready.’
“He touched my forehead. Masses of whirling light appeared; the
radiance gradually formed itself into the opal-blue spiritual eye,
ringed in gold and centered with a white pentagonal star.
“‘Penetrate your consciousness through the star into the kingdom
of the Infinite.’ My guru’s voice had a new note, soft like distant
music.
“Vision after vision broke as oceanic surf on the shores of
my soul. The panoramic spheres finally melted in a sea of bliss.
I lost myself in ever-surging blessedness. When I returned hours
later to awareness of this world, the master gave me the technique
of KRIYA YOGA.
“From that night on, Lahiri Mahasaya never slept in my room again.
Nor, thereafter, did he ever sleep. He remained in the front room
downstairs, in the company of his disciples both by day and by
night.”
The illustrious lady fell into silence. Realizing the uniqueness
of her relationship with the sublime yogi, I finally ventured to
ask for further reminiscences.
“Son, you are greedy. Nevertheless you shall have one more story.”
She smiled shyly. “I will confess a sin which I committed against
my guru-husband. Some months after my initiation, I began to feel
forlorn and neglected. One morning Lahiri Mahasaya entered this