Autobiography of a Yogi
gently, ‘Henceforth, my son, I shall come when you need me, and
not always when you call me. {FN34-10}’
“Tense silence reigned in the little group when I opened the door.
As if mistrusting their senses, my friends stared at the lustrous
figure on the blanket seat.
“‘This is mass-hypnotism!’ One man laughed blatantly. ‘No one could
possibly have entered this room without our knowledge!’
“Babaji advanced smilingly and motioned to each one to touch the
warm, solid flesh of his body. Doubts dispelled, my friends prostrated
themselves on the floor in awed repentance.
“‘Let HALUA {FN34-11} be prepared.’ Babaji made this request,
I knew, to further assure the group of his physical reality. While
the porridge was boiling, the divine guru chatted affably. Great
was the metamorphosis of these doubting Thomases into devout St.
Pauls. After we had eaten, Babaji blessed each of us in turn. There
was a sudden flash; we witnessed the instantaneous dechemicalization
of the electronic elements of Babaji’s body into a spreading vaporous
light. The God-tuned will power of the master had loosened its
grasp of the ether atoms held together as his body; forthwith the
trillions of tiny lifetronic sparks faded into the infinite reservoir.
“‘With my own eyes I have seen the conqueror of death.’ Maitra,
{FN34-12} one of the group, spoke reverently. His face was
transfigured with the joy of his recent awakening. ‘The supreme
guru played with time and space, as a child plays with bubbles. I
have beheld one with the keys of heaven and earth.’
“I soon returned to Danapur. Firmly anchored in the Spirit, again I
assumed the manifold business and family obligations of a householder.”
Lahiri Mahasaya also related to Swami Kebalananda and Sri Yukteswar
the story of another meeting with Babaji, under circumstances which
recalled the guru’s promise: “I shall come whenever you need me.”
“The scene was a KUMBHA MELA at Allahabad,” Lahiri Mahasaya told
his disciples. “I had gone there during a short vacation from my
office duties. As I wandered amidst the throng of monks and sadhus
who had come from great distances to attend the holy festival, I
noticed an ash-smeared ascetic who was holding a begging bowl. The
thought arose in my mind that the man was hypocritical, wearing
the outward symbols of renunciation without a corresponding inward
grace.
“No sooner had I passed the ascetic than my astounded eye fell on
Babaji. He was kneeling in front of a matted-haired anchorite.
“‘Guruji!’ I hastened to his side. ‘Sir, what are you doing here?’
“‘I am washing the feet of this renunciate, and then I shall clean
his cooking utensils.’ Babaji smiled at me like a little child; I
knew he was intimating that he wanted me to criticize no one, but
to see the Lord as residing equally in all body-temples, whether of
superior or inferior men. The great guru added, ‘By serving wise
and ignorant sadhus, I am learning the greatest of virtues, pleasing
to God above all others-humility.’”
{FN34-1} Now a military sanatorium. By 1861 the British Government
had already established certain telegraphic communciations.
{FN34-2} Ranikhet, in the Almora district of United Provinces,
is situated at the foot of Nanda Devi, the highest Himalayan peak
(25,661 feet) in British India.
{FN34-3} “The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the
sabbath.”—MARK 2:27.
{FN34-4} The karmic law requires that every human wish find
ultimate fulfillment. Desire is thus the chain which binds man to
the reincarnational wheel.
{FN34-5} “What is a miracle?-’Tis a reproach,
’Tis an implicit satire on mankind.”
—Edward Young, in NIGHT THOUGHTS.
{FN34-5} The theory of the atomic structure of matter was expounded
in the ancient Indian VAISESIKA and NYAYA treatises. “There are vast
worlds all placed away within the hollows of each atom, multifarious
as the motes in a sunbeam.”—YOGA VASISHTHA.
{FN34-7} Physical, mental, and spiritual suffering; manifested,
respectively, in disease, in psychological inadequacies or “complexes,”
and in soul-ignorance.
{FN34-8} Chapter II:40.
{FN34-9} A town near Benares.
{FN34-10} In the path to the Infinite, even illumined masters like
Lahiri Mahasaya may suffer from an excess of zeal, and be subject
to discipline. In the BHAGAVAD GITA, we read many passages where the
divine guru Krishna gives chastisement to the prince of devotees,
Arjuna.
{FN34-11} A porridge made of cream of wheat fried in butter, and
boiled with milk.
{FN34-12} The man, Maitra, to whom Lahiri Mahasaya is here referring,
afterward became highly advanced in self-realization. I met Maitra
shortly after my graduation from high school; he visited the
Mahamandal hermitage in Benares while I was a resident. He told
me then of Babaji’s materialization before the group in Moradabad.
“As a result of the miracle,” Maitra explained to me, “I became a
lifelong disciple of Lahiri Mahasaya.”
CHAPTER: 35
THE CHRISTLIKE LIFE OF LAHIRI MAHASAYA
“Thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness.” {FN35-1} In
these words to John the Baptist, and in asking John to baptize him,
Jesus was acknowledging the divine rights of his guru.
From a reverent study of the Bible from an Oriental viewpoint,
{FN35-2} and from intuitional perception, I am convinced that
John the Baptist was, in past lives, the guru of Christ. There are
numerous passages in the Bible which infer that John and Jesus in
their last incarnations were, respectively, Elijah and his disciple
Elisha. (These are the spellings in the Old Testament. The Greek
translators spelled the names as Elias and Eliseus; they reappear
in the New Testament in these changed forms.)
The very end of the Old Testament is a prediction of the reincarnation
of Elijah and Elisha: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet
before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.”
{FN35-3} Thus John (Elijah), sent “before the coming . . . of the
Lord,” was born slightly earlier to serve as a herald for Christ.
An angel appeared to Zacharias the father to testify that his coming
son John would be no other than Elijah (Elias).
“But the angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer
is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou
shalt call his name John. . . . And many of the children of Israel
shall he turn to the Lord their God. And he shall go before him
{FN35-4} IN THE SPIRIT AND POWER OF ELIAS, to turn the hearts of
the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of
the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.” {FN35-5}
Jesus twice unequivocally identified Elijah (Elias) as John: “Elias
is come already, and they knew him not. . . . Then the disciples
understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist.” {FN35-6}
Again, Christ says: “For all the prophets and the law prophesied
until John. And if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was
for to come.” {FN35-7} When John denied that he was Elias (Elijah),
{FN35-8} he meant that in the humble garb of John he came no longer
in the outward elevation of Elijah the great guru. In his former
incarnation he had given the “mantle” of his glory and his spiritual
wealth to his disciple Elisha. “And Elisha said, I pray thee, let
a double portion of thy spirit be upon me. And he said, Thou hast
asked a hard thing: nevertheless, if thou see me when I am taken
from thee, it shall be so unto thee. . . . And he took the MANTLE
of Elijah that fell from him.” {FN35-9}
The roles became reversed, because Elijah-John was no longer needed
to be the ostensible guru of Elisha-Jesus, now perfected in divine
realization.
When Christ was transfigured on the mountain {FN35-10} it was his
guru Elias, with Moses, whom he saw. Again, in his hour of extremity
on the cross, Jesus cried out the divine name: “ELI, ELI, LAMA
SABACHTHANI? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken
me? Some of them that stood there, when they heard that, said, This
man calleth for Elias. . . . Let us see whether Elias will come to
save him.” {FN35-11}
The eternal bond of guru and disciple that existed between John and
Jesus was present also for Babaji and Lahiri Mahasaya. With tender
solicitude the deathless guru swam the Lethean waters that swirled
between the last two lives of his chela, and guided the successive
steps taken by the child and then by the man Lahiri Mahasaya.
It was not until the disciple had reached his thirty-third year
that Babaji deemed the time to be ripe to openly reestablish the
never-severed link. Then, after their brief meeting near Ranikhet,
the selfless master banished his dearly-beloved disciple from the
little mountain group, releasing him for an outward world mission.
“My son, I shall come whenever you need me.” What mortal lover can
bestow that infinite promise?
Unknown to society in general, a great spiritual renaissance began
to flow from a remote corner of Benares. Just as the fragrance of
flowers cannot be suppressed, so Lahiri Mahasaya, quietly living
as an ideal householder, could not hide his innate glory. Slowly,
from every part of India, the devotee-bees sought the divine nectar
of the liberated master.
The English office superintendent was one of the first to notice a
strange transcendental change in his employee, whom he endearingly
called “Ecstatic Babu.”
“Sir, you seem sad. What is the trouble?” Lahiri Mahasaya made this
sympathetic inquiry one morning to his employer.
“My wife in England is critically ill. I am torn by anxiety.”
“I shall get you some word about her.” Lahiri Mahasaya left the
room and sat for a short time in a secluded spot. On his return he
smiled consolingly.
“Your wife is improving; she is now writing you a letter.” The
omniscient yogi quoted some parts of the missive.
“Ecstatic Babu, I already know that you are no ordinary man. Yet I
am unable to believe that, at will, you can banish time and space!”
The promised letter finally arrived. The astounded superintendent
found that it contained not only the good news of his wife’s
recovery, but also the same phrases which, weeks earlier, Lahiri
Mahasaya had repeated.
The wife came to India some months later. She visited the office,
where Lahiri Mahasaya was quietly sitting at his desk. The woman
approached him reverently.
“Sir,” she said, “it was your form, haloed in glorious light, that
I beheld months ago by my sickbed in London. At that moment I was
completely healed! Soon after, I was able to undertake the long
ocean voyage to India.”
Day after day, one or two devotees besought the sublime guru for
KRIYA initiation. In addition to these spiritual duties, and to
those of his business and family life, the great master took an
enthusiastic interest in education. He organized many study groups,
and played an active part in the growth of a large high school in
the Bengalitola section of Benares. His regular discourses on the
scriptures came to be called his “GITA Assembly,” eagerly attended
by many truth-seekers.
By these manifold activities, Lahiri Mahasaya sought to answer the
common challenge: “After performing one’s business and social duties,
where is the time for devotional meditation?” The harmoniously balanced
life of the great householder-guru became the silent inspiration
of thousands of questioning hearts. Earning only a modest salary,
thrifty, unostentatious, accessible to all, the master carried on
naturally and happily in the path of worldly life.
Though ensconced in the seat of the Supreme One, Lahiri Mahasaya
showed reverence to all men, irrespective of their differing
merits. When his devotees saluted him, he bowed in turn to them.
With a childlike humility, the master often touched the feet