Autobiography of a Yogi
“Our eagerness for worldly activity kills in us the sense of
spiritual awe. We cannot comprehend the Great Life behind all names
and forms, just because science brings home to us how we can use
the powers of nature; this familiarity has bred a contempt for her
ultimate secrets. Our relation with nature is one of practical
business. We tease her, so to speak, to know how she can be used
to serve our purposes; we make use of her energies, whose Source
yet remains unknown. In science our relation with nature is one
that exists between a man and his servant, or in a philosophical
sense she is like a captive in the witness box. We cross-examine
her, challenge her, and minutely weigh her evidence in human scales
which cannot measure her hidden values. On the other hand, when
the self is in communion with a higher power, nature automatically
obeys, without stress or strain, the will of man. This effortless
command over nature is called ‘miraculous’ by the uncomprehending
materialist.
“The life of Lahiri Mahasaya set an example which changed the
erroneous notion that yoga is a mysterious practice. Every man may
find a way through KRIYA to understand his proper relation with
nature, and to feel spiritual reverence for all phenomena, whether
mystical or of everyday occurrence, in spite of the matter-of-factness
of physical science. {FN35-21} We must bear in mind that what was
mystical a thousand years ago is no longer so, and what is mysterious
now may become lawfully intelligible a hundred years hence. It is the
Infinite, the Ocean of Power, that is at the back of all manifestations.
“The law of KRIYA YOGA is eternal. It is true like mathematics;
like the simple rules of addition and subtraction, the law of KRIYA
can never be destroyed. Burn to ashes all the books on mathematics,
the logically-minded will always rediscover such truths; destroy
all the sacred books on yoga, its fundamental laws will come out
whenever there appears a true yogi who comprises within himself
pure devotion and consequently pure knowledge.”
Just as Babaji is among the greatest of avatars, a MAHAVATAR, and
Sri Yukteswar a JNANAVATAR or Incarnation of Wisdom, so Lahiri
Mahasaya may justly be called YOGAVATAR, or Incarnation of Yoga.
By the standards of both qualitative and quantitative good, he
elevated the spiritual level of society. In his power to raise his
close disciples to Christlike stature and in his wide dissemination
of truth among the masses, Lahiri Mahasaya ranks among the saviors
of mankind.
His uniqueness as a prophet lies in his practical stress on
a definite method, KRIYA, opening for the first time the doors of
yoga freedom to all men. Apart from the miracles of his own life,
surely the YOGAVATAR reached the zenith of all wonders in reducing
the ancient complexities of yoga to an effective simplicity not
beyond the ordinary grasp.
In reference to miracles, Lahiri Mahasaya often said, “The operation
of subtle laws which are unknown to people in general should not
be publicly discussed or published without due discrimination.”
If in these pages I have appeared to flout his cautionary words,
it is because he has given me an inward reassurance. Also, in
recording the lives of Babaji, Lahiri Mahasaya, and Sri Yukteswar,
I have thought it advisable to omit many true miraculous stories,
which could hardly have been included without writing, also, an
explanatory volume of abstruse philosophy.
New hope for new men! “Divine union,” the YOGAVATAR proclaimed, “is
possible through self-effort, and is not dependent on theological
beliefs or on the arbitrary will of a Cosmic Dictator.”
Through use of the KRIYA key, persons who cannot bring themselves
to believe in the divinity of any man will behold at last the full
divinity of their own selves.
{FN35-1} MATTHEW 3:15.
{FN35-2} Many Biblical passages reveal that the law of reincarnation
was understood and accepted. Reincarnational cycles are a more
reasonable explanation for the different states of evolution in
which mankind is found, than the common Western theory which assumes
that something (consciousness of egoity) came out of nothing, existed
with varying degrees of lustihood for thirty or ninety years, and
then returned to the original void. The inconceivable nature of
such a void is a problem to delight the heart of a medieval Schoolman.
{FN35-3} MALACHI 4:5.
{FN35-4} “Before him,” i.e., “before the Lord.”
{FN35-5} LUKE 1:13-17.
{FN35-6} MATTHEW 17:12-13.
{FN35-7} MATTHEW 11:13-14.
{FN35-8} JOHN 1:21.
{FN35-9} II KINGS 2:9-14.
{FN35-10} MATTHEW 17:3.
{FN35-11} MATTHEW 27:46-49.
{FN35-12} “How many sorts of death are in our bodies! Nothing is
therein but death.”-MARTIN LUTHER, IN “TABLE-TALK.”
{FN35-13} The chief prayer of the Mohammedans, usually repeated
four or five times daily.
{FN35-14} “Seek truth in meditation, not in moldy books. Look in
the sky to find the moon, not in the pond.”-PERSIAN PROVERB.
{FN35-15} As KRIYA YOGA is capable of many subdivisions, Lahiri
Mahasaya wisely sifted out four steps which he discerned to be
those which contained the essential marrow, and which were of the
highest value in actual practice.
{FN35-16} Other titles bestowed on Lahiri Mahasaya by his disciples
were YOGIBAR (greatest of yogis), YOGIRAJ (king of yogis), and MUNIBAR
(greatest of saints), to which I have added YOGAVATAR (incarnation
of yoga).
{FN35-17} He had given, altogether, thirty-five years of service
in one department of the government.
{FN35-18} Vast herbal knowledge is found in ancient Sanskrit treatises.
Himalayan herbs were employed in a rejuvenation treatment which
aroused the attention of the world in 1938 when the method was
used on Pundit Madan Mohan Malaviya, 77-year-old Vice-Chancellor
of Benares Hindu University. To a remarkable extent, the noted
scholar regained in 45 days his health, strength, memory, normal
eyesight; indications of a third set of teeth appeared, while all
wrinkles vanished. The herbal treatment, known as KAYA KALPA, is
one of 80 rejuvenation methods outlined in Hindu AYURVEDA or medical
science. Pundit Malaviya underwent the treatment at the hands of
Sri Kalpacharya Swami Beshundasji, who claims 1766 as his birth
year. He possesses documents proving him to be more than 100 years
old; ASSOCIATED PRESS reporters remarked that he looked about 40.
Ancient Hindu treatises divided medical science into 8 branches:
SALYA (surgery); SALAKYA (diseases above the neck); KAYACHIKITSA
(medicine proper); BHUTAVIDYA (mental diseases); KAUMARA (care
of infancy); AGADA (toxicology); RASAYANA (longevity); VAGIKARANA
(tonics). Vedic physicians used delicate surgical instruments,
employed plastic surgery, understood medical methods to counteract
the effects of poison gas, performed Caesarean sections and brain
operations, were skilled in dynamization of drugs. Hippocrates,
famous physician of the 5th century B.C., borrowed much of his
materia medica from Hindu sources.
{FN35-19} The East Indian margosa tree. Its medicinal values have
now become recognized in the West, where the bitter NEEM bark is
used as a tonic, and the oil from seeds and fruit has been found
of utmost worth in the treatment of leprosy and other diseases.
{FN35-20} “A number of seals recently excavated from archaeological
sites of the Indus valley, datable in the third millennium B.C.,
show figures seated in meditative postures now used in the system
of Yoga, and warrant the inference that even at that time some of
the rudiments of Yoga were already known. We may not unreasonably
draw the conclusion that systematic introspection with the aid of
studied methods has been practiced in India for five thousand years.
. . . India has developed certain valuable religious attitudes of
mind and ethical notions which are unique, at least in the wideness
of their application to life. One of these has been a tolerance in
questions of intellectual belief-doctrine-that is amazing to the
West, where for many centuries heresy-hunting was common, and bloody
wars between nations over sectarian rivalries were frequent.”-Extracts
from an article by Professor W. Norman Brown in the May, 1939
issue of the BULLETIN of the American Council of Learned Societies,
Washington, D.C.
{FN35-21} One thinks here of Carlyle’s observation in SARTOR RESARTUS:
“The man who cannot wonder, who does not habitually wonder (and
worship), were he president of innumerable Royal Societies and
carried . . . the epitome of all laboratories and observatories,
with their results, in his single head,-is but a pair of spectacles
behind which there is no eye.”
CHAPTER: 36
BABAJI’S INTEREST IN THE WEST
“Master, did you ever meet Babaji?”
It was a calm summer night in Serampore; the large stars of the
tropics gleamed over our heads as I sat by Sri Yukteswar’s side on
the second-story balcony of the hermitage.
“Yes.” Master smiled at my direct question; his eyes lit with
reverence. “Three times I have been blessed by the sight of the
deathless guru. Our first meeting was in Allahabad at a KUMBHA
MELA.”
The religious fairs held in India since time immemorial are known
as KUMBHA MELAS; they have kept spiritual goals in constant sight
of the multitude. Devout Hindus gather by the millions every six
years to meet thousands of sadhus, yogis, swamis, and ascetics of
all kinds. Many are hermits who never leave their secluded haunts
except to attend the MELAS and bestow their blessings on worldly
men and women.
“I was not a swami at the time I met Babaji,” Sri Yukteswar went on.
“But I had already received KRIYA initiation from Lahiri Mahasaya.
He encouraged me to attend the MELA which was convening in January,
1894 at Allahabad. It was my first experience of a KUMBHA; I felt
slightly dazed by the clamor and surge of the crowd. In my searching
gazes around I saw no illumined face of a master. Passing a bridge
on the bank of the Ganges, I noticed an acquaintance standing
near-by, his begging bowl extended.
“‘Oh, this fair is nothing but a chaos of noise and beggars,’
I thought in disillusionment. ‘I wonder if Western scientists,
patiently enlarging the realms of knowledge for the practical good
of mankind, are not more pleasing to God than these idlers who
profess religion but concentrate on alms.’
“My smouldering reflections on social reform were interrupted by
the voice of a tall sannyasi who halted before me.
“‘Sir,’ he said, ‘a saint is calling you.’
“‘Who is he?’
“‘Come and see for yourself.’
“Hesitantly following this laconic advice, I soon found myself
near a tree whose branches were sheltering a guru with an attractive
group of disciples. The master, a bright unusual figure, with
sparkling dark eyes, rose at my approach and embraced me.
“‘Welcome, Swamiji,’ he said affectionately.
“‘Sir,’ I replied emphatically, ‘I am NOT a swami.’
“‘Those on whom I am divinely directed to bestow the title
of “swami” never cast it off.’ The saint addressed me simply, but
deep conviction of truth rang in his words; I was engulfed in an
instant wave of spiritual blessing. Smiling at my sudden elevation
into the ancient monastic order, {FN36-1} I bowed at the feet of
the obviously great and angelic being in human form who had thus
honored me.
“Babaji-for it was indeed he-motioned me to a seat near him under
the tree. He was strong and young, and looked like Lahiri Mahasaya;
yet the resemblance did not strike me, even though I had often
heard of the extraordinary similarities in the appearance of the
two masters. Babaji possesses a power by which he can prevent any
specific thought from arising in a person’s mind. Evidently the
great guru wished me to be perfectly natural in his presence, not
overawed by knowledge of his identity.