Autobiography of a Yogi
Chadni Chowk, a merchandise center. For months we had been saving
our tiffin money to buy English clothes. Knowing that my clever
brother could easily play the part of a detective, we thought to
outwit him by European garb.
On the way to the station, we stopped for my cousin, Jotin Ghosh,
whom I called Jatinda. He was a new convert, longing for a guru
in the Himalayas. He donned the new suit we had in readiness.
Well-camouflaged, we hoped! A deep elation possessed our hearts.
“All we need now are canvas shoes.” I led my companions to a shop
displaying rubber-soled footwear. “Articles of leather, gotten
only through the slaughter of animals, must be absent on this holy
trip.” I halted on the street to remove the leather cover from my
BHAGAVAD GITA, and the leather straps from my English-made SOLA
TOPEE (helmet).
At the station we bought tickets to Burdwan, where we planned to
transfer for Hardwar in the Himalayan foothills. As soon as the
train, like ourselves, was in flight, I gave utterance to a few of
my glorious anticipations.
“Just imagine!” I ejaculated. “We shall be initiated by the masters
and experience the trance of cosmic consciousness. Our flesh will
be charged with such magnetism that wild animals of the Himalayas
will come tamely near us. Tigers will be no more than meek house
cats awaiting our caresses!”
This remark-picturing a prospect I considered entrancing, both
metaphorically and literally-brought an enthusiastic smile from
Amar. But Jatinda averted his gaze, directing it through the window
at the scampering landscape.
“Let the money be divided in three portions.” Jatinda broke a long
silence with this suggestion. “Each of us should buy his own ticket
at Burdwan. Thus no one at the station will surmise that we are
running away together.”
I unsuspectingly agreed. At dusk our train stopped at Burdwan.
Jatinda entered the ticket office; Amar and I sat on the platform.
We waited fifteen minutes, then made unavailing inquiries. Searching
in all directions, we shouted Jatinda’s name with the urgency
of fright. But he had faded into the dark unknown surrounding the
little station.
I was completely unnerved, shocked to a peculiar numbness. That God
would countenance this depressing episode! The romantic occasion
of my first carefully-planned flight after Him was cruelly marred.
“Amar, we must return home.” I was weeping like a child. “Jatinda’s
callous departure is an ill omen. This trip is doomed to failure.”
“Is this your love for the Lord? Can’t you stand the little test
of a treacherous companion?”
Through Amar’s suggestion of a divine test, my heart steadied
itself. We refreshed ourselves with famous Burdwan sweetmeats,
SITABHOG (food for the goddess) and MOTICHUR (nuggets of sweet
pearl). In a few hours, we entrained for Hardwar, via Bareilly.
Changing trains at Moghul Serai, we discussed a vital matter as we
waited on the platform.
“Amar, we may soon be closely questioned by railroad officials.
I am not underrating my brother’s ingenuity! No matter what the
outcome, I will not speak untruth.”
“All I ask of you, Mukunda, is to keep still. Don’t laugh or grin
while I am talking.”
At this moment, a European station agent accosted me. He waved a
telegram whose import I immediately grasped.
“Are you running away from home in anger?”
“No!” I was glad his choice of words permitted me to make emphatic
reply. Not anger but “divinest melancholy” was responsible, I knew,
for my unconventional behavior.
The official then turned to Amar. The duel of wits that followed
hardly permitted me to maintain the counseled stoic gravity.
“Where is the third boy?” The man injected a full ring of authority
into his voice. “Come on; speak the truth!”
“Sir, I notice you are wearing eyeglasses. Can’t you see that
we are only two?” Amar smiled impudently. “I am not a magician; I
can’t conjure up a third companion.”
The official, noticeably disconcerted by this impertinence, sought
a new field of attack.
“What is your name?”
“I am called Thomas. I am the son of an English mother and a
converted Christian Indian father.”
“What is your friend’s name?”
“I call him Thompson.”
By this time my inward mirth had reached a zenith; I unceremoniously
made for the train, whistling for departure. Amar followed with
the official, who was credulous and obliging enough to put us into
a European compartment. It evidently pained him to think of two
half-English boys traveling in the section allotted to natives. After
his polite exit, I lay back on the seat and laughed uncontrollably.
My friend wore an expression of blithe satisfaction at having
outwitted a veteran European official.
On the platform I had contrived to read the telegram. From my brother,
it went thus: “Three Bengali boys in English clothes running away
from home toward Hardwar via Moghul Serai. Please detain them until
my arrival. Ample reward for your services.”
“Amar, I told you not to leave marked timetables in your home.” My
glance was reproachful. “Brother must have found one there.”
My friend sheepishly acknowledged the thrust. We halted briefly
in Bareilly, where Dwarka Prasad awaited us with a telegram from
Ananta. My old friend tried valiantly to detain us; I convinced him
that our flight had not been undertaken lightly. As on a previous
occasion, Dwarka refused my invitation to set forth to the Himalayas.
While our train stood in a station that night, and I was half asleep,
Amar was awakened by another questioning official. He, too, fell a
victim to the hybrid charms of “Thomas” and “Thompson.” The train
bore us triumphantly into a dawn arrival at Hardwar. The majestic
mountains loomed invitingly in the distance. We dashed through the
station and entered the freedom of city crowds. Our first act was
to change into native costume, as Ananta had somehow penetrated
our European disguise. A premonition of capture weighed on my mind.
Deeming it advisable to leave Hardwar at once, we bought tickets to
proceed north to Rishikesh, a soil long hallowed by feet of many
masters. I had already boarded the train, while Amar lagged on
the platform. He was brought to an abrupt halt by a shout from a
policeman. Our unwelcome guardian escorted us to a station bungalow
and took charge of our money. He explained courteously that it was
his duty to hold us until my elder brother arrived.
Learning that the truants’ destination had been the Himalayas, the
officer related a strange story.
“I see you are crazy about saints! You will never meet a greater
man of God than the one I saw only yesterday. My brother officer
and I first encountered him five days ago. We were patrolling by the
Ganges, on a sharp lookout for a certain murderer. Our instructions
were to capture him, alive or dead. He was known to be masquerading
as a SADHU in order to rob pilgrims. A short way before us, we
spied a figure which resembled the description of the criminal. He
ignored our command to stop; we ran to overpower him. Approaching
his back, I wielded my ax with tremendous force; the man’s right
arm was severed almost completely from his body.
“Without outcry or any glance at the ghastly wound, the stranger
astonishingly continued his swift pace. As we jumped in front of
him, he spoke quietly.
“‘I am not the murderer you are seeking.’
“I was deeply mortified to see I had injured the person of a
divine—looking sage. Prostrating myself at his feet, I implored
his pardon, and offered my turban-cloth to staunch the heavy spurts
of blood.
“‘Son, that was just an understandable mistake on your part.’ The
saint regarded me kindly. ‘Run along, and don’t reproach yourself.
The Beloved Mother is taking care of me.’ He pushed his dangling
arm into its stump and lo! it adhered; the blood inexplicably ceased
to flow.
“‘Come to me under yonder tree in three days and you will find me
fully healed. Thus you will feel no remorse.’
“Yesterday my brother officer and I went eagerly to the designated
spot. The SADHU was there and allowed us to examine his arm. It
bore no scar or trace of hurt!
“‘I am going via Rishikesh to the Himalayan solitudes.’ He blessed
us as he departed quickly. I feel that my life has been uplifted
through his sanctity.”
The officer concluded with a pious ejaculation; his experience had
obviously moved him beyond his usual depths. With an impressive
gesture, he handed me a printed clipping about the miracle. In
the usual garbled manner of the sensational type of newspaper (not
missing, alas! even in India), the reporter’s version was slightly
exaggerated: it indicated that the SADHU had been almost decapitated!
Amar and I lamented that we had missed the great yogi who could
forgive his persecutor in such a Christlike way. India, materially
poor for the last two centuries, yet has an inexhaustible fund of
divine wealth; spiritual “skyscrapers” may occasionally be encountered
by the wayside, even by worldly men like this policeman.
We thanked the officer for relieving our tedium with his marvelous
story. He was probably intimating that he was more fortunate than
we: he had met an illumined saint without effort; our earnest search
had ended, not at the feet of a master, but in a coarse police
station!
So near the Himalayas and yet, in our captivity, so far, I told
Amar I felt doubly impelled to seek freedom.
“Let us slip away when opportunity offers. We can go on foot to
holy Rishikesh.” I smiled encouragingly.
But my companion had turned pessimist as soon as the stalwart prop
of our money had been taken from us.
“If we started a trek over such dangerous jungle land, we should
finish, not in the city of saints, but in the stomachs of tigers!”
Ananta and Amar’s brother arrived after three days. Amar greeted
his relative with affectionate relief. I was unreconciled; Ananta
got no more from me than a severe upbraiding.
“I understand how you feel.” My brother spoke soothingly. “All I
ask of you is to accompany me to Benares to meet a certain saint,
and go on to Calcutta to visit your grieving father for a few days.
Then you can resume your search here for a master.”
Amar entered the conversation at this point to disclaim any intention
of returning to Hardwar with me. He was enjoying the familial
warmth. But I knew I would never abandon the quest for my guru.
Our party entrained for Benares. There I had a singular and instant
response to my prayers.
A clever scheme had been prearranged by Ananta. Before seeing me
at Hardwar, he had stopped in Benares to ask a certain scriptural
authority to interview me later. Both the pundit and his son had
promised to undertake my dissuasion from the path of a SANNYASI.
{FN4-1}
Ananta took me to their home. The son, a young man of ebullient
manner, greeted me in the courtyard. He engaged me in a lengthy
philosophic discourse. Professing to have a clairvoyant knowledge
of my future, he discountenanced my idea of being a monk.
“You will meet continual misfortune, and be unable to find God, if
you insist on deserting your ordinary responsibilities! You cannot
work out your past karma {FN4-2} without worldly experiences.”
Krishna’s immortal words rose to my lips in reply: “‘Even he with
the worst of karma who ceaselessly meditates on Me quickly loses
the effects of his past bad actions. Becoming a high-souled being,
he soon attains perennial peace. Arjuna, know this for certain:
the devotee who puts his trust in Me never perishes!’” {FN4-3}
But the forceful prognostications of the young man had slightly
shaken my confidence. With all the fervor of my heart I prayed
silently to God:
“Please solve my bewilderment and answer me, right here and now, if