Autobiography of a Yogi
4th century). The Chinese author relates: “Throughout the country
no one kills any living thing, nor drinks wine. . . . They do not
keep pigs or fowl; there are no dealings in cattle, no butchers’
shops or distilleries. Rooms with beds and mattresses, food and
clothes, are provided for resident and traveling priests without fail,
and this is the same in all places. The priests occupy themselves
with benevolent ministrations and with chanting liturgies; or they
sit in meditation.” Fa-Hsien tells us the Indian people were happy
and honest; capital punishment was unknown.
{FN42-7} I was not present at the deaths of my mother, elder
brother Ananta, eldest sister Roma, Master, Father, or of several
close disciples.
(Father passed on at Calcutta in 1942, at the age of eighty-nine.)
{FN42-8} The hundreds of thousands of Indian sadhus are controlled
by an executive committee of seven leaders, representing seven
large sections of India. The present MAHAMANDALESWAR or president
is Joyendra Puri. This saintly man is extremely reserved, often
confining his speech to three words-Truth, Love, and Work. A
sufficient conversation!
{FN42-9} There are many methods, it appears, for outwitting a
tiger. An Australian explorer, Francis Birtles, has recounted that
he found the Indian jungles “varied, beautiful, and safe.” His
safety charm was flypaper. “Every night I spread a quantity of
sheets around my camp and was never disturbed,” he explained. “The
reason is psychological. The tiger is an animal of great conscious
dignity. He prowls around and challenges man until he comes to the
flypaper; he then slinks away. No dignified tiger would dare face
a human being after squatting down upon a sticky flypaper!”
{FN42-10} After I returned to America I took off sixty-five pounds.
{FN42-11} Sri Yukteswar passed at this hour-7:00 P.M., March 9,
1936.
{FN42-12} Funeral customs in India require cremation for householders;
swamis and monks of other orders are not cremated, but buried. (There
are occasional exceptions.) The bodies of monks are symbolically
considered to have undergone cremation in the fire of wisdom at
the time of taking the monastic vow.
CHAPTER: 43
THE RESURRECTION OF SRI YUKTESWAR
“Lord Krishna!” The glorious form of the avatar appeared in a
shimmering blaze as I sat in my room at the Regent Hotel in Bombay.
Shining over the roof of a high building across the street, the
ineffable vision had suddenly burst on my sight as I gazed out of
my long open third-story window.
The divine figure waved to me, smiling and nodding in greeting.
When I could not understand the exact message of Lord Krishna, he
departed with a gesture of blessing. Wondrously uplifted, I felt
that some spiritual event was presaged.
My Western voyage had, for the time being, been cancelled. I was
scheduled for several public addresses in Bombay before leaving on
a return visit to Bengal.
Sitting on my bed in the Bombay hotel at three o’clock in the
afternoon of June 19, 1936-one week after the vision of Krishna-I
was roused from my meditation by a beatific light. Before my open
and astonished eyes, the whole room was transformed into a strange
world, the sunlight transmuted into supernal splendor.
Waves of rapture engulfed me as I beheld the flesh and blood form
of Sri Yukteswar!
“My son!” Master spoke tenderly, on his face an angel-bewitching
smile.
For the first time in my life I did not kneel at his feet in
greeting but instantly advanced to gather him hungrily in my arms.
Moment of moments! The anguish of past months was toll I counted
weightless against the torrential bliss now descending.
“Master mine, beloved of my heart, why did you leave me?” I was
incoherent in an excess of joy. “Why did you let me go to the KUMBHA
MELA? How bitterly have I blamed myself for leaving you!”
“I did not want to interfere with your happy anticipation of seeing
the pilgrimage spot where first I met Babaji. I left you only for
a little while; am I not with you again?”
“But is it YOU, Master, the same Lion of God? Are you wearing a
body like the one I buried beneath the cruel Puri sands?”
“Yes, my child, I am the same. This is a flesh and blood body.
Though I see it as ethereal, to your sight it is physical. From
the cosmic atoms I created an entirely new body, exactly like that
cosmic-dream physical body which you laid beneath the dream-sands
at Puri in your dream-world. I am in truth resurrected-not on
earth but on an astral planet. Its inhabitants are better able than
earthly humanity to meet my lofty standards. There you and your
exalted loved ones shall someday come to be with me.”
“Deathless guru, tell me more!”
Master gave a quick, mirthful chuckle. “Please, dear one,” he said,
“won’t you relax your hold a little?”
“Only a little!” I had been embracing him with an octopus grip.
I could detect the same faint, fragrant, natural odor which had
been characteristic of his body before. The thrilling touch of his
divine flesh still persists around the inner sides of my arms and
in my palms whenever I recall those glorious hours.
“As prophets are sent on earth to help men work out their physical
karma, so I have been directed by God to serve on an astral planet
as a savior,” Sri Yukteswar explained. “It is called HIRANYALOKA
or ‘Illumined Astral Planet.’ There I am aiding advanced beings
to rid themselves of astral karma and thus attain liberation from
astral rebirths. The dwellers on Hiranyaloka are highly developed
spiritually; all of them had acquired, in their last earth-incarnation,
the meditation-given power of consciously leaving their physical
bodies at death. No one can enter Hiranyaloka unless he has passed
on earth beyond the state of SABIKALPA SAMADHI into the higher
state of NIRBIKALPA SAMADHI. {FN43-1}
“The Hiranyaloka inhabitants have already passed through the
ordinary astral spheres, where nearly all beings from earth must
go at death; there they worked out many seeds of their past actions
in the astral worlds. None but advanced beings can perform such
redemptive work effectually in the astral worlds. Then, in order
to free their souls more fully from the cocoon of karmic traces
lodged in their astral bodies, these higher beings were drawn by
cosmic law to be reborn with new astral bodies on Hiranyaloka, the
astral sun or heaven, where I have resurrected to help them. There
are also highly advanced beings on Hiranyaloka who have come from
the superior, subtler, causal world.”
My mind was now in such perfect attunement with my guru’s that he
was conveying his word-pictures to me partly by speech and partly
by thought-transference. I was thus quickly receiving his idea-tabloids.
“You have read in the scriptures,” Master went on, “that God encased
the human soul successively in three bodies-the idea, or causal,
body; the subtle astral body, seat of man’s mental and emotional
natures; and the gross physical body. On earth a man is equipped with
his physical senses. An astral being works with his consciousness
and feelings and a body made of lifetrons. {FN43-2} A causal-bodied
being remains in the blissful realm of ideas. My work is with those
astral beings who are preparing to enter the causal world.”
“Adorable Master, please tell me more about the astral cosmos.”
Though I had slightly relaxed my embrace at Sri Yukteswar’s request,
my arms were still around him. Treasure beyond all treasures, my
guru who had laughed at death to reach me!
“There are many astral planets, teeming with astral beings,” Master
began. “The inhabitants use astral planes, or masses of light,
to travel from one planet to another, faster than electricity and
radioactive energies.
“The astral universe, made of various subtle vibrations of light
and color, is hundreds of times larger than the material cosmos.
The entire physical creation hangs like a little solid basket
under the huge luminous balloon of the astral sphere. Just as many
physical suns and stars roam in space, so there are also countless
astral solar and stellar systems. Their planets have astral suns and
moons, more beautiful than the physical ones. The astral luminaries
resemble the aurora borealis-the sunny astral aurora being more
dazzling than the mild-rayed moon-aurora. The astral day and night
are longer than those of earth.
“The astral world is infinitely beautiful, clean, pure, and
orderly. There are no dead planets or barren lands. The terrestrial
blemishes—weeds, bacteria, insects, snakes-are absent. Unlike
the variable climates and seasons of the earth, the astral planets
maintain the even temperature of an eternal spring, with occasional
luminous white snow and rain of many-colored lights. Astral planets
abound in opal lakes and bright seas and rainbow rivers.
“The ordinary astral universe-not the subtler astral heaven
of Hiranyaloka-is peopled with millions of astral beings who have
come, more or less recently, from the earth, and also with myriads
of fairies, mermaids, fishes, animals, goblins, gnomes, demigods
and spirits, all residing on different astral planets in accordance
with karmic qualifications. Various spheric mansions or vibratory
regions are provided for good and evil spirits. Good ones can travel
freely, but the evil spirits are confined to limited zones. In the
same way that human beings live on the surface of the earth, worms
inside the soil, fish in water, and birds in air, so astral beings
of different grades are assigned to suitable vibratory quarters.
“Among the fallen dark angels expelled from other worlds, friction
and war take place with lifetronic bombs or mental MANTRIC {FN43-3}
vibratory rays. These beings dwell in the gloom-drenched regions
of the lower astral cosmos, working out their evil karma.
“In the vast realms above the dark astral prison, all is shining
and beautiful. The astral cosmos is more naturally attuned than
the earth to the divine will and plan of perfection. Every astral
object is manifested primarily by the will of God, and partially by
the will-call of astral beings. They possess the power of modifying
or enhancing the grace and form of anything already created by the
Lord. He has given His astral children the freedom and privilege
of changing or improving at will the astral cosmos. On earth a
solid must be transformed into liquid or other form through natural
or chemical processes, but astral solids are changed into astral
liquids, gases, or energy solely and instantly by the will of the
inhabitants.
“The earth is dark with warfare and murder in the sea, land,
and air,” my guru continued, “but the astral realms know a happy
harmony and equality. Astral beings dematerialize or materialize
their forms at will. Flowers or fish or animals can metamorphose
themselves, for a time, into astral men. All astral beings are
free to assume any form, and can easily commune together. No fixed,
definite, natural law hems them round-any astral tree, for example,
can be successfully asked to produce an astral mango or other
desired fruit, flower, or indeed any other object. Certain karmic
restrictions are present, but there are no distinctions in the
astral world about desirability of various forms. Everything is
vibrant with God’s creative light.
“No one is born of woman; offspring are materialized by astral beings