Autobiography of a Yogi
the wakeful state on earth a human being is conscious more or less
of his three vehicles. When he is sensuously intent on tasting,
smelling, touching, listening, or seeing, he is working principally
through his physical body. Visualizing or willing, he is working
mainly through his astral body. His causal medium finds expression
when man is thinking or diving deep in introspection or meditation;
the cosmical thoughts of genius come to the man who habitually
contacts his causal body. In this sense an individual may be
classified broadly as ‘a material man,’ ‘an energetic man,’ or ‘an
intellectual man.’
“A man identifies himself about sixteen hours daily with his
physical vehicle. Then he sleeps; if he dreams, he remains in his
astral body, effortlessly creating any object even as do the astral
beings. If man’s sleep be deep and dreamless, for several hours he
is able to transfer his consciousness, or sense of I-ness, to the
causal body; such sleep is revivifying. A dreamer is contacting
his astral and not his causal body; his sleep is not fully refreshing.”
I had been lovingly observing Sri Yukteswar while he gave his
wondrous exposition.
“Angelic guru,” I said, “your body looks exactly as it did when
last I wept over it in the Puri ashram.”
“O yes, my new body is a perfect copy of the old one. I materialize
or dematerialize this form any time at will, much more frequently
than I did while on earth. By quick dematerialization, I now travel
instantly by light express from planet to planet or, indeed, from
astral to causal or to physical cosmos.” My divine guru smiled.
“Though you move about so fast these days, I had no difficulty in
finding you at Bombay!”
“O Master, I was grieving so deeply about your death!”
“Ah, wherein did I die? Isn’t there some contradiction?” Sri
Yukteswar’s eyes were twinkling with love and amusement.
“You were only dreaming on earth; on that earth you saw my
dream-body,” he went on. “Later you buried that dream-image. Now
my finer fleshly body-which you behold and are even now embracing
rather closely!-is resurrected on another finer dream-planet of
God. Someday that finer dream-body and finer dream-planet will pass
away; they too are not forever. All dream-bubbles must eventually
burst at a final wakeful touch. Differentiate, my son Yogananda,
between dreams and Reality!”
This idea of VEDANTIC {FN43-12} resurrection struck me with wonder.
I was ashamed that I had pitied Master when I had seen his lifeless
body at Puri. I comprehended at last that my guru had always been
fully awake in God, perceiving his own life and passing on earth,
and his present resurrection, as nothing more than relativities of
divine ideas in the cosmic dream.
“I have now told you, Yogananda, the truths of my life, death,
and resurrection. Grieve not for me; rather broadcast everywhere
the story of my resurrection from the God-dreamed earth of men to
another God-dreamed planet of astrally garbed souls! New hope will
be infused into the hearts of misery-mad, death-fearing dreamers
of the world.”
“Yes, Master!” How willingly would I share with others my joy at
his resurrection!
“On earth my standards were uncomfortably high, unsuited to the
natures of most men. Often I scolded you more than I should have.
You passed my test; your love shone through the clouds of all
reprimands.” He added tenderly, “I have also come today to tell
you: Never again shall I wear the stern gaze of censure. I shall
scold you no more.”
How much I had missed the chastisements of my great guru! Each one
had been a guardian angel of protection.
“Dearest Master! Rebuke me a million times-do scold me now!”
“I shall chide you no more.” His divine voice was grave, yet with
an undercurrent of laughter. “You and I shall smile together, so
long as our two forms appear different in the MAYA-dream of God.
Finally we shall merge as one in the Cosmic Beloved; our smiles
shall be His smile, our unified song of joy vibrating throughout
eternity to be broadcast to God-tuned souls!”
Sri Yukteswar gave me light on certain matters which I cannot reveal
here. During the two hours that he spent with me in the Bombay hotel
room he answered my every question. A number of world prophecies
uttered by him that June day in 1936 have already come to pass.
“I leave you now, beloved one!” At these words I felt Master melting
away within my encircling arms.
“My child,” his voice rang out, vibrating into my very soul-firmament,
“whenever you enter the door of NIRBIKALPA SAMADHI and call on me,
I shall come to you in flesh and blood, even as today.”
With this celestial promise Sri Yukteswar vanished from my sight.
A cloud-voice repeated in musical thunder: “Tell all! Whosoever
knows by NIRBIKALPA realization that your earth is a dream of God
can come to the finer dream-created planet of Hiranyaloka, and
there find me resurrected in a body exactly like my earthly one.
Yogananda, tell all!”
Gone was the sorrow of parting. The pity and grief for his death,
long robber of my peace, now fled in stark shame. Bliss poured
forth like a fountain through endless, newly opened soul-pores.
Anciently clogged with disuse, they now widened in purity at the
driving flood of ecstasy. Subconscious thoughts and feelings of my
past incarnations shed their karmic taints, lustrously renewed by
Sri Yukteswar’s divine visit.
In this chapter of my autobiography I have obeyed my guru’s behest
and spread the glad tiding, though it confound once more an incurious
generation. Groveling, man knows well; despair is seldom alien;
yet these are perversities, no part of man’s true lot. The day he
wills, he is set on the path to freedom. Too long has he hearkened
to the dank pessimism of his “dust-thou-art” counselors, heedless
of the unconquerable soul.
I was not the only one privileged to behold the Resurrected Guru.
One of Sri Yukteswar’s chelas was an aged woman, affectionately
known as MA (Mother), whose home was close to the Puri hermitage.
Master had often stopped to chat with her during his morning walk.
On the evening of March 16, 1936, Ma arrived at the ashram and
asked to see her guru.
“Why, Master died a week ago!” Swami Sebananda, now in charge of
the Puri hermitage, looked at her sadly.
“That’s impossible!” She smiled a little. “Perhaps you are just
trying to protect the guru from insistent visitors?”
“No.” Sebananda recounted details of the burial. “Come,” he said,
“I will take you to the front garden to Sri Yukteswarji’s grave.”
Ma shook her head. “There is no grave for him! This morning at ten
o’clock he passed in his usual walk before my door! I talked to
him for several minutes in the bright outdoors.
“‘Come this evening to the ashram,’ he said.
“I am here! Blessings pour on this old gray head! The deathless guru
wanted me to understand in what transcendent body he had visited
me this morning!”
The astounded Sebananda knelt before her.
“Ma,” he said, “what a weight of grief you lift from my heart! He
is risen!”
{FN43-1} In SABIKALPA SAMADHI the devotee has spiritually progressed
to a state of inward divine union, but cannot maintain his cosmic
consciousness except in the immobile trance-state. By continuous
meditation, he reaches the superior state of NIRBIKALPA SAMADHI,
where he moves freely in the world and performs his outward duties
without any loss of God-realization.
{FN43-2} Sri Yukteswar used the word PRANA; I have translated it as
lifetrons. The Hindu scriptures refer not only to the ANU, “atom,”
and to the PARAMANU, “beyond the atom,” finer electronic energies;
but also to PRANA, “creative lifetronic force.” Atoms and electrons
are blind forces; PRANA is inherently intelligent. The pranic
lifetrons in the spermatozoa and ova, for instance, guide the
embryonic development according to a karmic design.
{FN43-3} Adjective of MANTRA, chanted seed-sounds discharged by
the mental gun of concentration. The PURANAS (ancient SHASTRAS or
treatises) describe these MANTRIC wars between DEVAS and ASURAS
(gods and demons). An ASURA once tried to slay a DEVA with a potent
chant. But due to mispronunciation the mental bomb acted as a
boomerang and killed the demon.
{FN43-4} Examples of such powers are not wanting even on earth, as
in the case of Helen Keller and other rare beings.
{FN43-5} Lord Buddha was once asked why a man should love all
persons equally. “Because,” the great teacher replied, “in the
very numerous and varied lifespans of each man, every other being
has at one time or another been dear to him.”
{FN43-6} The eight elemental qualities which enter into all created
life, from atom to man, are earth, water, fire, air, ether, motion,
mind, and individuality. (BHAGAVAD GITA: VII:4.)
{FN43-7} Body signifies any soul-encasement, whether gross or
subtle. The three bodies are cages for the Bird of Paradise.
{FN43-8} Even as Babaji helped Lahiri Mahasaya to rid himself of a
subconscious desire from some past life for a palace, as described
in chapter 34.
{FN43-9} “And he said unto them, Wheresoever the body is, thither
will the eagles be gathered together.”-LUKE 17:37. Wherever the
soul is encased in the physical body or in the astral body or in
the causal body, there the eagles of desires-which prey on human
sense weaknesses, or on astral and causal attachments-will also
gather to keep the soul a prisoner.
{FN43-10} “Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple
of my God, and he shall go no more out (i.e., shall reincarnate
no more). . . . To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with
me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my
Father in his throne.”-REVELATION 3:12, 21.
{FN43-11} Sri Yukteswar was signifying that, even as in his earthly
incarnation he had occasionally assumed the weight of disease to
lighten his disciples’ karma, so in the astral world his mission
as a savior enabled him to take on certain astral karma of dwellers
on Hiranyaloka, and thus hasten their evolution into the higher
causal world.
{FN43-12} Life and death as relativities of thought only. VEDANTA
points out that God is the only Reality; all creation or separate
existence is MAYA or illusion. This philosophy of monism received
its highest expression in the UPANISHAD commentaries of Shankara.
CHAPTER: 44
WITH MAHATMA GANDHI AT WARDHA
“Welcome to Wardha!” Mahadev Desai, secretary to Mahatma Gandhi,
greeted Miss Bletch, Mr. Wright, and myself with these cordial words
and the gift of wreaths of KHADDAR (homespun cotton). Our little
group had just dismounted at the Wardha station on an early morning
in August, glad to leave the dust and heat of the train. Consigning
our luggage to a bullock cart, we entered an open motor car with
Mr. Desai and his companions, Babasaheb Deshmukh and Dr. Pingale.
A short drive over the muddy country roads brought us to MAGANVADI,
the ashram of India’s political saint.
Mr. Desai led us at once to the writing room where, cross-legged,
sat Mahatma Gandhi. Pen in one hand and a scrap of paper in the
other, on his face a vast, winning, warm-hearted smile!
“Welcome!” he scribbled in Hindi; it was a Monday, his weekly day
of silence.
Though this was our first meeting, we beamed on each other
affectionately. In 1925 Mahatma Gandhi had honored the Ranchi school
by a visit, and had inscribed in its guest-book a gracious tribute.
The tiny 100-pound saint radiated physical, mental, and spiritual
health. His soft brown eyes shone with intelligence, sincerity,
and discrimination; this statesman has matched wits and emerged the