Music is a universal language. Even in the world, the yogi who faithfully discharges his responsibilities, without personal motive or attachment, treads the sure path of enlightenment. Mr. Wright and I pose with the venerable Swami Keshabananda and a disciple at the stately hermitage in Brindaban, One of our party asked the swami how he had protected himself against the Himalayan tigers.9. The discouraged officers of the law once more performed their duty. News of the message reached my ears; anguished at its implications, I dropped to my knees and implored God that my gurus life be spared. Mr. 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. Thoughtless is the man who buries his ideals, surrendering to the common fate. Somehow saints and this commotion dont seem to belong together., Child, the master said, though apparently I was nearly twice his own age, for the faults of the many, judge not the whole. Sri Yukteswar caught my thought; he turned to me and whispered: Dont flatter yourself; Auddy is not nearly as entranced with the scenery as he is with the prospect of leaving us long enough to have a cigaret.. Father tended to first say No to any new proposal. To dispel my thought that I had intruded, he greeted me as an old friend. How laboriously had Mr. Wright counted the trunks at each foreign junction, that no pilfering hand receive the treasures intended for loved ones in America! Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.Gen. How pleasant to look forward to at least one of the pensions that Swami Pranabananda enjoys! The school, or Yogoda Sat-Sanga Brahmacharya Vidyalaya, conducts outdoor classes in grammar and high school subjects. I bowed before him in great awe, and retreated to the door. A modern artists conception of the divine teacher whose spiritual counsel in the Bhagavad Gita has become the Hindu Bible. Sis, you have been conscientiously observing the spiritual injunctions; your reward is near. I smiled mischievously. Then I moved to a more inaccessible cave and remained there for twenty-five years, entering the yoga union for twenty hours daily. The improvised wood-burning brick stoves were smoky and tear-provoking, but we laughed merrily at our work. Work done in 1938 at Columbia University was reported by The New York Times as follows: It has been determined within the past few years that when the nerves transmit messages between the brain and other parts of the body, tiny electrical impulses are being generated. We shall yet see him swoop toward home, fold his pinions, and humbly rest in our family nest. This discouraging simile fresh in my mind, I was determined to do no swooping in the direction of Calcutta. Like any other group of inquisitive tourists, we walked around the huge and ancient city of London. Will you not tell us, please, how it is possible to subdue with bare fists the most ferocious of jungle beasts, the royal Bengals?, My sons, it is nothing to me to fight tigers. The astral day and night are longer than those of earth. My friend wore an expression of blithe satisfaction at having outwitted a veteran European official. Unless necessary I do not invade the seclusion of others minds. But please explain how you could know about the child with the jug.. These are outward symbolic proofs of an inward lack of darkness and material bondage. I realized that my guru had previously agreed to the curtains only to please me; he had no fear of mosquitoes. Sunday services, classes, lectures before clubs and colleges, interviews with students, ceaseless streams of correspondence, articles for East-West, direction of activities in India and numerous small centers in American cities. Too bad I couldnt direct you to the vanished lamp; I am not a fortune teller! With twinkling eyes, he added, I am not even a satisfactory Sherlock Holmes!. The rejuvenating effects of sleep are due to mans temporary unawareness of body and breathing. These cycles are the eternal rounds of maya, the contrasts and relativities of the phenomenal universe.6 Man, one by one, escapes from creations prison of duality as he awakens to consciousness of his inseverable divine unity with the Creator. And so the bird prepared to swoop perilously close to Calcutta! He is either as thin as a skeleton, or as unholily fat as an elephant!. I bicycled back to the Panthi. Father was also kindly disposed, but his respect for law and order extended to the budget. I shall see you again, with your father, later on. The years brought fulfillment to both these predictions.6. The room was thronged to the window sills with about 400 people assembled to hear the talk on yoga. Swamiji,5 I dont understand what is required of me here. The saint told me something of her weekly trances. When I heard how Kashi had been removed, I entrained at once for Calcutta. Widespread humanitarian activities are now carried on there in the Shyama Charan Lahiri Mahasaya Mission. Your duties will be the reception of guests, and supervision of the work of the other disciples.. Forgive my wicked test!, The great yogi broke his habitual silence. Perceiving their soul equality, he showed no distinction or partiality. Moral: Attachment is blinding; it lends an imaginary halo of attractiveness to the object of desire. The nineteen components are intelligence; ego; feeling; mind (sense-consciousness); five instruments of knowledge, the subtle counterparts of the senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch; five instruments of action, the mental correspondence for the executive abilities to procreate, excrete, talk, walk, and exercise manual skill; and five instruments of life force, those empowered to perform the crystallizing, assimilating, eliminating, metabolizing, and circulating functions of the body. On to Egypt, with its modern Cairo and ancient pyramids. If the world suddenly came to an end, I could not be more astonished than by the sight of my sisters taking food!. Touch this vase and its diamonds; they will satisfy all the tests of sensory experience.. Dreamer, walk on.. I will take some specimens with me for laboratory tests.. Until now, I have never recounted to anyone this story of my meeting with Babaji. The romantic occasion of my first carefully-planned flight after Him was cruelly marred. Afzal looked me over inquisitively, then remarked: You have powerful hands. Many of these beings nevertheless feel slightly nervous at the thought of dropping their astral form for the subtler causal one. Famous Catholic Stigmatist who inspired my 1935 pilgrimage to Konnersreuth, Bavaria. I wonder if they are going to take me to task about matters utterly unknown to me. But the officers bowed with unwonted courtesy. His procedure differs widely, to accord with diversity in temperaments. Sri Yukteswar was boundless in his kindness when confronted by the urgent prayer of a devotee. My guru listened coldly to my tearful report. Our new friendship steadily progressed; one day she asked to become my disciple. The inspiring story of the famous prima donnas years of music has been recently published (Galli-Curcis Life of Song, by C. E. LeMassena, Paebar Co., New York, 1945).. When darkness recovered from its nightly swoon, I faced the new morning bereft of my ecstatic mood. I beg you not to impose any command that I change my way of life.. 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., The eight elemental qualities which enter into all created life, from atom to man, are earth, water, fire, air, ether, motion, mind, and individuality. With what velvet glove of every humility has He not covered the iron hand of omnipotence! I saw Lahiri Mahasaya in a blaze of light, he cried. Go downstairs to the garden; get a smooth stone and write your name on it with chalk; then throw the stone as far as possible into the Ganges.. I had to fight the battle of my own life, I discovered on Wednesday. His eyes held unfathomable tenderness. . After answering many questions, I was addressed by a lad named Kashi. Emerson paid the following tribute in his Journal to Vedic thought: It is sublime as heat and night and a breathless ocean. Receive your initiation into the kingdom of God through Kriya Yoga.. Rural reconstruction work is rewarding! Faith in God can produce any miracle except onepassing an examination without study. Distastefully I closed the book I had picked up in an idle moment. The Lord will send an umbrella of clouds; you all shall walk in comfort.. Though he was truly united with God, his reference here has a deep impersonal significance, my guru explained. The metaphysical method of physical transfer of disease is known to highly advanced yogis. His picture, in an ornate frame, always graced our family altar in the various cities to which Father was transferred by his office. I obeyed, and was astounded to observe Auddy in the act of exhaling rings of cigaret smoke. His small band contains two highly advanced American disciples. A red dot of sandalwood paste on her forehead symbolized the spiritual eye, ever open within her. His name has now passed into the heritage of common speech. . 4" W x 3.75" Happrox. His heart must have failed! I placed a mirror under his nose; no breath-vapor appeared. My aspiring zeal increased boundlessly, accompanied by a divine peace. In this storied vale one finds an epitome of all the earths beauties. Let him cease his savage activities. I shook my head with a smile of anticipation. The four-mile journey on the following morning was taken by boat on the Ganges. At ten-thirty we were called to the ashram porch for lunch with Gandhi and the satyagrahis. The recent discovery that an atom is a miniature solar system would be no news to the old Vaisesika philosophers, who also reduced time to its furthest mathematical concept by describing the smallest unit of time (kala) as the period taken by an atom to traverse its own unit of space., Translated from the Bengali of Rabindranath Tagore, by Manmohan Ghosh, in Viswa-Bharati., Little sir, please be seated. We shall arrange here for many conferences and Congresses of Religion, inviting delegates from all lands. These seeds will produce spinach and a few other vegetables. She was in a coma. Man through the cow is enjoined to realize his identity with all that lives. Enthusiastic townspeople strewed the path with flowers, glad to be summoned from prosaic tasks by our resounding praise of the Lords blessed name. . He conducted his household along the lines of Vedic discipline, with regular observance of ceremonial worship, acts of charity, and scriptural study. In superconsciousness, the internal organs remain in a state of suspended animation, electrified by the cosmic energy. As I reached the front door, I heard her voice, cordial but commanding. Waves of rapture engulfed me as I beheld the flesh and blood form of Sri Yukteswar! Yogananda, come!. Little sir, you were disappointed in that bioscope,2 but I think you will like a different one. The saint and I were standing on the sidewalk in front of the university building. Lord, I sighed complainingly, why didst Thou lead me here if she has disappeared?. It was late that afternoon before I could bring myself to leave the hermitage. Crestfallen, I returned to my guru. A vision appeared of a hilltop mansion in a distant land. I presented my second trophy to Uma. I lectured in every part of my new land, and addressed hundreds of clubs, colleges, churches, and groups of every denomination. The judgment passed by my fellow students was expressed in their nickname for meMad Monk.. My poor nose! Masters voice was shaky with laughter. Our strenuous race was rewarded by a breath-taking view. I should starve to death., Die then! This alarming counsel split the air. I dared not look back. Does your friend, Romesh Chandra Dutt, still live in your boardinghouse?, Get in touch with him; the Lord will inspire him to help you with the examinations., Very well, sir; but Romesh is unusually busy. The songs of Rabindranath have been on my lips since early youth, I told my companion. Inspired by the ideals of Lahiri Mahasaya, these teachers have abandoned promising worldly goals to serve humbly, to give greatly. You spend all your time with the disciples. Those who cling to the cosmic illusion must accept its essential law of polarity: flow and ebb, rise and fall, day and night, pleasure and pain, good and evil, birth and death. He insists that he see the mother of Mukunda.. From transient teachers of my earlier life I had imbibed a few erroneous lessons. He met his great guru, Babaji, near Ranikhet, and was initiated by him into Kriya Yoga. Master, they protested, rebuke thy disciples., I tell you, Jesus replied, that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out.6. With or without provocation, the boy poured forth a tuneful stream. My head in a whirl, I sought out Sri Yukteswar in Serampore. The inflexible and the yielding methods are equally effective if applied with wisdom. The anguish of past months was toll I counted weightless against the torrential bliss now descending. Child, you must meditate more, he said. Attune yourself to the active inner Guidance; the Divine Voice has the answer to every dilemma of life. Come along; I want a witness, I told my companion. But my conviction has always been justified: faith in the divine protection, and the right use of mans God-given will, are forces formidable beyond any the inverted bowl can muster. But Mother was a queen of hearts, and taught us only through love. Cosmic law cannot be stayed or changed, and man would do well to put himself in harmony with it. This is some daydream you have recounted., Burning with the enthusiasm of truth, I spoke without due thought. Because he was shy and reclusive, he chose to visit our guru Lahiri Mahasaya only during the hours of midnight and dawn, when the crowd of daytime disciples was absent. I entered the ashram room where Masters body, unimaginably lifelike, was sitting in the lotus posturea picture of health and loveliness. I have no bodily excretions. Was dream ever more concrete? You have come, he said tenderly. During the summer vacation, I started on a short trip. Just as Jagadis Chandra Bose has demonstrated that plant growth can be accelerated far beyond its normal rate, so mans psychological development can be also speeded by an inner science. The door was opened by a servant, who told me her master was at home. I have spent the last four days without food or drink. would follow my name. As if mistrusting their senses, my friends stared at the lustrous figure on the blanket seat. He approached a large auditorium and vanished within the door. They are all well accustomed now to her strange state. Just as the purpose of eating is to satisfy hunger, not greed, so the sex instinct is designed for the propagation of the species according to natural law, never for the kindling of insatiable longings, he said. If a disciple neglected any of his worldly obligations, the master would gently correct and discipline him. He touched my forehead. Not sensing Sri Yukteswars reluctance to have me leave him, I went on, Once you beheld the blessed sight of Babaji at an Allahabad kumbha. She employs a certain yoga technique to recharge her body with cosmic energy from the ether, sun, and air. I am going to undo every wrong I have done you. His regular discourses on the scriptures came to be called his Gita Assembly, eagerly attended by many truth-seekers. With an antenna of irrefragable insight I sensed that my guru knew God, and would lead me to Him. My young heart was not yet malleable to the transforming fingers of my guru. Sir, he said, a saint is calling you.. Could I add a single word this morning to the assurance you received last night at ten oclock from the Beautiful Mother Herself?. 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. She was swathed in a cloth of dull, goldish silk; in typically Indian fashion, she drew forward modestly and hesitatingly, peering slightly from beneath the upper fold of her swadeshi cloth. It was in Bareilly on a midnight. When a religious method recommends itself as scientific, it can be certain of its public in the West.