(A father’s Spartan devotion and early longing for God)
Father was a strict disciplinarian to his children in their early years, but his attitude toward himself was truly Spartan. He never visited the theater, for instance, but sought his recreation in various spiritual practices and in reading the Bhagavad Gita. Shunning all luxuries, he would cling to one old pair of shoes until they were useless.
the other kite comes to you, then I shall believe.” Sister’s dark eyes conveyed more amazement than her words. I continued my prayers with intensity. A forcible tug by the other player resulted in the abrupt loss of his kite. It headed toward me, dancing in the wind. My helpful assistant, the cactus plant, again secured the kite string in the necessary loop by which I could grasp it. I presented my second trophy to Uma.
Intense pangs of longing for God assailed me. I felt powerfully drawn to the Himalayas.
After office hours he retired like a hermit to the cell of his room, practicing Kriya Yoga in a sweet serenity. Long after Mother’s death, I attempted to engage an English nurse to attend to details that would make my parent’s life more comfortable. But Father shook his head.
He laughed. “I mean a pension of fathomless peace — a reward for many years of deep meditation. I never crave money now. My few material needs are amply provided for. Later you will understand the significance of a second pension.”
(The guru’s grace and the bliss of Kriya practice)
“I will tell you how priceless is a guru’s help. I used to meditate with another disciple for eight hours every night. We had to work at the railway office during the day. Finding difficulty in carrying on my clerical duties, I desired to devote my whole time to God. For eight years I persevered, meditating half the night. I had wonderful results; tremendous spiritual perceptions illumined my mind.
“Immeasurably uplifted, I returned to my home. In meditation that night, the burning Goal of my life was achieved. Now I ceaselessly enjoy the spiritual pension. Never from that day has the Blissful Creator remained hidden from my eyes behind any screen of delusion.” Pranabananda’s face was suffused with divine light. The peace of another world entered my heart; all fear had fled. The saint made a further confidence.
“Your life belongs to the path of renunciation and yoga. I shall see you again, with your father, later on.” The years brought fulfillment to both these predictions.
“No matter what the disciple’s problem, the guru advised Kriya Yoga for its solution.
Continue ceaselessly on your path to liberation through Kriya, whose power lies in practice.’
“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”1
(Simplicity of God versus the complexity of maya)
“God is simple. Everything else is complex. Do not seek absolute values in the relative world of nature.”
“Few there be who solve her mystery! Good and evil is the challenging riddle which life places sphinxlike before every intelligence. Attempting no solution, most men pay forfeit with their lives, penalty now even as in the days of Thebes. Here and there, a towering lonely figure never cries defeat. From the maya3 of duality he plucks the cleaveless truth of unity.”
(Self-scrutiny, ego dissolution, and the riddle of good and evil)
Self-scrutiny, relentless observance of one’s thoughts, is a stark and shattering experience. It pulverizes the stoutest ego.
“Man can understand no eternal verity until he has freed himself from pretensions. The human mind, bared to a centuried slime, is teeming with the repulsive life of countless world-delusions.
of ignorant lusts seek to slay us all. Thoughtless is the man who buries his ideals, surrendering to the common fate. May he seem other than impotent, wooden, ignominious?” “Respected sir, have you no sympathy for the bewildered masses?” The sage was silent for a moment, then answered obliquely.
“Only the shallow man loses responsiveness to the woes of others’ lives, as he sinks into narrow suffering of his own.”
The different sensory stimuli to which man reacts — tactual, visual, gustatory, auditory, and olfactory — are produced by vibratory variations in electrons and protons. The vibrations in turn are regulated by prana, “lifetrons,” subtle life forces or finer-than-atomic energies intelligently charged with the five distinctive sensory idea-substances. Gandha Baba, attuning himself with the pranic force by certain yoga practices, was able to guide the lifetrons to rearrange their vibratory structure and to objectify the desired result. His perfume, fruit, and other miracles were actual materializations of mundane vibrations, and were not inner sensations hypnotically produced.
On another occasion the great Persian teacher gave his views on the religious life thus: “To lay aside what you have in your head (selfish desires and ambitions); to bestow freely what you have in your hand; and never to flinch from the blows of adversity!”
7 “The universe is represented in every one of its particles. Everything is made of one hidden stuff. The world globes itself in a drop of dew….The true doctrine of omnipresence is that God appears with all His parts in every moss and cobweb.” — Emerson, in “Compensation.”
Solitude is necessary to become established in the Self, but masters then return to the world to serve it. Even saints who engage in no outward work bestow, through their thoughts and holy vibrations, more precious benefits on the world than can be given by the most strenuous humanitarian activities of unenlightened men. The great ones, each in his own way and often against bitter opposition, strive selflessly to inspire and uplift their fellows.
“Mind is the wielder of muscles. The force of a hammer blow depends on the energy applied; the power expressed by a man’s bodily instrument depends on his aggressive will and courage. The body is literally manufactured and sustained by mind. Through pressure of instincts from past lives, strengths or weaknesses percolate gradually into human consciousness. They express as habits, which in turn manifest as a desirable or an undesirable body.
spiritual change had entered my heart. It seemed that with my final exit from the cage I had also closed the door on my worldly ambitions. “A woeful period followed. For six months I lay near death from blood poisoning. As soon as I was well enough to leave Cooch Behar, I returned to my native town.
Enough of tiger taming.’ He spoke with calm assurance. ‘Come with me; I will teach you to subdue the beasts of ignorance roaming in jungles of the human mind. You are used to an audience: let it be a galaxy of angels, entertained by your thrilling mastery of yoga!’
affectionate gleam came into his gaze. His own face was always serious, yet subtly touched with an ecstatic smile.
have left a few paltry rupees, a few petty pleasures, for a cosmic empire of endless bliss. How then have I denied myself anything? I know the joy of sharing the treasure. Is that a sacrifice? The shortsighted worldly folk are verily the real renunciants! They relinquish an unparalleled divine possession for a poor handful of earthly toys!”
The telltale charts of my crescograph2 are evidence for the most skeptical that plants have a sensitive nervous system and a varied emotional life. Love, hate, joy, fear, pleasure, pain, excitability, stupor, and countless other appropriate responses to stimuli are as universal in plants as in animals.”
“A universal reaction seemed to bring metal, plant, and animal under a common law. They all exhibited essentially the same phenomena of fatigue and depression, with possibilities of recovery and of exaltation, as well as the permanent unresponsiveness associated with death.
Through many years of miscomprehension from others, I came to know that the life of a devotee of science is inevitably filled with unending struggle. It is for him to cast his life as an ardent offering — regarding gain and loss, success and failure, as one.
“Everything in man has been foreshadowed in the plant. Experimentation on vegetation will contribute to the lessening of animal and human suffering.”
He who would find the Deathless Essence must not be dismayed by a few unadorned skulls. Human inadequacy becomes clear in the gloomy abode of miscellaneous bones. My midnight vigils were thus of a different nature from the scholar’s.
I rushed to my retreat, the little attic that had witnessed so many scenes in my turbulent sadhana. After a two-hour flood of tears I felt singularly transformed, as by some alchemical cleanser. All attachment5 disappeared; my resolution to seek God as the Friend of friends became adamantine.
“Oh, yes!” he said. “I spent the last four days without food or drink. I never eat on trains, filled with the heterogeneous vibrations of worldly people. Strictly I observe the shastric7 rules for monks of my particular order.
“Swamiji, I am puzzled about following your instruction. Suppose I never ask for food, and nobody gives me any. I should starve to death.” “Die, then!” This alarming counsel split the air. “Die if you must, Mukunda! Never believe that you live by the power of food and not by the power of God! He who has created every form of nourishment, He who has bestowed appetite, will inevitably see that His devotee is maintained. Do not imagine that rice sustains you nor that money or men support you. Could they aid if the Lord withdraws your life breath? They are His instruments merely. Is it by any skill of yours that food digests in your stomach? Use the sword of your discrimination, Mukunda! Cut through the chains of agency and perceive the Single Cause!” I found his incisive words entering some deep marrow. Gone was an age-old delusion by which bodily imperatives outwit the soul. Then and there I tasted the Spirit’s all-sufficiency. In how many strange cities, in my later life of ceaseless travel, did occasion arise to prove the serviceability of this lesson in a Banaras hermitage!
“Ordinary love is selfish, darkly rooted in desires and satisfactions. Divine love is without condition, without boundary, without change. The flux of the human heart is gone forever at the transfixing touch of pure love.” He added humbly, “If ever you find me falling from a state of God-realization, please promise to put my head on your lap and help to bring me back to the Cosmic Beloved we both worship.”
“Let the young bird fly in the metaphysical skies,”
The next time we meet, you shall have to reawaken my interest. I won’t easily accept you as a disciple: there must be complete surrender by obedience to my strict training.”
Lord Shankara was a rare combination of saint, scholar, and man of action. Though he lived only thirty-two years, many of them were spent in arduous travel to every part of India, spreading his advaita doctrine. Millions gathered eagerly to hear the solacing flow of wisdom from the lips of the barefooted young monk. Shankara’s reforming zeal included the reorganization of the ancient monastic Swami Order. He also founded maths (monastic educational centers) in four localities — Sringeri in the south, Puri in the east, Dwarka in the west, and Badrinath in the Himalayan north.
“Money first; God can come later! Who knows? Life may be too long.” “God first; money is His slave! Who can tell? Life may be too short.”
Brindaban. If you return to my bungalow here
(Morals from the master’s parables on fear and attachment)
“My mother once tried to frighten me with an appalling story of a ghost in a dark chamber. I went there immediately, and expressed my disappointment at having missed the ghost. Mother never told me another horror tale. Moral: Look fear in the face and it will cease to trouble you.
Moral: Attachment is blinding; it lends an imaginary halo of attractiveness to the object of desire.
Moral: Good and positive suggestions should instruct the sensitive ears of children. Their early ideas long remain sharply etched.”
Before embracing monkhood, however, he had eaten eggs and fish. His advice to students was to follow any simple diet which proved suited to one’s constitution. Master ate little; often rice, colored with turmeric or juice of beets or spinach and lightly sprinkled with buffalo ghee or melted butter. Another day he might have lentil-dal or channa6 curry with vegetables. For dessert, mangoes or oranges with rice pudding, or jackfruit juice.
(The body’s evolutionary value and the power of thought)
“Guruji, should one offer himself a sacrifice rather than kill a wild beast?” “No, man’s body is precious. It has the highest evolutionary value because of unique brain and spinal centers. These enable the advanced devotee fully to grasp and express the loftiest aspects of divinity. No lower form is so equipped. It is true that a man incurs the debt of a minor sin if he is forced to kill an animal or any other living thing. But the holy shastras teach that wanton loss of a human body is a serious transgression against the karmic law.”
Thought is a force, even as electricity or gravitation. The human mind is a spark of the almighty consciousness of God. I could show you that whatever your powerful mind believes very intensely would instantly come to pass.’
A saying from the Hindu scriptures is: “In shallow men the fish of little thoughts cause much commotion. In oceanic minds the whales of inspiration make hardly a ruffle.”
A new student occasionally expressed doubts regarding his own worthiness to engage in yoga practice. “Forget the past,” Sri Yukteswar would console him. “The vanished lives of all men are dark with many shames. Human conduct is ever unreliable until man is anchored in the Divine. Everything in future will improve if you are making a spiritual effort now.”
“The body is a treacherous friend. Give it its due; no more. Pain and pleasure are transitory; endure all dualities with calmness, trying at the same time to remove yourself beyond their power. Imagination is the door through which disease as well as healing enters. Disbelieve in the reality of sickness even when you are ill; an unrecognized visitor will flee!”
“Good manners without sincerity are like a beautiful dead lady,”
This flattening-to-the-ego treatment was hard to endure, but my unchangeable resolve was to allow Sri Yukteswar to iron out all of my psychological kinks. As he labored at this titanic transformation, I shook many times under the weight of his disciplinary hammer. “If you don’t like my words, you are at liberty to leave at any time,” Master assured me. “I want nothing from you but your own improvement. Stay only if you feel benefited.”
In time I demolished every wall of rationalization and subconscious18 reservation behind which the human personality generally shields itself. The reward was an effortless harmony with my guru. I discovered him then to be trusting, considerate, and silently loving. Undemonstrative, however, he bestowed no word of affection. My own temperament is principally devotional. It was disconcerting at first to find that my guru, saturated with jnana but seemingly dry of bhakti,19 expressed himself chiefly in terms of cold spiritual mathematics.
“Mukunda, I will leave it to you to instruct Kumar to leave the ashram tomorrow; I can’t do it!” Tears stood in Sri Yukteswar’s eyes, but he controlled himself quickly. “The boy would never have fallen to these depths had he listened to me and not gone away to mix with undesirable companions. He has rejected my protection; the callous world must be his guru still.”
“Destroy wrong desires now; otherwise they will remain with you after the astral body has been separated from its physical casing. Even when the flesh is weak, the mind should be constantly resistant. If temptation assails you with cruel force, overcome it by impersonal analysis and indomitable will. Every natural passion can be mastered. “Conserve your powers. Be like the capacious ocean, absorbing quietly all the tributary rivers of the senses. Daily renewed sense yearnings sap your inner peace; they are like openings in a reservoir that permit vital waters to be wasted in the desert soil of materialism. The forceful, activating impulse of wrong desire is the greatest enemy to the happiness of man. Roam in the world as a lion of self-control; don’t let the frogs of sense weakness kick you around!”
Master replied evenly. “From your childish remarks one would surmise that your college career had been unremarkable. A university degree, in any case, is not related to Vedic realization. Saints are not produced in batches every semester like accountants.”
“Forget the outward symbols of renunciation, which may injure you by inducing a false pride. Nothing matters except your steady, daily spiritual advancement; for that, use Kriya Yoga.”
(The guru’s discipline, diplomacy, and inner transformation of the disciple)
His financial independence was one reason why my alarmingly outspoken master was innocent of the cunnings of diplomacy. Unlike teachers who have to flatter their supporters, my guru was impervious to the influences, open or subtle, of others’ wealth. Never did I hear him ask or even hint for money for any purpose. His hermitage training was given free to all disciples.
“Softer than the flower, where kindness is concerned; stronger than the thunder, where principles are at stake.”
the new psychology of the superconscious focuses its attention upon the treasure house — the region that alone can explain the great, unselfish, heroic deeds of men.”
Shankara, the great Vedantist, has written. “Ultrasensual bliss is thus extremely easy of attainment and is far superior to sense delights, which always end in disgust.”
As soon as the devotee is willing to go even to the ends of the earth for spiritual enlightenment, his guru appears nearby.”
“Sir, why don’t you grant me a samadhi?” “Dear one, I would be glad to convey the divine contact, but it is not my place to do so.” The saint looked at me with half closed eyes. “Your master will bestow that experience on you shortly. Your body is not tuned just yet. As a small lamp-bulb would be shattered by excessive electrical voltage, so your nerves are unready for the cosmic current. If I gave you the infinite ecstasy right now, you would burn as though every cell were on fire.
Then I moved to a more inaccessible cave and stayed there for twenty-five years, remaining in yoga union for twenty hours daily. I did not need sleep, for I was ever with God. My body was more rested by the complete calmness of superconsciousness than it could have been by the imperfect peace of the ordinary subconscious state. “The muscles relax during sleep; but the heart, lungs, and circulatory system are constantly at work; they get no rest. In superconsciousness, all internal organs remain in a state of suspended animation, electrified by the cosmic energy. By such means I have found it unnecessary to sleep for years.” He added, “The time will come when you, too, will dispense with sleep.” “My goodness, you have meditated for so long and yet are unsure of the Lord’s favor!” I remarked with astonishment. “Then what about us poor mortals?” “Well, don’t you see, my dear boy, that God is Eternity Itself? To assume that one may fully know Him by forty-five years of meditation is rather a preposterous expectation.
“It is the Spirit of God that actively sustains every form and force in the universe; yet He is transcendental and aloof in the blissful uncreated void beyond the worlds of vibratory phenomena,”3 Master explained. “Those who attain Self-realization on earth live a similar twofold existence. Conscientiously performing their work in the world, they are yet immersed in an inward beatitude.
The divine experience comes with a natural inevitability to the sincere devotee. His intense craving begins to pull at God with an irresistible force. The Lord as the Cosmic Vision is drawn by that magnetic ardor into the seeker’s range of consciousness.
see, however, that you are imagining that possession of miraculous powers is proof that one has found God. No. One might gain the power to control the whole universe — yet find the Lord elusive still. Spiritual advancement is not to be measured by one’s displays of outward powers, but solely by the depth of his bliss in meditation.
Ever-new joy is evidence of His existence, convincing to our very atoms. Also, in meditation one finds His instant guidance, His adequate response to every difficulty.”
smiled gratefully. “I do realize now that I have found God, for whenever the joy of meditation has returned subconsciously during my active hours, I have been subtly directed to adopt the right course in everything, even in minor details.”
(Thought as vibration, intuition, and the guru as cosmic receiver)
My guru was a perfect human radio. Thoughts are no more than very subtle vibrations moving in the ether. Just as a correctly tuned radio picks up a desired musical number out of thousands of other programs from every direction, so Sri Yukteswar had been
Intuition is soul guidance, appearing naturally in man during those instants when his mind is calm.
All thoughts vibrate eternally in the cosmos. By deep concentration a master is able to detect the thoughts of any man, living or dead. Thoughts are universally and not individually rooted; a truth cannot be created, but only perceived. Any erroneous thought of man is a result of an imperfection, large or small, in his discernment. The goal of yoga science is to calm the mind, that without distortion it may hear the infallible counsel of the Inner Voice.
Charles Robert Richet,3 Nobel laureate in physiology, has declared. “It is assumed that the phenomena which we now accept without surprise, do not excite our astonishment because they are understood. But this is not the case. If they do not surprise us, it is not because they are understood, it is because they are familiar; for if that which is not understood ought to surprise us, we should be surprised at everything — the fall of a stone thrown into the air, the acorn which becomes an oak, mercury which expands when it is heated, iron attracted by a magnet. “The science of today is a light matter….Those amazing truths that our descendants will discover are even now all around us, staring us in the eyes, so to speak; and yet we do not see them. But it is not enough to say that we do not see them; we do not wish to see them — for as soon as an unexpected and unfamiliar fact appears, we try to fit it into the framework of the commonplaces of accepted knowledge, and are indignant that anyone should dare to experiment further.” A humorous occurrence took place
I realized that Master would never display his powers when challenged, or for a triviality.
Because nature is an objectification of Aum, the Primal Sound or Vibratory Word, man can obtain control over all natural manifestations through the use of certain mantras or chants.
Great religious music of East and West bestows joy on man because it causes a temporary vibratory awakening of one of his occult spinal centers. In those blissful moments a dim memory comes to him of his divine origin.
long as man struggles with his mortality, he is affected by the myriad mutations of heaven and earth.
“The deeper the Self-realization of a man, the more he influences the whole universe by his subtle spiritual vibrations, and the less he himself is affected by the phenomenal flux.” These words of Master’s often returned inspiringly to my mind.
“There was a healthy feeling of solidarity and responsibility, and ample opportunity for the exercise of self-reliance and individuality. There was a high standard of culture, self-imposed discipline, and stern regard for duty, selfless action, and sacrifice, combined with self-respect and reverence for others; a high standard of academic dignity, and a sense of…the nobility and the great purpose of human life.” CHAPTER 18