I Meet My Master, Sri Yukteswar — Autobiography of a Yogi — SRF Teachings Portal
10.I Meet My Master, Sri Yukteswar
Paramahansa Yogananda·~18 min
II Meet My Master, Sri Yukteswar
"Faith in God can produce any miracle except one — passing an examination without study." Distastefully I closed the "inspirational" book I had picked up in an idle moment.
"The writer's exception shows his complete lack of faith," I thought. "Poor chap, he has great respect for the midnight oil!"
My promise to Father had been that I would complete my high school studies. I cannot pretend to diligence. The passing months found me less frequently in the classroom than in secluded spots along the Calcutta bathing ghats. The adjoining crematory grounds, especially gruesome at night, are considered highly attractive by the yogi. 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.
The week of final examinations at the Hindu High School was fast approaching. This interrogatory period, like the sepulchral haunts, inspires a well-known terror. My mind was nevertheless at peace. Braving the ghouls, I was exhuming a knowledge not found in lecture halls. But I lacked the art of Swami Pranabananda, who easily appeared in two places at one time. My reasoning (though to many, alas, it seems illogic) was that the Lord would notice my dilemma and would extricate me from it. The devotee's irrationality springs from a thousand inexplicable demonstrations of God's instancy in trouble.
"Hello, Mukunda! I catch hardly a glimpse of you these days!" A classmate accosted me one afternoon on Garpar Road.
"Hello, Nantu! My invisibility at school seems to have placed me there in a decidedly awkward position." I unburdened myself under his friendly gaze.
Nantu, who was a brilliant student, laughed heartily; my predicament was not without a comic aspect.
"You are utterly unprepared for the finals!" he said. "I suppose it is up to me to help you!"
The simple words conveyed divine promise to my ears; with alacrity I visited my friend's home. He kindly outlined the solutions to various problems he considered likely to be set by the instructors.
"These questions are the bait that will catch many trusting boys in the examination trap. Remember my answers and you will escape without injury."
The night was far gone when I departed. Bursting with unseasoned erudition, I devoutly prayed it would remain for the next few critical days. Nantu had coached me in my various subjects, but, under press of time, had forgotten my course in Sanskrit. Fervently I reminded God of the oversight.
I set out on a walk the next morning, assimilating my new knowledge to the rhythm of swinging footsteps. As I took a shortcut through the weeds of a corner lot, my eye fell on a few loose printed sheets. A triumphant pounce; in my hand were Sanskrit verses! I sought out a pundit for aid in my stumbling interpretation. His rich voice filled the air with the edgeless, honeyed beauty of the ancient tongue.¹
"These exceptional stanzas cannot possibly be of aid in your Sanskrit test." The scholar dismissed them skeptically.
But familiarity with that particular poem enabled me on the following day to pass the Sanskrit examination. Through the discerning help Nantu had given, I also attained the minimum grade for success in all my other subjects.
Father was pleased that I had kept my word and concluded my secondary school course. My gratitude sped to the Lord, whose sole guidance I perceived in my visit to Nantu's home and in my walk by the unhabitual route of the debris-filled lot. Playfully He had given a dual expression to His timely design for my rescue.
I came across the discarded book whose author had denied God precedence in the examination halls. I could not restrain a chuckle at my own silent comment:
"It would only add to this fellow's confusion if I were to tell him that divine meditation among the cadavers is a shortcut to a high school diploma!"
In my new dignity, I was now openly planning to leave home. Together with a young friend, Jitendra Mazumdar,² I decided to join a Banaras³ hermitage, Sri Bharat Dharma Mahamandal, and receive its spiritual discipline.
A desolation fell over me one day at the thought of separation from my family. Since Mother's death, my affection had grown especially tender for my two younger brothers, Sananda and Bishnu, and for Thamu, my youngest sister. I rushed to my retreat, the little attic that had witnessed so many scenes in my turbulent sadhana.⁴ 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.
"I make one last plea." Father was distressed as I stood before him for his blessing. "Do not forsake me and your grieving brothers and sisters."
"Revered Father, how can I tell my love for you? But even greater is my love for the Heavenly Father, who has given me the gift of a perfect father on earth. Let me go, that I someday return with a more divine understanding."
With reluctant parental consent, I set out to join Jitendra, already in Banaras at the hermitage. On my arrival the young head swami, Dayananda, greeted me cordially. Tall and thin, of thoughtful mien, he impressed me favorably. His fair face had a Buddhalike composure.
I was pleased that my new home possessed an attic, where I managed to spend the dawn and morning hours. The ashram members, knowing little of meditation practices, thought I should employ my whole time in organizational duties. They gave me praise for my afternoon work in their office.
"Don't try to catch God so soon!" This ridicule from a fellow resident accompanied one of my early departures toward the attic. I went to Dayananda, busy in his small sanctum overlooking the Ganges.
"Swamiji,⁶ I don't understand what is required of me here. I am seeking direct perception of God. Without Him, I cannot be satisfied with affiliation or creed or performance of good works."
The orange-robed ecclesiastic gave me an affectionate pat. Staging a mock rebuke, he admonished a few nearby disciples. "Don't bother Mukunda. He will learn our ways."
I politely concealed my doubt. The students left the room, not noticeably bent with their chastisement. Dayananda had further words for me.
"Mukunda, I see your father is regularly sending you money. Please return it to him; you require none here. A second injunction for your discipline concerns food. Even when you feel hunger, do not mention it."
Whether famishment gleamed in my eye, I knew not. That I was hungry, I knew only too well. The invariable hour for the first hermitage meal was twelve noon. I had been accustomed in my own home to a large breakfast at nine o'clock.
The three-hour gap became daily more interminable. Gone were the Calcutta years when I could rebuke the cook for a ten-minute delay. Now I tried to control my appetite; I completed a twenty-four-hour fast. With doubled zest I awaited the following midday.
"Dayanandalji's train is late; we are not going to eat until he arrives." Jitendra brought me this devastating news. As a gesture of welcome to the swami, who had been absent for two weeks, many delicacies were in readiness. An appetizing aroma filled the air. Nothing else offering, what could be swallowed except my pride in yesterday's fast?
"Lord, hasten the train!" The Heavenly Provider, I thought, could hardly have been included in the interdiction with which Dayananda had silenced me. Divine Attention was elsewhere, however; the plodding clock covered the hours. Darkness was descending as our leader entered the door. My greeting was one of sheer joy.
"Dayanandaji will bathe and meditate before we can serve food." Jitendra approached me again as a bird of ill omen.
I was in near collapse. My young stomach, new to deprivation, protested with gnawing vigor. Pictures I had seen of famine victims passed wraithlike before me.
"The next Banaras death from starvation is due at once in this hermitage," I thought. Impending doom was averted at nine o'clock. Ambrosial summons! In memory that evening meal is vivid as one of life's perfect hours.
Sri Yogananda and Swami Gyanananda, guru of Swami Dayananda, Mahamandal Hermitage, Banaras, February 7, 1936. In a traditional gesture of respect, Yoganandaji has seated himself at the feet of Gyanandaji, spiritual head of this hermitage. Here, as a boy, Yoganandaji had pursued spiritual discipline before he found his guru, Swami Sri Yukteswar, in 1910.
Intense absorption had not prevented me from observing that Dayananda ate absentmindedly. He was apparently above my gross pleasures.
"Swamiji, weren't you hungry?" Happily surfeited, I was alone with the leader in his study.
"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 shastric² rules for monks of my particular order.
"Certain problems of our organizational work lie on my mind. Tonight at home I neglected my dinner. What's the hurry? Tomorrow I'll make it a point to have a proper meal." He laughed merrily.
Shame spread within me like a suffocation. But the past day of my torture was not easily forgotten; I ventured a further remark.
"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!
The sole treasure which had accompanied me from Calcutta was the sadhu's silver amulet bequeathed to me by Mother. Guarding it for years, I now had it carefully hidden in my ashram room. To renew my joy in the talismanic testimony, one morning I opened the locked box. The sealed covering untouched, lo! the amulet was gone. Mournfully I tore open the envelope and made unmistakably sure. It had vanished, in accordance with the sadhu's prediction, into the ether whence he had summoned it.
My relationship with Dayananda's followers grew steadily worse. The household was alienated, hurt by my determined aloofness. My strict adherence to meditation on the very Ideal for which I had left home and all worldly ambitions called forth shallow criticism from all sides.
Torn by spiritual anguish, I entered the attic one dawn, resolved to pray until an answer was vouchsafed.
"Merciful Mother of the Universe, teach me Thyself through visions, or through a guru sent by Thee!"
The passing hours found my sobbing pleas without response. Suddenly I felt lifted as though bodily to a sphere uncircumscribed.
"Thy Master cometh today!" A divine womanly voice came from everywhere and nowhere.
The supernal experience was shattered by a shout from a definite locale. A young priest nicknamed Habu was calling me from the downstairs kitchen.
"Mukunda, enough of meditation! You are needed for an errand."
Another day I might have replied impatiently; now I wiped my tear-swollen face and meekly obeyed the summons. Together Habu and I set out for a distant marketplace in the Bengali section of Banaras. The ungentle Indian sun was not yet at zenith as we made our purchases in the bazaars. We pushed our way through the colorful medley of housewives, guides, priests, simply clad widows, dignified Brahmins, and ubiquitous holy bulls. As Habu and I moved on, I turned my head to survey a narrow, inconspicuous lane.
A Christlike man in the ocher robes of a swami stood motionless at the end of the lane. Instantly and anciently familiar he seemed; for a trice my gaze fed hungrily. Then doubt assailed me.
"You are confusing this wandering monk with someone known to you," I thought. "Dreamer, walk on."
After ten minutes, I felt heavy numbness in my feet. As though turned to stone, they were unable to carry me farther. Laboriously I turned around; my feet regained normality. I faced the opposite direction; again the curious weight oppressed me.
"The saint is magnetically drawing me to him!" With this thought, I heaped my parcels into the arms of Habu. He had been observing my erratic footwork with amazement, and now burst into laughter.
"What ails you? Are you crazy?"
My tumultuous emotion prevented any retort; I sped silently away.
Retracing my steps as though wing-shod, I reached the narrow lane. My quick glance revealed the quiet figure, steadily gazing in my direction. A few eager steps and I was at his feet.
"Gurudeva!" The divine face was the one I had seen in a thousand visions. These halcyon eyes, in a leonine head with pointed beard and flowing locks, had oft peered through the gloom of my nocturnal reveries, holding a promise I had not fully understood.
"O my own, you have come to me!" My guru uttered the words again and again in Bengali, his voice tremulous with joy. "How many years I have waited for you!"
We entered a oneness of silence; words seemed the rankest superfluities. Eloquence flowed in soundless chant from the heart of master to disciple. With an antenna of irrefragable insight I sensed that my guru knew God and would lead me to Him. The obscuration of this life disappeared in a fragile dawn of prenatal memories. Dramatic time! Past, present, and future are its cycling scenes. This was not the first sun to find me at these holy feet!
My hand in his, my guru led me to his temporary residence in the Rana Mahal section of the city. His athletic figure moved with firm tread. Tall, erect, about fifty-five at this time, he was active and vigorous as a young man. His dark eyes were large, beautiful with plumbless wisdom. Slightly curly hair softened a face of striking power. Strength mingled subtly with gentleness.
As we made our way to the stone balcony of a house overlooking the Ganges, he said affectionately:
"I shall give you my hermitages and all I possess."
"Sir, I come for wisdom and God-realization. Those are your treasure troves I am after!"
The swift Indian twilight had dropped its half-curtain before my master spoke again. His eyes held unfathomable tenderness.
"I give you my unconditional love."
Precious words! A quarter-century elapsed before I had another auricular proof of his love. His lips were strange to ardor; silence suited his oceanic heart.
"Will you give me the same unconditional love?" He gazed at me with childlike trust.
"I will love you eternally, Gurudeva!"
"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."
He rose then in the gathering darkness and guided me to an inner room. As we ate mangoes and almond sweetmeats, he unobtrusively wove into his conversation an intimate knowledge of my nature. I was awestruck at the grandeur of his wisdom, exquisitely blended with an innate humility.
"Do not grieve for your amulet. It has served its purpose." Like a divine mirror, my guru apparently had caught a reflection of my whole life.
"The living reality of your presence, Master, is joy beyond any symbol."
"It is time for a change, inasmuch as you are unhappily situated in the hermitage."
I had made no references to my life; they now seemed superfluous! By his natural, unemphatic manner, I understood that he wished no astonished ejaculations at his clairvoyance.
"You should go back to Calcutta. Why exclude relatives from your love of humanity?"
His suggestion dismayed me. My family was predicting my return, though I had been unresponsive to many pleas by letter. "Let the young bird fly in the metaphysical skies," Ananta had remarked. "His wings will tire in the heavy atmosphere. 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.
"Sir, I am not returning home. But I will follow you anywhere. Please give me your address, and your name."
SRI YUKTESWAR (1855–1936)
A Jnanavatar, "Incarnation of Wisdom"
Disciple of Lahiri Mahasaya; Guru of Sri Yogananda
Paramguru of all SRF-YSS Kriya Yogis
"Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri. My chief hermitage is in Serampore, on Rai Ghat Lane. I am visiting my mother here for only a few days."
I wondered at God's intricate play with His devotees. Serampore is but twelve miles from Calcutta, yet in those regions I had never caught a glimpse of my guru. We had had to travel for our meeting to the ancient city of Kashi (Banaras), hallowed by memories of Lahiri Mahasaya. Here too the feet of Buddha, Shankaracharya,⁸ and many other Yogi-Christs had blessed the soil.
"You will come to me in four weeks." For the first time, Sri Yukteswar's voice was stern. "Now that I have told you of my eternal affection and have shown my happiness at finding you, you feel free to disregard my request. 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."
I remained obstinately silent. My guru quickly penetrated my difficulty.
"Do you think your relatives will laugh at you?"
"I will not return."
"You will return in thirty days."
"Never."
The controversial tension unrelieved, I bowed reverently at his feet and departed. Walking in the midnight darkness toward the hermitage, I wondered why the miraculous meeting had ended on an inharmonious note. The dual scales of maya, that balance every joy with a grief! My young heart was not yet malleable to the transforming fingers of my guru.
The next morning I noticed increased hostility in the attitude of the hermitage members. They spiked my days with invariable rudeness. Three weeks passed; Dayananda then left the ashram to attend a conference in Bombay. Pandemonium broke over my hapless head.
"Mukunda is a parasite, accepting hermitage hospitality without making proper return." Overhearing this remark, I regretted for the first time that I had obeyed the request to send back my money to Father. With heavy heart, I sought out my sole friend, Jitendra.
"I am leaving. Please convey my respectful regrets to Dayanandasji when he returns."
"I will leave also! My attempts to meditate here meet with no more favor than your own." Jitendra spoke with determination.
"I have met a Christlike saint. Let us visit him in Serampore."
And so the "bird" prepared to "swoop" perilously close to Calcutta!
Yoganandaji in 1915, on back seat of motorcycle given by his father. "I rode everywhere on it," he said, "especially to visit my master, Sri Yukteswarji, in his Serampore hermitage." psychological perfection of Sanskrit. He who would track language to its lair must indeed end as omniscient.
Yoganandaji in 1915, on back seat of motorcycle given by his father. "I rode everywhere on it," he said, "especially to visit my master, Sri Yukteswarji, in his Serampore hermitage."
2 He was not Jatinda (Jotin Ghosh), who will be remembered for his timely aversion to tigers.
3 Since India gained her independence, the original Indian spellings have been restored to many words that had become anglicized during British rule. Thus Banaras is now more commonly spelled Varanasi, or is referred to by its more ancient name, Kashi.
4 Path or preliminary road to God.
5 Hindu scriptures teach that family attachment is delusive if it prevents the devotee from seeking the Giver of all boons, including the one of loving relatives, not to mention life itself. Jesus similarly taught: "He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me." — Matthew 10:37.
6 Ji is a customary respectful suffix, particularly used in direct address; thus, "swamiji," "guruji," "Sri Yukteswarji."
7 Pertaining to the shastras, literally, "sacred books," comprising four classes of scripture: the shruti, smriti, purana, and tantra. These comprehensive treatises cover every aspect of religious and social life, and the fields of law, medicine, architecture, art, etc. The shrutis are the "directly heard" or "revealed" scriptures, the Vedas. The smritis or "remembered" lore were finally written down in a remote past as the world's longest epic poems, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. Puranas, eighteen in number, are literally "ancient" allegories; tantras literally means "rites" or "rituals": these treatises convey profound truths under a veil of detailed symbolism.
8 Shankaracharya (Shankara), India's greatest philosopher, was a disciple of Govinda Jati and of the latter's guru Gaudapada. Shankara wrote a famous commentary on a treatise, Mandukya Karika, by Gaudapada. With unanswerable logic, and in a style of charm and grace, Shankara interpreted Vedanta philosophy in a strictly advaita (non-dual, monistic) spirit. The great monist also composed poems of devotional love. His Prayer to the Divine Mother for Forgiveness of Sins bears the refrain: "Though bad sons are many, never has there been a bad mother."
Sanandana, a disciple of Shankara's, wrote a commentary on the Brahma Sutras (Vedanta philosophy). The manuscript was lost by fire, but Shankara (who had once glanced through it) repeated it word for word to his disciple. The text, known as Panchapadika, is studied by scholars to this day.
The chela Sanandana received a new name after a beautiful incident. Seated one day on a riverbank, he heard Shankara calling him from the opposite shore. Sanandana entered the water forthwith. His faith and his feet were simultaneously supported when Shankara materialized, in the swirling river, a series of lotus flowers. The disciple was thereafter known as Padmapada, "lotus-foot."
In the Panchapadika Padmapada offers many loving tributes to his guru. Shankara himself wrote the following beautiful lines: "No known comparison exists in the three worlds for a true guru. If the philosophers' stone be assumed as truly such, it can only turn iron into gold, not into another philosophers' stone. The venerated teacher, on the other hand, creates equality with himself in the disciple who takes refuge at his feet. The guru is therefore peerless, nay, transcendental" (Century of Verses, 1).
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. The four maths of the great monist, liberally endowed by princes and the common people, gave free instruction in Sanskrit grammar, logic, and Vedanta philosophy. Shankara's object in locating his maths in the four corners of India was the promotion of religious and national unity throughout the vast land. Now as in the past, the pious Hindu finds free room and board at choultries and sattrams (resting places along the pilgrimage roads), maintained by public benefactors.
