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- Herausgeber: Booksell-Verlag
- Kategorie: Ratgeber
- Sprache: Englisch
In "Key to Self-Realization: Paramahansa Yogananda Collection," the revered spiritual teacher Paramahansa Yogananda presents an insightful compendium that melds wisdom from Eastern philosophy with practical guidance for modern living. Through a succession of essays, lectures, and lessons, Yogananda elucidates the concepts of self-realization and spiritual enlightenment, employing a lyrical yet accessible prose style that invites readers from all walks of life to embark on their own spiritual journeys. The book also reflects the rich context of early 20th-century spiritual movements that sought to bridge the gap between Eastern and Western thought, making it a crucial text for understanding the synthesis of these traditions. Paramahansa Yogananda (1893'Äì1952) was a pioneering figure in the introduction of Indian spirituality to the world, particularly in the West. His personal journey of seeking enlightenment, coupled with his experiences of transcending traditional boundaries, heavily influenced his teachings. His profound insights into meditation, yoga, and the nature of divinity stem from years of rigorous practice and deep contemplation, woven into the fabric of his rich cultural and spiritual heritage. Readers seeking a deeper understanding of self and the path to spiritual awakening will find "Key to Self-Realization" invaluable. Yogananda's teachings inspire a holistic approach to life, emphasizing the interconnectedness of mind, body, and spirit. This collection not only enriches the soul but also equips the reader with the tools needed to navigate the complexities of modern existence with grace and purpose. In this enriched edition, we have carefully created added value for your reading experience: - A comprehensive Introduction outlines these selected works' unifying features, themes, or stylistic evolutions. - The Author Biography highlights personal milestones and literary influences that shape the entire body of writing. - A Historical Context section situates the works in their broader era—social currents, cultural trends, and key events that underpin their creation. - A concise Synopsis (Selection) offers an accessible overview of the included texts, helping readers navigate plotlines and main ideas without revealing critical twists. - A unified Analysis examines recurring motifs and stylistic hallmarks across the collection, tying the stories together while spotlighting the different work's strengths. - Reflection questions inspire deeper contemplation of the author's overarching message, inviting readers to draw connections among different texts and relate them to modern contexts. - Lastly, our hand‐picked Memorable Quotes distill pivotal lines and turning points, serving as touchstones for the collection's central themes.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023
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Key to Self-Realization: Paramahansa Yogananda Collection
Table of Contents
Introduction
Key to Self-Realization: Paramahansa Yogananda Collection gathers three seminal works to present a coherent path through narrative testimony, philosophical exposition, and practical method. United here are Autobiography of a Yogi, The Science of Religion, and Scientific Healing Affirmations—texts that together outline the author’s vision of spiritual awakening made accessible to modern readers. This single-author collection is designed not as an exhaustive complete works, but as a deliberate triad that highlights his most influential contributions: a life story that introduces the seeker’s journey, a concise statement of universal spiritual principles, and a set of techniques intended for daily application and verifiable inner experience.
The volumes assembled represent distinct genres and purposes. Autobiography of a Yogi is a spiritual memoir, interweaving personal history with reflections on the path of yoga. The Science of Religion is a compact treatise that frames religion as a universal quest grounded in experience rather than dogma. Scientific Healing Affirmations is a practical manual that teaches the disciplined use of thought and will to support health and transformation. Together they comprise memoir, comparative religious essay, and instructional handbook—three complementary text types that allow readers to encounter story, doctrine, and practice in a single, integrated reading experience.
Taken as a whole, these works show how Yogananda brought the teachings of yoga and meditation to a broad English-speaking audience while emphasizing a nonsectarian ideal of self-realization. His approach is both devotional and pragmatic: he honors the world’s faiths while inviting careful personal experiment with methods that lead to inwardly testable results. The collection presents spirituality not as an abstract philosophy, but as a living discipline adaptable to daily life. By uniting insight, narrative, and technique, the books demonstrate a consistent intention—to guide readers toward direct, transformative awareness of the deeper Self beyond cultural and doctrinal boundaries.
Autobiography of a Yogi, first published in 1946, offers the entry point. It traces Yogananda’s early years in India, discipleship under his guru Sri Yukteswar, and the mission that brought him to the West. The narrative voice is intimate yet reflective, blending vivid episodes with contemplative commentary. Rather than advancing a doctrinal argument, the book unfolds as a seeker’s journey, portraying the spiritual landscape through encounters, challenges, and insights. Its significance within the collection is foundational: by presenting a lived example of the path, it establishes the tone of sincerity, wonder, and disciplined inquiry that the other volumes further articulate and systematize.
The Science of Religion distills a central thesis: that religion has an experiential core accessible through interior practices that cultivate stable peace and enduring joy. Yogananda’s method is analytical without becoming arid, employing clear definitions and reasoned steps to argue for universality beneath diverse beliefs. He treats spiritual laws as discoverable and testable, emphasizing that genuine religion must address the perennial human pursuit of freedom from suffering and fulfillment of the soul’s deeper aspirations. Within this collection, the treatise provides the conceptual scaffolding that explains why the narrative of a seeker and the techniques of practice cohere into one practical philosophy of life.
Scientific Healing Affirmations supplies the precise tools for mental and spiritual reconditioning. Yogananda presents affirmations as disciplined statements of intent that align thought, feeling, and will, thereby influencing habits, health, and character. The work explains how focused attention and repeated, conscious suggestion can reshape subconscious patterns that hinder well-being. It complements meditation by training the mind to cooperate with deeper stillness and to channel energy toward constructive ends. Read within this collection, the manual becomes the hands-on counterpart to the memoir’s inspiration and the treatise’s reasoning, translating ideals into daily exercises that nurture resilience, bodily vitality, and ethical clarity.
The unifying theme across all three books is self-realization: the experiential knowledge of one’s innermost essence and its relationship to the Divine. Each volume illuminates a facet of this aim. The Autobiography demonstrates what a life oriented toward spiritual realization looks like in practice. The Science of Religion explains why this goal is universal and rationally defensible. Scientific Healing Affirmations shows how to begin, one thought and one habit at a time. The sequence forms a complete arc—motivation, understanding, application—so that inspiration does not dissipate, reasoning does not remain abstract, and technique does not become mechanical or divorced from meaning.
Stylistically, Yogananda blends clarity of exposition with lyrical imagery and a tone of reverence that avoids sectarian narrowness. His prose is direct, favoring simple constructions that invite reflection rather than argument for its own sake. He employs analogies from nature, the sciences, and everyday life to demystify subtle states of consciousness. Narrative episodes reveal values—devotion, discipline, perseverance—while the analytical sections structure those values into principles. The instructional passages maintain practicality, reflecting a teacher’s concern for measurable progress. This coherent style across different genres enables readers to move effortlessly from story to concept to practice without losing intellectual or emotional continuity.
These works remain significant because they answer enduring questions with a balanced synthesis rarely achieved: how to reconcile faith and reason, devotion and method, global breadth and personal immediacy. Readers encounter a spirituality that honors diverse traditions while affirming a common experiential core accessible through meditation and ethical living. The collection’s longevity derives from its practicality. It does not demand prior allegiance; it invites investigation. It interprets the inner life in language understandable to modern readers without diluting depth. By situating timeless aims within contemporary concerns, the books continue to serve as a bridge between ancient wisdom and present-day seekers.
An ethical thread runs through the collection: self-mastery is inseparable from compassion, and interior freedom expresses itself in conduct that benefits others. The Autobiography models integrity amid challenges. The Science of Religion links lasting happiness with choices that align with universal law. Scientific Healing Affirmations turns ethics into habit by directing thought toward constructive ends. Rather than prescribing rigid dogma, the books encourage responsible use of will, attention, and conscience. This integration of inner realization with outward responsibility answers the practical question: how to live one’s ideals consistently in work, relationships, and service, not merely in periods of quiet practice.
Readers may approach the collection sequentially or according to immediate interest. Beginning with Autobiography of a Yogi offers context and inspiration. Proceeding to The Science of Religion provides a concise framework that clarifies goals and methods. Engaging Scientific Healing Affirmations supplies exercises to anchor insights in daily routines. The volumes are self-contained, yet their full power emerges in combination: narrative deepens commitment, philosophy steadies aim, and practice transforms aspiration into experience. Whether new to Yogananda’s writings or returning to them, readers will find a coherent set of resources that respects inquiry, welcomes diverse backgrounds, and supports steady, verifiable progress.
As a curated single-author selection, this collection does not attempt to present every page Yogananda wrote; rather, it offers a distilled path. The memoir shows the possibility of a life oriented to higher realization. The treatise articulates a universal rationale for that pursuit. The manual equips the reader with tools to begin today. Together they form a reliable key, opening an entryway into the author’s larger body of teaching while standing complete in themselves. The invitation is clear: read closely, reflect deeply, and apply consistently. In doing so, the reader can test, in personal experience, the promise of self-realization.
Author Biography
Paramahansa Yogananda (born Mukunda Lal Ghosh) was an Indian monk, author, and pioneering teacher of yoga who helped introduce meditation and Kriya Yoga to a broad Western audience in the early to mid 20th century. Best known for Autobiography of a Yogi, he founded Self-Realization Fellowship in the United States and its sister organization in India, Yogoda Satsanga Society. His work translated classical Indian spiritual ideas into practical methods for modern life, emphasizing universal spiritual experience over sectarian boundaries. Through lectures, writings, and training centers, he became a widely recognized voice linking Eastern contemplative traditions with Western aspirations for personal transformation and a science-compatible spirituality.
Raised in India in the 1890s and early 1900s, Yogananda reported intense spiritual longings from childhood and sought out saints and sages. As a youth he met the monk Sri Yukteswar Giri, who became his guru and initiated him into the Kriya Yoga lineage associated with Lahiri Mahasaya. Under this guidance he adopted a disciplined monastic path and received the name Yogananda, signifying bliss through divine union. His early formation blended devotional bhakti, the nondual insights of Vedanta, and yogic meditation, themes that later shaped both his public talks and instructional materials for students seeking direct, repeatable spiritual practice.
He pursued higher education at institutions affiliated with the University of Calcutta in the 1910s, completing his degree at his guru's insistence before devoting himself fully to teaching. Convinced that spiritual training should address daily living, he launched how-to-live education initiatives in India, including a residential school that combined academic subjects with yoga, moral discipline, and meditation. To support this work he organized the Yogoda Satsanga activities, which later grew into a nationwide society. These early efforts reflected his conviction that spiritual realization benefits from systematic methods, accessible language, and a balanced integration of body, mind, and soul.
In 1920 he traveled to the United States to speak at a religious congress in Boston and chose to remain to teach. He established Self-Realization Fellowship to disseminate Kriya Yoga and his broader teachings, soon moving the headquarters to Southern California. During the 1920s and 1930s he conducted extensive lecture tours in major American cities, often filling large venues and attracting students from diverse backgrounds. SRF lessons and meditation classes presented yoga as a universal, experiential science of the soul, while encouraging ethical living and service. By the mid 1930s his work had an enduring institutional base and an international audience.
Yogananda was a prolific spiritual writer. His best known book, Autobiography of a Yogi, first published in the mid 1940s, introduced readers worldwide to his life, teachers, and the philosophy of Kriya Yoga. He also authored instructional and devotional works such as Scientific Healing Affirmations, Whispers from Eternity, Songs of the Soul, and guides to meditation practice. Across these writings he emphasized direct inner experience, the compatibility of spirituality and reason, and respect for all religions. He framed yoga not as a sectarian creed but as a method for realizing the divine presence, a view that resonated with many modern seekers.
After many years of American teaching, he returned to India in the mid 1930s to visit his guru and students, deepen ties with Yogoda Satsanga Society, and expand collaborations. During this period he was honored with the monastic title Paramahansa, signifying one established in the highest realization, and he resumed work in the West with renewed focus on writing, organization building, and training close disciples. He emphasized Kriya Yoga initiation, home study lessons, and retreats, and began extended commentaries on the Bhagavad Gita and the Gospels that framed scriptural truths as universal guides to meditation centered life.
He spent his later years largely in Los Angeles, concentrating on publications and the consolidation of temples and retreat centers. He passed away in the early 1950s after delivering public remarks in Los Angeles. Leadership of Self-RealRealization Fellowship and Yogoda Satsanga Society continued through senior disciples, preserving and expanding his programs worldwide. Autobiography of a Yogi has remained in continuous print and been translated widely, shaping popular understanding of yoga, meditation, and interfaith respect. Today his legacy endures in the practice of Kriya Yoga, the ongoing study of his writings, and the institutions that steward his teachings.
Historical Context
Paramahansa Yogananda’s career unfolded across a world convulsed by empire, war, and rapid scientific change, circumstances that shaped the language and aims of his spiritual teaching. Born Mukunda Lal Ghosh in Gorakhpur, India, on January 5, 1893, and passing in Los Angeles on March 7, 1952, he presented yoga as a practical, universal discipline. The three writings gathered here—Autobiography of a Yogi (1946), The Science of Religion (1920), and Scientific Healing Affirmations (1924)—emerged from his effort to translate the ancient Kriya Yoga tradition into modern idioms of science, psychology, and global ethics during a period of unprecedented cultural exchange.
Yogananda’s early formation took place in colonial Bengal, a crucible of reform where the Bengal Renaissance, the Brahmo Samaj (founded 1828), and modern universities cultivated scientific learning alongside spiritual experimentation. Calcutta’s intellectual milieu, energized by railroads, telegraphy, and new journals, equipped him to engage Western ideas while remaining rooted in classical yoga and Vedanta. He studied at institutions affiliated with the University of Calcutta, absorbing a curriculum shaped by British pedagogy yet alive to Indian revivalist currents. This synthesis of modern education and indigenous spirituality would later allow him to articulate religion as an experiential science, accessible beyond sectarian borders.
Equally decisive was the guru-disciple lineage that connected him to a nineteenth-century rearticulation of yoga for householders and professionals. Lahiri Mahasaya (1828–1895) revived Kriya Yoga under the inspiration of the legendary Mahavatar Babaji, while Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri (1855–1936), Yogananda’s guru, insisted on a rigorous harmony of reason and realization. The lineage’s centers in Varanasi, Serampore, and other North Indian locales provided an anchor of continuity amid modern flux. Their emphasis on disciplined method—breath, meditation, and daily conduct—prefigured Yogananda’s subsequent stress on systematic techniques, comparative insight, and the claim that spiritual laws bear the clarity and reproducibility of scientific principles.
India’s struggle for self-rule formed a volatile backdrop to his youth and early initiatives. The years surrounding World War I and the 1919 Jallianwala Bagh massacre intensified debates on national identity, ethics, and education. Figures such as Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) and Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948) modelled cultural renewal through moral leadership and alternative institutions. In this atmosphere, Yogananda framed spiritual practice as both personal liberation and civic uplift. His language of self-mastery, universal sympathy, and nonsectarian values aligned with currents of Indian nationalism that sought global respect through spiritual exemplarity rather than political domination, preparing a bridge to transnational audiences.
Institution building began at home. In 1917 he opened a small school at Dihika, Bengal, later moved to Ranchi (1918), integrating physical culture, moral instruction, and meditation—a practical template for his later How-to-Live teachings. The Yogoda Satsanga Society of India coalesced around this educational experiment, marrying ancient techniques with modern pedagogical methods. The school’s daily regimen—postures, breath-control, concentration, and service—addressed body, mind, and character. These experiments in curricular design and administrative leadership supplied a concrete laboratory for the universal claims he would make abroad, demonstrating that yoga could be organized, taught, and scaled without losing its contemplative core.
Yogananda arrived in the United States in 1920 as a delegate to the International Congress of Religious Liberals in Boston, where he articulated the core thesis later associated with The Science of Religion: spiritual laws are discoverable through direct experience, cross-validated across traditions. That same year he established Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) to support teaching, publications, and correspondence. The timing proved opportune. America’s post–World War I landscape—marked by pluralism, urbanization, and a burgeoning lecture circuit—welcomed comparative religion. The language of science provided an idiom of neutrality in an environment wary of sectarianism yet fascinated by practical methods that promised tested results in inner life.
From 1924 Yogananda embarked on national lecture tours, drawing thousands in civic auditoriums and Chautauqua venues. In 1925 he established SRF headquarters at Mount Washington in Los Angeles, a city then emerging as a hub for new media, alternative medicine, and esoteric culture. He addressed audiences in the Los Angeles Philharmonic Auditorium and, in subsequent years, at New York’s Carnegie Hall. He founded East-West magazine (1925) to sustain ongoing instruction. Harnessing radio, phonograph recordings, and syndicated press notices, he refined a public pedagogy that blended demonstration, testimonial, and method—an outreach strategy reflected in the clarity and accessibility of his published works.
The interwar American marketplace for ideas had already been primed by New Thought, Christian Science (Mary Baker Eddy), and Theosophy, which emphasized mental causation, practical mysticism, and universal wisdom. Psychological currents—William James’s Varieties of Religious Experience (1902) and Émile Coué’s autosuggestion (popular in the 1920s)—shaped popular expectations that belief and habit can measurably transform experience. Yogananda entered this milieu by reframing yogic concentration and mantra as disciplined affirmations, and by presenting breath and attention as instruments for measurable mental poise. Scientific Healing Affirmations draws from this cross-pollination while rooting techniques in a moral cosmology and a daily regimen not reducible to positive thinking alone.
A rhetoric of science permeated modern spirituality in the age of Einstein’s relativity (1915) and widespread electrification. Yogananda used analogies from magnetism, radio, and the atom to illuminate subtle physiology and consciousness, arguing that yoga uncovers causal laws akin to laboratory replication. His friendship with horticulturist Luther Burbank (1849–1926), to whom he dedicated Autobiography of a Yogi as “An American Saint,” underscored respect for disciplined observation and creative experiment. Indian scientists such as Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858–1937) symbolized a broader nationalist aspiration to scientific excellence. This climate encouraged a presentation of meditation as method, promising verifiable inner states rather than creed.
Trans-Pacific charisma had to navigate restrictive laws and racialized curiosity. The Immigration Act of 1917 and the Asian Exclusion Act of 1924 narrowed long-term residence pathways for Asian nationals, compelling religious teachers to rely on temporary visas, institutional sponsorship, and prudential public relations. Press coverage alternated between exoticism and admiration. By foregrounding service, sobriety, and practical ethics, Yogananda differentiated yoga from fortune-telling and theatrics that drew police scrutiny in several cities. His decision to establish stable centers, publish lessons, and cultivate local leadership transformed a traveling revival into a durable educational movement, protecting a fragile bridge between Indian spiritual heritage and American audiences.
The Great Depression (1929–1939) amplified demand for inexpensive, home-based instruction that promised resilience and hope. SRF expanded correspondence courses and practical advisories—breathing routines, meditation schedules, and affirmations—that could be practiced without costly equipment. The Science of Religion found renewed relevance by framing happiness and freedom from suffering as universal aims, testable by inner experiment. Scientific Healing Affirmations offered compact routines suited to hectic or precarious lives. The affordability of pamphlets, small books, and periodicals created a distributed classroom that connected isolated readers in the United States, Canada, and beyond, knitting a dispersed fellowship through regular practice, letters, and local meditation circles.
Yogananda’s 1935–1936 return to India consolidated institutional ties and lineage authority. In Serampore and Puri he met with Sri Yukteswar, who, in 1935, conferred upon him the title “Paramahansa,” signifying the highest ideal of monastic realization. Sri Yukteswar passed in 1936, deepening Yogananda’s sense of mission abroad. The tour included visits to saints and reformers and a notable stop at Gandhi’s ashram in Wardha, where he demonstrated his Energization Exercises; several associates reported a discussion of Kriya Yoga. He reinvigorated Yogoda Satsanga Society administration and returned to the United States with manuscripts, photographs, and renewed resolve to document and teach the tradition.
World War II (1939–1945) reshaped spiritual messaging in the United States toward endurance, service, and civic cohesion. From Los Angeles—a strategic defense hub—Yogananda encouraged prayer for peace, disciplined living, and ethical patriotism while maintaining nonsectarian principles. His How-to-Live classes emphasized clarity of mind under stress, physical vitality, and moral will, aligning inner practice with wartime demands on factory workers and families. The language of universal brotherhood framed meditation as an antidote to hatred and fear. This ethos informed the tone and examples in his writing, which sought to reconcile spiritual intensity with democratic values in a time of global crisis.
Autobiography of a Yogi appeared in 1946 through Philosophical Library in New York, amid postwar reflection on technology’s power and limits after Hiroshima and Nagasaki (1945). The narrative offered first-person testimony of a yogic lineage, intercultural friendships, and an account of method rather than dogma. It amplified the scientific and practical claims outlined in his earlier lectures and booklets by embedding them in the lives of experimenters—saints and seekers—across India and the West. Subsequent printings and the 1951 revised edition expanded reach and clarified details. Publication in New York positioned the work within an international book market hungry for credible spiritual memoir.
Los Angeles provided a unique incubator for Yogananda’s mature voice. The city’s entertainment industry and publishing infrastructure enabled broad dissemination, while a lively network of comparative religion—Vedanta societies, Buddhist centers, and independent teachers—fostered dialogue. Figures such as J. Krishnamurti lectured nearby in Ojai; writers including Aldous Huxley engaged Vedanta locally. Yogananda opened the Lake Shrine in Pacific Palisades in 1950 as an interfaith retreat, emblem of his ecumenical posture. Musicians, actors, and studio executives attended his talks, not as an exotic novelty but as an applied philosophy for work, family, and health—an urban proof that disciplined inner life could serve modern creativity.
Yogananda’s final public appearance was at a banquet in the Biltmore Hotel, Los Angeles, on March 7, 1952, honoring India’s Ambassador to the United States, Binay R. Sen. He collapsed shortly after speaking, and disciples memorialized the event as mahasamadhi. Self-Realization Fellowship and Yogoda Satsanga Society then assumed stewardship of the archives, lessons, and texts, standardizing editions and training leaders. Mid-century America’s religious revival—suburban churches, radio preachers, and paperback Bibles—proved unexpectedly hospitable to continuing interest in yoga, especially when framed as ethical, scientific, and compatible with family life, a positioning already embedded in his educational and publishing strategies.
The long afterlife of Yogananda’s writings illuminates their historical signature: a disciplined reconciliation of science and devotion, East and West, individual practice and institutional form. Autobiography of a Yogi inspired postwar seekers and, from the 1960s forward, musicians and technologists; The Science of Religion supplied a portable philosophical grammar; Scientific Healing Affirmations offered daily instruments of mental hygiene. Together they record how a colonial-era Indian monk engaged global modernity—through schools, magazines, lecture halls, and mail courses—without abandoning lineage fidelity. Continually reprinted and translated, these works persist as artifacts of a century when spiritual universals were argued in the vocabulary of method.
Synopsis (Selection)
Autobiography of a Yogi
Yogananda recounts his early life in India, training under Sri Yukteswar, and journeys that led him to bring Kriya Yoga to the West. The memoir interweaves encounters with spiritual figures and scientists with accessible explanations of yogic philosophy and meditation.
The Science of Religion
A concise thesis that the universal aim of religion is enduring happiness, approached through practical, 'scientific' spiritual methods rather than dogma. It outlines laws of human satisfaction, contrasts sensory and spiritual fulfillment, and emphasizes direct inner experience.
Scientific Healing Affirmations
A practical manual on using affirmations, concentration, and prayer to influence mind, body, and character. It presents techniques and themed formulas intended to cultivate mental steadiness, support physical well-being, and deepen spiritual awareness.
Key to Self-Realization: Paramahansa Yogananda Collection
Autobiography of a Yogi
PREFACE
By W. Y. EVANS-WENTZ, M.A., D.Litt., D.Sc. Jesus College, Oxford; Author ofThe Tibetan Book of the Dead, Tibet's Great Yogi Milarepa, Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines, etc.
The value of Yogananda's Autobiography is greatly enhanced by the fact that it is one of the few books in English about the wise men of India which has been written, not by a journalist or foreigner, but by one of their own race and training--in short, a book about yogis by a yogi. As an eyewitness recountal of the extraordinary lives and powers of modern Hindu saints, the book has importance both timely and timeless. To its illustrious author, whom I have had the pleasure of knowing both in India and America, may every reader render due appreciation and gratitude. His unusual life-document is certainly one of the most revealing of the depths of the Hindu mind and heart, and of the spiritual wealth of India, ever to be published in the West.
It has been my privilege to have met one of the sages whose life- history is herein narrated-Sri Yukteswar Giri. A likeness of the venerable saint appeared as part of the frontispiece of my Tibetan Yoga and Secret Doctrines. 1-1 It was at Puri, in Orissa, on the Bay of Bengal, that I encountered Sri Yukteswar. He was then the head of a quiet ashrama near the seashore there, and was chiefly occupied in the spiritual training of a group of youthful disciples. He expressed keen interest in the welfare of the people of the United States and of all the Americas, and of England, too, and questioned me concerning the distant activities, particularly those in California, of his chief disciple, Paramhansa Yogananda, whom he dearly loved, and whom he had sent, in 1920, as his emissary to the West.
Sri Yukteswar was of gentle mien and voice, of pleasing presence, and worthy of the veneration which his followers spontaneously accorded to him. Every person who knew him, whether of his own community or not, held him in the highest esteem. I vividly recall his tall, straight, ascetic figure, garbed in the saffron-colored garb of one who has renounced worldly quests, as he stood at the entrance of the hermitage to give me welcome. His hair was long and somewhat curly, and his face bearded. His body was muscularly firm, but slender and well-formed, and his step energetic. He had chosen as his place of earthly abode the holy city of Puri, whither multitudes of pious Hindus, representative of every province of India, come daily on pilgrimage to the famed Temple of Jagannath, "Lord of the World." It was at Puri that Sri Yukteswar closed his mortal eyes, in 1936, to the scenes of this transitory state of being and passed on, knowing that his incarnation had been carried to a triumphant completion. I am glad, indeed, to be able to record this testimony to the high character and holiness of Sri Yukteswar. Content to remain afar from the multitude, he gave himself unreservedly and in tranquillity to that ideal life which Paramhansa Yogananda, his disciple, has now described for the ages. W. Y. EVANS-WENTZ
1-1: Oxford University Press, 1935.
CHAPTER: 1
My Parents and Early Life
The characteristic features of Indian culture have long been a search for ultimate verities and the concomitant disciple-guru 1-2 relationship. My own path led me to a Christlike sage whose beautiful life was chiseled for the ages. He was one of the great masters who are India's sole remaining wealth. Emerging in every generation, they have bulwarked their land against the fate of Babylon and Egypt.
I find my earliest memories covering the anachronistic features of a previous incarnation. Clear recollections came to me of a distant life, a yogi 1-3 amidst the Himalayan snows. These glimpses of the past, by some dimensionless link, also afforded me a glimpse of the future.
The helpless humiliations of infancy are not banished from my mind. I was resentfully conscious of not being able to walk or express myself freely. Prayerful surges arose within me as I realized my bodily impotence. My strong emotional life took silent form as words in many languages. Among the inward confusion of tongues, my ear gradually accustomed itself to the circumambient Bengali syllables of my people. The beguiling scope of an infant's mind! adultly considered limited to toys and toes.
Psychological ferment and my unresponsive body brought me to many obstinate crying-spells. I recall the general family bewilderment at my distress. Happier memories, too, crowd in on me: my mother's caresses, and my first attempts at lisping phrase and toddling step. These early triumphs, usually forgotten quickly, are yet a natural basis of self-confidence.
My far-reaching memories are not unique. Many yogis are known to have retained their self-consciousness without interruption by the dramatic transition to and from "life" and "death." If man be solely a body, its loss indeed places the final period to identity. But if prophets down the millenniums spake with truth, man is essentially of incorporeal nature. The persistent core of human egoity is only temporarily allied with sense perception.
Although odd, clear memories of infancy are not extremely rare. During travels in numerous lands, I have listened to early recollections from the lips of veracious men and women.
I was born in the last decade of the nineteenth century, and passed my first eight years at Gorakhpur. This was my birthplace in the United Provinces of northeastern India. We were eight children: four boys and four girls. I, Mukunda Lal Ghosh 1-4, was the second son and the fourth child.
Father and Mother were Bengalis, of the kshatriya caste. 1-5 Both were blessed with saintly nature. Their mutual love, tranquil and dignified, never expressed itself frivolously. A perfect parental harmony was the calm center for the revolving tumult of eight young lives.
Father, Bhagabati Charan Ghosh, was kind, grave, at times stern. Loving him dearly, we children yet observed a certain reverential distance. An outstanding mathematician and logician, he was guided principally by his intellect. But Mother was a queen of hearts, and taught us only through love. After her death, Father displayed more of his inner tenderness. I noticed then that his gaze often metamorphosed into my mother's.
In Mother's presence we tasted our earliest bitter-sweet acquaintance with the scriptures. Tales from the mahabharata and ramayana1-6 were resourcefully summoned to meet the exigencies of discipline. Instruction and chastisement went hand in hand.
A daily gesture of respect to Father was given by Mother's dressing us carefully in the afternoons to welcome him home from the office. His position was similar to that of a vice-president, in the Bengal-Nagpur Railway, one of India's large companies. His work involved traveling, and our family lived in several cities during my childhood.
Mother held an open hand toward the needy. Father was also kindly disposed, but his respect for law and order extended to the budget. One fortnight Mother spent, in feeding the poor, more than Father's monthly income.
"All I ask, please, is to keep your charities within a reasonable limit." Even a gentle rebuke from her husband was grievous to Mother. She ordered a hackney carriage, not hinting to the children at any disagreement.
"Good-by; I am going away to my mother's home." Ancient ultimatum!
We broke into astounded lamentations. Our maternal uncle arrived opportunely; he whispered to Father some sage counsel, garnered no doubt from the ages. After Father had made a few conciliatory remarks, Mother happily dismissed the cab. Thus ended the only trouble I ever noticed between my parents. But I recall a characteristic discussion.
"Please give me ten rupees for a hapless woman who has just arrived at the house." Mother's smile had its own persuasion.
"Why ten rupees? One is enough." Father added a justification: "When my father and grandparents died suddenly, I had my first taste of poverty. My only breakfast, before walking miles to my school, was a small banana. Later, at the university, I was in such need that I applied to a wealthy judge for aid of one rupee per month. He declined, remarking that even a rupee is important."
"How bitterly you recall the denial of that rupee!" Mother's heart had an instant logic. "Do you want this woman also to remember painfully your refusal of ten rupees which she needs urgently?"
"You win!" With the immemorial gesture of vanquished husbands, he opened his wallet. "Here is a ten-rupee note. Give it to her with my good will."
Father tended to first say "No" to any new proposal. His attitude toward the strange woman who so readily enlisted Mother's sympathy was an example of his customary caution. Aversion to instant acceptance- typical of the French mind in the West-is really only honoring the principle of "due reflection." I always found Father reasonable and evenly balanced in his judgments. If I could bolster up my numerous requests with one or two good arguments, he invariably put the coveted goal within my reach, whether it were a vacation trip or a new motorcycle.
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. 1-7 Shunning all luxuries, he would cling to one old pair of shoes until they were useless. His sons bought automobiles after they came into popular use, but Father was always content with the trolley car for his daily ride to the office. The accumulation of money for the sake of power was alien to his nature. Once, after organizing the Calcutta Urban Bank, he refused to benefit himself by holding any of its shares. He had simply wished to perform a civic duty in his spare time.
Several years after Father had retired on a pension, an English accountant arrived to examine the books of the Bengal-Nagpur Railway Company. The amazed investigator discovered that Father had never applied for overdue bonuses.
"He did the work of three men!" the accountant told the company. "He has rupees 125,000 (about $41,250.) owing to him as back compensation." The officials presented Father with a check for this amount. He thought so little about it that he overlooked any mention to the family. Much later he was questioned by my youngest brother Bishnu, who noticed the large deposit on a bank statement.
"Why be elated by material profit?" Father replied. "The one who pursues a goal of evenmindedness is neither jubilant with gain nor depressed by loss.[1q] He knows that man arrives penniless in this world, and departs without a single rupee."
FATHER Bhagabati Charan GhoshA Disciple of Lahiri Mahasaya
Early in their married life, my parents became disciples of a great master, Lahiri Mahasaya of Benares. This contact strengthened Father's naturally ascetical temperament. Mother made a remarkable admission to my eldest sister Roma: "Your father and myself live together as man and wife only once a year, for the purpose of having children."
Father first met Lahiri Mahasaya through Abinash Babu, 1-8 an employee in the Gorakhpur office of the Bengal-Nagpur Railway. Abinash instructed my young ears with engrossing tales of many Indian saints. He invariably concluded with a tribute to the superior glories of his own guru.
"Did you ever hear of the extraordinary circumstances under which your father became a disciple of Lahiri Mahasaya?"
It was on a lazy summer afternoon, as Abinash and I sat together in the compound of my home, that he put this intriguing question. I shook my head with a smile of anticipation.
"Years ago, before you were born, I asked my superior officer-your father-to give me a week's leave from my Gorakhpur duties in order to visit my guru in Benares. Your father ridiculed my plan.
"'Are you going to become a religious fanatic?' he inquired. 'Concentrate on your office work if you want to forge ahead.'
"Sadly walking home along a woodland path that day, I met your father in a palanquin. He dismissed his servants and conveyance, and fell into step beside me. Seeking to console me, he pointed out the advantages of striving for worldly success. But I heard him listlessly. My heart was repeating: 'Lahiri Mahasaya! I cannot live without seeing you!'
"Our path took us to the edge of a tranquil field, where the rays of the late afternoon sun were still crowning the tall ripple of the wild grass. We paused in admiration. There in the field, only a few yards from us, the form of my great guru suddenly appeared! 1-9
"'Bhagabati, you are too hard on your employee!' His voice was resonant in our astounded ears. He vanished as mysteriously as he had come. On my knees I was exclaiming, 'Lahiri Mahasaya! Lahiri Mahasaya!' Your father was motionless with stupefaction for a few moments.
"'Abinash, not only do I give you leave, but I give myself leave to start for Benares tomorrow. I must know this great Lahiri Mahasaya, who is able to materialize himself at will in order to intercede for you! I will take my wife and ask this master to initiate us in his spiritual path. Will you guide us to him?'
"'Of course.' Joy filled me at the miraculous answer to my prayer, and the quick, favorable turn of events.
"The next evening your parents and I entrained for Benares. We took a horse cart the following day, and then had to walk through narrow lanes to my guru's secluded home. Entering his little parlor, we bowed before the master, enlocked in his habitual lotus posture. He blinked his piercing eyes and leveled them on your father.
"'Bhagabati, you are too hard on your employee!' His words were the same as those he had used two days before in the Gorakhpur field. He added, 'I am glad that you have allowed Abinash to visit me, and that you and your wife have accompanied him.'
"To their joy, he initiated your parents in the spiritual practice of Kriya Yoga. 1-10 Your father and I, as brother disciples, have been close friends since the memorable day of the vision. Lahiri Mahasaya took a definite interest in your own birth. Your life shall surely be linked with his own: the master's blessing never fails."
Lahiri Mahasaya left this world shortly after I had entered it. His picture, in an ornate frame, always graced our family altar in the various cities to which Father was transferred by his office. Many a morning and evening found Mother and me meditating before an improvised shrine, offering flowers dipped in fragrant sandalwood paste. With frankincense and myrrh as well as our united devotions, we honored the divinity which had found full expression in Lahiri Mahasaya.
His picture had a surpassing influence over my life. As I grew, the thought of the master grew with me. In meditation I would often see his photographic image emerge from its small frame and, taking a living form, sit before me. When I attempted to touch the feet of his luminous body, it would change and again become the picture. As childhood slipped into boyhood, I found Lahiri Mahasaya transformed in my mind from a little image, cribbed in a frame, to a living, enlightening presence. I frequently prayed to him in moments of trial or confusion, finding within me his solacing direction. At first I grieved because he was no longer physically living. As I began to discover his secret omnipresence, I lamented no more. He had often written to those of his disciples who were over-anxious to see him: "Why come to view my bones and flesh, when I am ever within range of your kutastha (spiritual sight)?"
I was blessed about the age of eight with a wonderful healing through the photograph of Lahiri Mahasaya. This experience gave intensification to my love. While at our family estate in Ichapur, Bengal, I was stricken with Asiatic cholera. My life was despaired of; the doctors could do nothing. At my bedside, Mother frantically motioned me to look at Lahiri Mahasaya's picture on the wall above my head.
"Bow to him mentally!" She knew I was too feeble even to lift my hands in salutation. "If you really show your devotion and inwardly kneel before him, your life will be spared!"
I gazed at his photograph and saw there a blinding light, enveloping my body and the entire room. My nausea and other uncontrollable symptoms disappeared; I was well. At once I felt strong enough to bend over and touch Mother's feet in appreciation of her immeasurable faith in her guru. Mother pressed her head repeatedly against the little picture.
"O Omnipresent Master, I thank thee that thy light hath healed my son!"
I realized that she too had witnessed the luminous blaze through which I had instantly recovered from a usually fatal disease.
One of my most precious possessions is that same photograph. Given to Father by Lahiri Mahasaya himself, it carries a holy vibration. The picture had a miraculous origin. I heard the story from Father's brother disciple, Kali Kumar Roy.
It appears that the master had an aversion to being photographed. Over his protest, a group picture was once taken of him and a cluster of devotees, including Kali Kumar Roy. It was an amazed photographer who discovered that the plate which had clear images of all the disciples, revealed nothing more than a blank space in the center where he had reasonably expected to find the outlines of Lahiri Mahasaya. The phenomenon was widely discussed.
A certain student and expert photographer, Ganga Dhar Babu, boasted that the fugitive figure would not escape him. The next morning, as the guru sat in lotus posture on a wooden bench with a screen behind him, Ganga Dhar Babu arrived with his equipment. Taking every precaution for success, he greedily exposed twelve plates. On each one he soon found the imprint of the wooden bench and screen, but once again the master's form was missing.
With tears and shattered pride, Ganga Dhar Babu sought out his guru. It was many hours before Lahiri Mahasaya broke his silence with a pregnant comment:
"I am Spirit. Can your camera reflect the omnipresent Invisible?"
"I see it cannot! But, Holy Sir, I lovingly desire a picture of the bodily temple where alone, to my narrow vision, that Spirit appears fully to dwell."
"Come, then, tomorrow morning. I will pose for you."
Again the photographer focused his camera. This time the sacred figure, not cloaked with mysterious imperceptibility, was sharp on the plate. The master never posed for another picture; at least, I have seen none.
The photograph is reproduced in this book. Lahiri Mahasaya's fair features, of a universal cast, hardly suggest to what race he belonged. His intense joy of God-communion is slightly revealed in a somewhat enigmatic smile. His eyes, half open to denote a nominal direction on the outer world, are half closed also. Completely oblivious to the poor lures of the earth, he was fully awake at all times to the spiritual problems of seekers who approached for his bounty.
Shortly after my healing through the potency of the guru's picture, I had an influential spiritual vision. Sitting on my bed one morning, I fell into a deep reverie.
"What is behind the darkness of closed eyes?" This probing thought came powerfully into my mind. An immense flash of light at once manifested to my inward gaze. Divine shapes of saints, sitting in meditation posture in mountain caves, formed like miniature cinema pictures on the large screen of radiance within my forehead.
"Who are you?" I spoke aloud.
"We are the Himalayan yogis." The celestial response is difficult to describe; my heart was thrilled.
"Ah, I long to go to the Himalayas and become like you!" The vision vanished, but the silvery beams expanded in ever-widening circles to infinity.
"What is this wondrous glow?"
"I am Iswara.1-11 I am Light." The voice was as murmuring clouds.
"I want to be one with Thee!"
Out of the slow dwindling of my divine ecstasy, I salvaged a permanent legacy of inspiration to seek God. "He is eternal, ever-new Joy!" This memory persisted long after the day of rapture.
Another early recollection is outstanding; and literally so, for I bear the scar to this day. My elder sister Uma and I were seated in the early morning under a neem tree in our Gorakhpur compound. She was helping me with a Bengali primer, what time I could spare my gaze from the near-by parrots eating ripe margosa fruit. Uma complained of a boil on her leg, and fetched a jar of ointment. I smeared a bit of the salve on my forearm.
"Why do you use medicine on a healthy arm?"
"Well, Sis, I feel I am going to have a boil tomorrow. I am testing your ointment on the spot where the boil will appear."
"You little liar!"
"Sis, don't call me a liar until you see what happens in the morning." Indignation filled me.
Uma was unimpressed, and thrice repeated her taunt. An adamant resolution sounded in my voice as I made slow reply.
"By the power of will in me, I say that tomorrow I shall have a fairly large boil in this exact place on my arm; and your boil shall swell to twice its present size!"
Morning found me with a stalwart boil on the indicated spot; the dimensions of Uma's boil had doubled. With a shriek, my sister rushed to Mother. "Mukunda has become a necromancer!" Gravely, Mother instructed me never to use the power of words for doing harm. I have always remembered her counsel, and followed it.
My boil was surgically treated. A noticeable scar, left by the doctor's incision, is present today. On my right forearm is a constant reminder of the power in man's sheer word.
Those simple and apparently harmless phrases to Uma, spoken with deep concentration, had possessed sufficient hidden force to explode like bombs and produce definite, though injurious, effects. I understood, later, that the explosive vibratory power in speech could be wisely directed to free one's life from difficulties, and thus operate without scar or rebuke. 1-12
Our family moved to Lahore in the Punjab. There I acquired a picture of the Divine Mother in the form of the Goddess Kali. 1-13 It sanctified a small informal shrine on the balcony of our home. An unequivocal conviction came over me that fulfillment would crown any of my prayers uttered in that sacred spot. Standing there with Uma one day, I watched two kites flying over the roofs of the buildings on the opposite side of the very narrow lane.
"Why are you so quiet?" Uma pushed me playfully.
"I am just thinking how wonderful it is that Divine Mother gives me whatever I ask."
"I suppose She would give you those two kites!" My sister laughed derisively.
"Why not?" I began silent prayers for their possession.
Matches are played in India with kites whose strings are covered with glue and ground glass. Each player attempts to sever the string of his opponent. A freed kite sails over the roofs; there is great fun in catching it. Inasmuch as Uma and I were on the balcony, it seemed impossible that any loosed kite could come into our hands; its string would naturally dangle over the roofs.
The players across the lane began their match. One string was cut; immediately the kite floated in my direction. It was stationary for a moment, through sudden abatement of breeze, which sufficed to firmly entangle the string with a cactus plant on top of the opposite house. A perfect loop was formed for my seizure. I handed the prize to Uma.
"It was just an extraordinary accident, and not an answer to your prayer. If 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 a crescendo 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.
"Indeed, Divine Mother listens to you! This is all too uncanny for me!" Sister bolted away like a frightened fawn.
1-2: Spiritual teacher; from Sanskrit root gur, to raise, to uplift.
1-3: A practitioner of yoga, "union," ancient Indian science of meditation on God.
1-4: My name was changed to Yogananda when I entered the ancient monastic Swami Order in 1914. My guru bestowed the religious title of Paramhansa on me in 1935 (see chapters 24 and 42).
1-5: Traditionally, the second caste of warriors and rulers.
1-6: These ancient epics are the hoard of India's history, mythology, and philosophy. An "Everyman's Library" volume, Ramayana and Mahabharata, is a condensation in English verse by Romesh Dutt (New York: E. P. Dutton).
1-7: This noble Sanskrit poem, which occurs as part of the Mahabharata epic, is the Hindu Bible. The most poetical English translation is Edwin Arnold's The Song Celestial (Philadelphia: David McKay, 75 cents). One of the best translations with detailed commentary is Sri Aurobindo's Message Of The Gita (Jupiter Press, 16 Semudoss St., Madras, India, $3.50).
1-8:Babu (Mister) is placed in Bengali names at the end.
1-9: The phenomenal powers possessed by great masters are explained in chapter 30, "The Law of Miracles."
1-10: A yogic technique whereby the sensory tumult is stilled, permitting man to achieve an ever-increasing identity with cosmic consciousness. (See chapter 26.)
1-11: A Sanskrit name for God as Ruler of the universe; from the root Is , to rule. There are 108 names for God in the Hindu scriptures, each one carrying a different shade of philosophical meaning.
1-12: The infinite potencies of sound derive from the Creative Word, Aum , the cosmic vibratory power behind all atomic energies. Any word spoken with clear realization and deep concentration has a materializing value. Loud or silent repetition of inspiring words has been found effective in Coueism and similar systems of psychotherapy; the secret lies in the stepping-up of the mind's vibratory rate. The poet Tennyson has left us, in his Memoirs , an account of his repetitious device for passing beyond the conscious mind into superconsciousness:
"A kind of waking trance-this for lack of a better word-I have frequently had, quite up from boyhood, when I have been all alone," Tennyson wrote. "This has come upon me through repeating my own name to myself silently, till all at once, as it were out of the intensity of the consciousness of individuality, individuality itself seemed to dissolve and fade away into boundless being, and this not a confused state but the clearest, the surest of the surest, utterly beyond words-where death was an almost laughable impossibility-the loss of personality (if so it were) seeming no extinction, but the only true life." He wrote further: "It is no nebulous ecstasy, but a state of transcendent wonder, associated with absolute clearness of mind."
1-13: Kali is a symbol of God in the aspect of eternal Mother Nature.
CHAPTER: 2
My Mother's Death And The Mystic Amulet
My mother's greatest desire was the marriage of my elder brother. "Ah, when I behold the face of Ananta's wife, I shall find heaven on this earth!" I frequently heard Mother express in these words her strong Indian sentiment for family continuity.
I was about eleven years old at the time of Ananta's betrothal. Mother was in Calcutta, joyously supervising the wedding preparations. Father and I alone remained at our home in Bareilly in northern India, whence Father had been transferred after two years at Lahore.
I had previously witnessed the splendor of nuptial rites for my two elder sisters, Roma and Uma; but for Ananta, as the eldest son, plans were truly elaborate. Mother was welcoming numerous relatives, daily arriving in Calcutta from distant homes. She lodged them comfortably in a large, newly acquired house at 50 Amherst Street. Everything was in readiness-the banquet delicacies, the gay throne on which Brother was to be carried to the home of the bride-to-be, the rows of colorful lights, the mammoth cardboard elephants and camels, the English, Scottish and Indian orchestras, the professional entertainers, the priests for the ancient rituals.
Father and I, in gala spirits, were planning to join the family in time for the ceremony. Shortly before the great day, however, I had an ominous vision.
It was in Bareilly on a midnight. As I slept beside Father on the piazza of our bungalow, I was awakened by a peculiar flutter of the mosquito netting over the bed. The flimsy curtains parted and I saw the beloved form of my mother.
"Awaken your father!" Her voice was only a whisper. "Take the first available train, at four o'clock this morning. Rush to Calcutta if you would see me!" The wraithlike figure vanished.
"Father, Father! Mother is dying!" The terror in my tone aroused him instantly. I sobbed out the fatal tidings.
"Never mind that hallucination of yours." Father gave his characteristic negation to a new situation. "Your mother is in excellent health. If we get any bad news, we shall leave tomorrow."
"You shall never forgive yourself for not starting now!" Anguish caused me to add bitterly, "Nor shall I ever forgive you!"
The melancholy morning came with explicit words: "Mother dangerously ill; marriage postponed; come at once."
Father and I left distractedly. One of my uncles met us en route at a transfer point. A train thundered toward us, looming with telescopic increase. From my inner tumult, an abrupt determination arose to hurl myself on the railroad tracks. Already bereft, I felt, of my mother, I could not endure a world suddenly barren to the bone. I loved Mother as my dearest friend on earth. Her solacing black eyes had been my surest refuge in the trifling tragedies of childhood.
"Does she yet live?" I stopped for one last question to my uncle.
"Of course she is alive!" He was not slow to interpret the desperation in my face. But I scarcely believed him.
When we reached our Calcutta home, it was only to confront the stunning mystery of death. I collapsed into an almost lifeless state. Years passed before any reconciliation entered my heart. Storming the very gates of heaven, my cries at last summoned the Divine Mother. Her words brought final healing to my suppurating wounds:
"It is I who have watched over thee, life after life, in the tenderness of many mothers! See in My gaze the two black eyes, the lost beautiful eyes, thou seekest!"
Father and I returned to Bareilly soon after the crematory rites for the well-beloved. Early every morning I made a pathetic memorial- pilgrimage to a large sheoli tree which shaded the smooth, green-gold lawn before our bungalow. In poetical moments, I thought that the white sheoli flowers were strewing themselves with a willing devotion over the grassy altar. Mingling tears with the dew, I often observed a strange other-worldly light emerging from the dawn. Intense pangs of longing for God assailed me. I felt powerfully drawn to the Himalayas.
One of my cousins, fresh from a period of travel in the holy hills, visited us in Bareilly. I listened eagerly to his tales about the high mountain abode of yogis and swamis. 2-1
"Let us run away to the Himalayas." My suggestion one day to Dwarka Prasad, the young son of our landlord in Bareilly, fell on unsympathetic ears. He revealed my plan to my elder brother, who had just arrived to see Father. Instead of laughing lightly over this impractical scheme of a small boy, Ananta made it a definite point to ridicule me.
"Where is your orange robe? You can't be a swami without that!"
But I was inexplicably thrilled by his words. They brought a clear picture of myself roaming about India as a monk. Perhaps they awakened memories of a past life; in any case, I began to see with what natural ease I would wear the garb of that anciently-founded monastic order.
Chatting one morning with Dwarka, I felt a love for God descending with avalanchic force. My companion was only partly attentive to the ensuing eloquence, but I was wholeheartedly listening to myself.
I fled that afternoon toward Naini Tal in the Himalayan foothills. Ananta gave determined chase; I was forced to return sadly to Bareilly. The only pilgrimage permitted me was the customary one at dawn to the sheoli tree. My heart wept for the lost Mothers, human and divine.
The rent left in the family fabric by Mother's death was irreparable. Father never remarried during his nearly forty remaining years. Assuming the difficult role of Father-Mother to his little flock, he grew noticeably more tender, more approachable. With calmness and insight, he solved the various family problems. 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.
My MotherA Disciple of Lahiri Mahasaya
"Service to me ended with your mother." His eyes were remote with a lifelong devotion. "I will not accept ministrations from any other woman."
Fourteen months after Mother's passing, I learned that she had left me a momentous message. Ananta was present at her deathbed and had recorded her words. Although she had asked that the disclosure be made to me in one year, my brother delayed. He was soon to leave Bareilly for Calcutta, to marry the girl Mother had chosen for him. 2-2 One evening he summoned me to his side.
"Mukunda, I have been reluctant to give you strange tidings." Ananta's tone held a note of resignation. "My fear was to inflame your desire to leave home. But in any case you are bristling with divine ardor. When I captured you recently on your way to the Himalayas, I came to a definite resolve. I must not further postpone the fulfillment of my solemn promise." My brother handed me a small box, and delivered Mother's message.
"Let these words be my final blessing, my beloved son Mukunda!" Mother had said. "The hour is here when I must relate a number of phenomenal events following your birth. I first knew your destined path when you were but a babe in my arms. I carried you then to the home of my guru in Benares. Almost hidden behind a throng of disciples, I could barely see Lahiri Mahasaya as he sat in deep meditation.
