""Greetings, Swamiji!" The beautiful voice of the master rang out to a.s.sure me I was not dreaming. "I see you have successfully completed your book. As I promised, I am here to thank you."
"With a fast-beating heart, I prostrated myself fully at his feet.
"Param-guruji," I said imploringly, "will you and your chelas not honor my near-by home with your presence?"
"The supreme guru smilingly declined. "No, child," he said, "we are people who like the shelter of trees; this spot is quite comfortable."
""Please tarry awhile, Master." I gazed entreatingly at him. "I shall be back at once with some special sweetmeats."
"When I returned in a few minutes with a dish of delicacies, lo! the lordly banyan no longer sheltered the celestial troupe. I searched all around the ghat, but in my heart I knew the little band had already fled on etheric wings.
"I was deeply hurt. "Even if we meet again, I would not care to talk to him," I a.s.sured myself. "He was unkind to leave me so suddenly."
This was a wrath of love, of course, and nothing more.
"A few months later I visited Lahiri Mahasaya in Benares. As I entered his little parlor, my guru smiled in greeting.
""Welcome, Yukteswar," he said. "Did you just meet Babaji at the threshold of my room?"
""Why, no," I answered in surprise.
""Come here." Lahiri Mahasaya touched me gently on the forehead; at once I beheld, near the door, the form of Babaji, blooming like a perfect lotus.
"I remembered my old hurt, and did not bow. Lahiri Mahasaya looked at me in astonishment.
"The divine guru gazed at me with fathomless eyes. "You are annoyed with me."
""Sir, why shouldn"t I be?" I answered. "Out of the air you came with your magic group, and into the thin air you vanished."
""I told you I would see you, but didn"t say how long I would remain."
Babaji laughed softly. "You were full of excitement. I a.s.sure you that I was fairly extinguished in the ether by the gust of your restlessness."
"I was instantly satisfied by this unflattering explanation. I knelt at his feet; the supreme guru patted me kindly on the shoulder.
""Child, you must meditate more," he said. "Your gaze is not yet faultless-you could not see me hiding behind the sunlight." With these words in the voice of a celestial flute, Babaji disappeared into the hidden radiance.
"That was one of my last visits to Benares to see my guru," Sri Yukteswar concluded. "Even as Babaji had foretold at the k.u.mBHA MELA, the householder-incarnation of Lahiri Mahasaya was drawing to a close. During the summer of 1895 his stalwart body developed a small boil on the back. He protested against lancing; he was working out in his own flesh the evil karma of some of his disciples. Finally a few chelas became very insistent; the master replied cryptically:
""The body has to find a cause to go; I will be agreeable to whatever you want to do."
"A short time later the incomparable guru gave up his body in Benares. No longer need I seek him out in his little parlor; I find every day of my life blessed by his omnipresent guidance."
Years later, from the lips of Swami Keshabananda, {FN36-6} an advanced disciple, I heard many wonderful details about the pa.s.sing of Lahiri Mahasaya.
"A few days before my guru relinquished his body," Keshabananda told me, "he materialized himself before me as I sat in my hermitage at Hardwar.
""Come at once to Benares." With these words Lahiri Mahasaya vanished.
"I entrained immediately for Benares. At my guru"s home I found many disciples a.s.sembled. For hours that day {FN36-7} the master expounded the GITA; then he addressed us simply.
""I am going home."
"Sobs of anguish broke out like an irresistible torrent.
""Be comforted; I shall rise again." After this utterance Lahiri Mahasaya thrice turned his body around in a circle, faced the north in his lotus posture, and gloriously entered the final MAHA-SAMADHI.
{FN36-8}
"Lahiri Mahasaya"s beautiful body, so dear to the devotees, was cremated with solemn householder rites at Manikarnika Ghat by the holy Ganges," Keshabananda continued. "The following day, at ten o"clock in the morning, while I was still in Benares, my room was suffused with a great light. Lo! before me stood the flesh and blood form of Lahiri Mahasaya! It looked exactly like his old body, except that it appeared younger and more radiant. My divine guru spoke to me.
""Keshabananda," he said, "it is I. From the disintegrated atoms of my cremated body, I have resurrected a remodeled form. My householder work in the world is done; but I do not leave the earth entirely. Henceforth I shall spend some time with Babaji in the Himalayas, and with Babaji in the cosmos."
"With a few words of blessing to me, the transcendent master vanished. Wondrous inspiration filled my heart; I was uplifted in Spirit even as were the disciples of Christ and Kabir {FN36-9} when they had gazed on their living gurus after physical death.
"When I returned to my isolated Hardwar hermitage," Keshabananda went on, "I carried with me the sacred ashes of my guru. I know he has escaped the spatio-temporal cage; the bird of omnipresence is freed. Yet it comforted my heart to enshrine his sacred remains."
Another disciple who was blessed by the sight of his resurrected guru was the saintly Panchanon Bhattacharya, founder of the Calcutta Arya Mission Inst.i.tution. {FN36-10}
I visited Panchanon at his Calcutta home, and listened with delight to the story of his many years with the master. In conclusion, he told me of the most marvelous event in his life.
"Here in Calcutta," Panchanon said, "at ten o"clock of the morning which followed his cremation, Lahiri Mahasaya appeared before me in living glory."
Swami Pranabananda, the "saint with two bodies," also confided to me the details of his own supernal experience.
"A few days before Lahiri Mahasaya left his body," Pranabananda told me at the time he visited my Ranchi school, "I received a letter from him, requesting me to come at once to Benares. I was delayed, however, and could not leave immediately. As I was in the midst of my travel preparations, about ten o"clock in the morning, I was suddenly overwhelmed with joy to see the shining figure of my guru.
""Why hurry to Benares?" Lahiri Mahasaya said, smiling. "You shall find me there no longer."
"As the import of his words dawned on me, I sobbed broken-heartedly, believing that I was seeing him only in a vision.
"The master approached me comfortingly. "Here, touch my flesh,"
he said. "I am living, as always. Do not lament; am I not with you forever?""
From the lips of these three great disciples, a story of wondrous truth has emerged: At the morning hour of ten, on the day after the body of Lahiri Mahasaya had been consigned to the flames, the resurrected master, in a real but transfigured body, appeared before three disciples, each one in a different city.
"So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pa.s.s the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" {FN36-11}
{FN36-1} Sri Yukteswar was later formally initiated into the Swami Order by the MAHANT (monastery head) of Buddh Gaya.
{FN36-2} "Great King"-a t.i.tle of respect.
{FN36-3} A guru usually refers to his own disciple simply by his name, omitting any t.i.tle. Thus, Babaji said "Lahiri," not "Lahiri Mahasaya."
{FN36-4} Literally, "eternal religion," the name given to the body of Vedic teachings. SANATAN DHARMA has come to be called HINDUISM since the time of the Greeks who designated the people on the banks of the river Indus as INDOOS, or HINDUS. The word HINDU, properly speaking, refers only to followers of SANATAN DHARMA or Hinduism.
The term INDIAN applies equally to Hindus and Mohammedans and other INHABITANTS of the soil of India (and also through the confusing geographical error of Columbus, to the American Mongoloid aboriginals).
The ancient name for India is ARYAVARTA, literally, "abode of the Aryans." The Sanskrit root of ARYA is "worthy, holy, n.o.ble." The later ethnological misuse of ARYAN to signify not spiritual, but physical, characteristics, led the great Orientalist, Max Muller, to say quaintly: "To me an ethnologist who speaks of an Aryan race, Aryan blood, Aryan eyes and hair, is as great a sinner as a linguist who speaks of a dolichocephalic dictionary or a brachycephalic grammar."
{FN36-5} PARAM-GURU is literally "guru supreme" or "guru beyond,"
signifying a line or succession of teachers. Babaji, the GURU of Lahiri Mahasaya, was the PARAM-GURU of Sri Yukteswar.
{FN36-6} My visit to Keshabananda"s ashram is described on pp.