Among the philosophers, professors, lawyers and scientists who came to the hermitage, a number arrived for their first visit with the expectation of meeting an orthodox religionist. A supercilious smile or a glance of amused tolerance occasionally betrayed that the newcomers anticipated nothing more than a few pious platitudes. Yet their reluctant departure would bring an expressed conviction that Sri Yukteswar had shown precise insight into their specialized fields.
My guru ordinarily was gentle and affable to guests; his welcome was given with charming cordiality. Yet inveterate egotists sometimes suffered an invigorating shock. They confronted in Master either a frigid indifference or a formidable opposition: ice or iron!
A noted chemist once crossed swords with Sri Yukteswar. The visitor would not admit the existence of God, inasmuch as science has devised no means of detecting Him.
“So you have inexplicably failed to isolate the Supreme Power in your test tubes!” Master’s gaze was stern. “I recommend an unheard-of experiment. Examine your thoughts unremittingly for twenty-four hours. Then wonder no longer at God’s absence.”
A celebrated pundit received a similar jolt. With ostentatious zeal, the scholar shook the ashram rafters with scriptural lore. Resounding passages poured from the MAHABHARATA, the UPANISHADS, {FN12-21} the BHASYAS {FN12-22} of Shankara.
“I am waiting to hear you.” Sri Yukteswar’s tone was inquiring, as though utter silence had reigned. The pundit was puzzled.
“Quotations there have been, in superabundance.” Master’s words convulsed me with mirth, as I squatted in my corner, at a respectful distance from the visitor. “But what original commentary can you supply, from the uniqueness of your particular life? What holy text have you absorbed and made your own? In what ways have these timeless truths renovated your nature? Are you content to be a hollow victrola, mechanically repeating the words of other men?”
“I give up!” The scholar’s chagrin was comical. “I have no inner realization.”
For the first time, perhaps, he understood that discerning placement of the comma does not atone for a spiritual coma.
“These bloodless pedants smell unduly of the lamp,” my guru remarked after the departure of the chastened one. “They prefer philosophy to be a gentle intellectual setting-up exercise. Their elevated thoughts are carefully unrelated either to the crudity of outward action or to any scourging inner discipline!”
Master stressed on other occasions the futility of mere book learning.
“Do not confuse understanding with a larger vocabulary,” he remarked. “Sacred writings are beneficial in stimulating desire for inward realization, if one stanza at a time is slowly assimilated. Continual intellectual study results in vanity and the false satisfaction of an undigested knowledge.”
Sri Yukteswar related one of his own experiences in scriptural edification. The scene was a forest hermitage in eastern Bengal, where he observed the procedure of a renowned teacher, Dabru Ballav. His method, at once simple and difficult, was common in ancient India.
Dabru Ballav had gathered his disciples around him in the sylvan solitudes. The holy BHAGAVAD GITA was open before them. Steadfastly they looked at one passage for half an hour, then closed their eyes. Another half hour slipped away. The master gave a brief comment. Motionless, they meditated again for an hour. Finally the guru spoke.
“Have you understood?”
“Yes, sir.” One in the group ventured this assertion.
“No; not fully. Seek the spiritual vitality that has given these words the power to rejuvenate India century after century.” Another hour disappeared in silence. The master dismissed the students, and turned to Sri Yukteswar.
“Do you know the BHAGAVAD GITA?”
“No, sir, not really; though my eyes and mind have run through its pages many times.”
“Thousands have replied to me differently!” The great sage smiled at Master in blessing. “If one busies himself with an outer display of scriptural wealth, what time is left for silent inward diving after the priceless pearls?”
Sri Yukteswar directed the study of his own disciples by the same intensive method of one-pointedness. “Wisdom is not assimilated with the eyes, but with the atoms,” he said. “When your conviction of a truth is not merely in your brain but in your being, you may diffidently vouch for its meaning.” He discouraged any tendency a student might have to construe book-knowledge as a necessary step to spiritual realization.
“The RISHIS wrote in one sentence profundities that commentating scholars busy themselves over for generations,” he remarked. “Endless literary controversy is for sluggard minds. What more liberating thought than ‘God is’-nay, ‘God’?”
But man does not easily return to simplicity. It is seldom “God” for him, but rather learned pomposities. His ego is pleased, that he can grasp such erudition.
Men who were pridefully conscious of high worldly position were likely, in Master’s presence, to add humility to their other possessions. A local magistrate once arrived for an interview at the seaside hermitage in Puri. The man, who held a reputation for ruthlessness, had it well within his power to oust us from the ashram. I cautioned my guru about the despotic possibilities. But he seated himself with an uncompromising air, and did not rise to greet the visitor. Slightly nervous, I squatted near the door. The man had to content himself with a wooden box; my guru did not request me to fetch a chair. There was no fulfillment of the magistrate’s obvious expectation that his importance would be ceremoniously acknowledged.
A metaphysical discussion ensued. The guest blundered through misinterpretations of the scriptures. As his accuracy sank, his ire rose.
“Do you know that I stood first in the M. A. examination?” Reason had forsaken him, but he could still shout.
“Mr. Magistrate, you forget that this is not your courtroom,” Master replied evenly. “From your childish remarks I would have surmised that your college career was unremarkable. A university degree, in any case, is not remotely related to Vedic realization. Saints are not produced in batches every semester like accountants.”
After a stunned silence, the visitor laughed heartily.
“This is my first encounter with a heavenly magistrate,” he said. Later he made a formal request, couched in the legal terms which were evidently part and parcel of his being, to be accepted as a “probationary” disciple.
My guru personally attended to the details connected with the management of his property. Unscrupulous persons on various occasions attempted to secure possession of Master’s ancestral land. With determination and even by instigating lawsuits, Sri Yukteswar outwitted every opponent. He underwent these painful experiences from a desire never to be a begging guru, or a burden on his disciples.
His financial independence was one reason why my alarmingly outspoken Master was innocent of the cunnings of diplomacy. Unlike those teachers who have to flatter their supporters, my guru was impervious to the influences, open or subtle, of others’ wealth. Never did I hear him ask or even hint for money for any purpose. His hermitage training was given free and freely to all disciples.
An insolent court deputy arrived one day at the Serampore ashram to serve Sri Yukteswar with a legal summons. A disciple named Kanai and myself were also present. The officer’s attitude toward Master was offensive.
“It will do you good to leave the shadows of your hermitage and breathe the honest air of a courtroom.” The deputy grinned contemptuously. I could not contain myself.
“Another word of your impudence and you will be on the floor!” I advanced threateningly.
“You wretch!” Kanai’s shout was simultaneous with my own. “Dare you bring your blasphemies into this sacred ashram?”
But Master stood protectingly in front of his abuser. “Don’t get excited over nothing. This man is only doing his rightful duty.”
The officer, dazed at his varying reception, respectfully offered a word of apology and sped away.
Amazing it was to find that a master with such a fiery will could be so calm within. He fitted the Vedic definition of a man of God: “Softer than the flower, where kindness is concerned; stronger than the thunder, where principles are at stake.”
There are always those in this world who, in Browning’s words, “endure no light, being themselves obscure.” An outsider occasionally berated Sri Yukteswar for an imaginary grievance. My imperturbable guru listened politely, analyzing himself to see if any shred of truth lay within the denunciation. These scenes would bring to my mind one of Master’s inimitable observations: “Some people try to be tall by cutting off the heads of others!”
The unfailing composure of a saint is impressive beyond any sermon. “He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city.” {FN12-23}
I often reflected that my majestic Master could easily have been an emperor or world-shaking warrior had his mind been centered on fame or worldly achievement. He had chosen instead to storm those inner citadels of wrath and egotism whose fall is the height of a man.