The Blissful Devotee and his Cosmic Romance (Master Mahasaya)

This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A YOGI by Paramhansa Yogananda The Blissful Devotee and His Cosmic cosmic romance, Master Mahasaya. Little sir, please be seated. I'm talking to my divine mother. Silently I had entered the room in great awe. The angelic appearance of Master Mahasaya fairly dazzled me. With silky white beard and large, lustrous eyes, he seemed an incarnation of purity. His upraised chin and folded hands apprised me that my first visit had disturbed him in the midst of his devotions his simple words of greeting produced the most violent effect my nature had so far experienced the bitter separation of my mother's was an indescribable torture of the spirit.

I fell moaning to the floor. Little sir, quiet yourself. The saint was sympathetically distressed. Abandoned in some oceanic desolation, I clutched his feet as the sole raft of my rescue. Holy sir, thy intercession. Ask Divine Mother if I find any favour in her her sight this promise is not one easily bestowed the master was constrained to silence beyond reach of doubt i was convinced that master mahasaya was in intimate converse with the universal mother it was deep humiliation to realise that my eyes were blind to her who even at this moment was perceptible to the faultless gaze of the saint shamelessly gripping his feet deaf to his gentle remonstrances i besought him again and again for his intervening grace i will make your plea to the beloved the master's capitulation came with a slow compassionate smile what power in those few words that my being should know release from its stormy exile!

Sir, remember your pledge. I shall return soon for her message. Joyful anticipation rang in my voice that only a moment ago had been sobbing in sorrow. Descending the long stairway I was overwhelmed by memories this house at fifty amherst street now the residence of master mahasaya had once been my family silent witness of my grievous hurts and final healing. My steps were eager as I returned to my Gopar road home. Seeking the seclusion of my small attic, I remained in meditation until ten o'clock. The darkness of the warm Indian night was suddenly lit with a wondrous vision.

Haloed in splendor, the Divine Mother stood before me. Her face, tenderly smiling, was beauty itself. Always have I loved thee, ever shall I love thee. The celestial tones still ringing in the air, she disappeared. The sun on the following morning had hardly risen to an angle of decorum when I paid my second visit to Master Mahasaya. Climbing the staircase in the house of poignant memories, I reached his fourth-floor room. The knob of the closed door was wrapped round with a cloth, a hint, I felt, that the saint desired privacy.

As I stood irresolutely on the landing, the door was opened by the master's welcoming hand. I knelt at his holy feet. In in a playful mood i wore a little provoked must you test me to the assurance you received last night at ten o'clock from the beautiful mother herself master mahasaya possessed control over the floodgates of my soul again i plunged prostrate at his feet but this time my tears welled from a bliss and not a pain past bearing think you that your devotion did not touch the infinite mercy the motherhood of god that you have worshipped in forms both human and divine could never fail to answer your forsaken cry who was this simple saint whose least request to the universal spirit met with sweet acquiescence i ever knew these are respectful titles by which he was customarily addressed his name was mahendra nath gupta he signed his literary works simply m school for boys.

No words of chastisement passed his lips. No rule and fair rule maintained his discipline. Higher mathematics indeed were taught in these modest classrooms, and a chemistry of love absent from the textbooks. He spread his wisdom by spiritual contagion rather than impermeable precept. Consumed by an unsophisticated passion for the Divine Mother, the saint no more demanded the outward forms of respect than a child. I am not your guru. He shall come a little later, he told me. Through his guidance, your experiences of the Divine in terms of love and devotion shall be translated into his terms of fathomless wisdom.

Every late afternoon I betook myself to amherst street i sought master mahasaya's divine cup so full that its drops daily overflowed on my being never before had i bowed in utter reverence now i felt it an immeasurable privilege even to tread the same ground which master mahasaya sanctified sir please wear this tumpak garland i have fashioned especially for you i arrived who dwells within. His vast nature lacked space in which any egotistical consideration could gain foothold. Let us go tomorrow to the Dakshi Neshwar temple, forever hallowed by my guru.

Master Mahasaya was a disciple of a Christ-like master, Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa. The four-mile journey on the following morning was taken by boat on the Ganges. We entered the nine-domed temple of Kali, where the figures of the Divine Mother and Shiva rest on a burnished silver lotus, its thousand petals meticulously chiseled. Master Mahasaya beamed in enchantment. He was engaged in his inexhaustible romance with the Beloved. As he chanted her name, my enraptured heart seemed shattered into a thousand pieces. We strolled later through the sacred precincts, halting in a tamarisk grove.

The manna characteristically exuded by this tree was symbolic of the heavenly food Master Mahasaya was bestowing. His divine invocations continued. I sat rigidly motionless on the grass amid the pink, feathery tamarisk flowers. Temporarily absent from the body, I soared in a supernal visit. This was the first of many pilgrimages to Dakineshwar with the holy teacher. From him I learned the sweetness of God in the aspect of mother, or divine mercy. The childlike saint found little appeal in the father aspect or divine justice. Stern, exacting, mathematical judgment was alien to his gentle nature.

He could serve as an earthly prototype for the very angels of heaven, I thought fondly, watching him one day at his prayers. Without a breath of censure or criticism, he surveyed the world with eyes long familiar with the primal purity. His body, mind, speech, and actions were effortlessly harmonized with his soul's simplicity. My master told me so. Shrinking from personal assertion, the saint ended any sage counsel with this invariable tribute. So deep was his identity with Sri Ramakrishna that Master Mahasaya no longer considered his thoughts as his own.

Hand in hand, the saint and I walked one evening on the block of his school. My joy was dimmed by the arrival of a conceited acquaintance who burdened us with a lengthy discourse. I see this man doesn't please you, the saint's whisper to me was unheard by the egotist, spellbound by own monologue i have spoken to divine mother about it she realizes our sad predicament as soon as we get to yonder red house she has promised to remind him of salvation. Reaching its red gate, the man unaccountably turned and departed, neither finishing his sentence nor saying goodbye.

The assaulted air was comforted with peace. Another day found me walking alone near the Howrath railway station. I stood for a moment by a temple, silently criticizing a small group of men with drum and cymbals who were violently reciting a chant. How undevotionally they used the Lord's divine name in mechanical repetition, I reflected. My gaze was astonished by the rapid approach of Master Mahasaya. Sir, how come you here? The saint, ignoring my question, answered my thought. Isn't it true, little sir, that the beloved's name sounds sweet from all lips ignorant or wise he passed his arm around his company in any circumstances a brisk walk brought us to the garden fronting god as all things can be reflected in water so the whole universe is mirrored in the lake of the cosmic mind so my guru deva often said soon we entered a university hall where a lecture was in progress it proved abysmally dull, though varied occasionally by lantern-slide illustrations equally uninteresting.

So, this is the kind of bioscope the Master wanted me to see? My thought was impatient, yet I would not hurt the Saint by revealing boredom in my face, but he leaned toward me confidentially. I see, little sir, that you don't like this bioscope. I have mentioned it to Divine Mother. she is in full sympathy with us both she tells me that the electric lights will now go out and won't be relit until we have a chance to leave the room as his whisper ended the hall was plunged into darkness the professor's strident voice was stilled in astonishment then remarked the electrical system of this hall appears to be defective footnote the oxford english dictionary gives as rare this definition of bioscope a view of life that which gives such a view master mahasaya's choice of a word was then peculiarly justified by this time master mahasaya and i were safely across the threshold gl front of the university building, he gently slapped my chest over the heart.

A transforming silence ensued, just as the modern talkies become inaudible motion pictures when the sound apparatus goes out of order, so the divine hand, by some strange miracle, stifled the earthly bustle. The pedestrians, as well as the passing trolley cars, automobiles, bullock carts, and iron-wheeled hackney carriages were all in noiseless transit as though possessing an omnipresent eye i beheld the scenes which were behind me and to each side as easily as those in front section of Calcutta passed before me without a sound. Like a glow of fire dimly seen beneath a thin coat of ashes, a mellow luminescence permeated the panoramic view.

My own body seemed nothing more than one of the many shadows, though it was motionless, while the others flitted mutely to and fro. Several boys, friends of mine, approached and passed passed on though they had looked directly at me it was without recognition the unique pantomime brought me an inexpressible ecstasy i drank deep from some blissful fount suddenly my chest received another soft blow from master of the world burst upon my unwilling ears. I staggered as though harshly awakened from a gossamer dream. The transcendental whine removed beyond my reach.

Little sir, I see you found a second bioscope to your liking. The saint was smiling. I started to drop in gratitude on the ground before him. You can't do that to me now. You know God is in your temple also. I won't let Divine Mother touch my feet through your hands. If anyone observed the unpretentious master and myself as we walked away from the crowded pavement, the onlooker surely suspected us of intoxication. I felt that the falling shades of evening were sympathetically drunk with god when darkness recovered from its nightly swoon i faced the new morning bereft of my ecstatic mood but ever enshrined in memory is the seraphic son of divine mother master mahasaya do justice to his benignity.

I wonder if Master Mahasaya and others among the deep-visioned saints whose paths crossed mine knew that years later in a western land I would be writing about their lives as divine devotees. Their foreknowledge would not surprise me, nor, I hope, my readers who have come thus far with me. End of chapter 9 Read by Sandra Near Montreal 2025