Chapter 25
Yogananda takes his vows and explains the Swami and Yoga paths
This chapter marks the pivotal moment Yogananda becomes a monk and offers a rare, clear explanation of what the Swami order and yogic science actually require.
If you don't invite God to be your summer guest, he won't come in the winter of your life.
Someday you will go to the West where silk is preferred. As a symbol I have chosen for you this silk material.
Yoga fulfils this expectation; it offers the possibility of controllable experience and thus satisfies the scientific need of facts.
chapter twenty four of autobiography of a yogi this is a librivox recording or librivox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit librivox dot i become a monk of the swami order master my father has been anxious for me to accept an executive position within the bengal nagpur railway but however he smiled graciously very well tomorrow i will initiate you into swamyship he went on quietly lahiri mahasaya often said if you don't invite god to be your summer guest he won't come in the winter of your life dear master i could never falter in my goal to belong to the swami order like your revered self i smiled at him with measureless affection he that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the lord how he may please the lord but he that is married careth for the things of the world how he may please his wife i had analysed the lives of many of my friends who after undergoing certain spiritual discipline had then married their resolutions to meditate deeply.
To a lot God a secondary place in life was, to me, inconceivable. Though he is the sole owner of the cosmos, silently showering us with gifts from life to life, one thing yet remains which he does not own, and which each human heart is empowered to withhold or bestow man's love. The the creator in taking infinite pains to shroud with mystery his presence in every atom of creation could have had but one motive a sensitive desire that men seek him only through free will with what velvet glove of every humility has he not covered the iron hand of omnipotence the following day was one of the most memorable in my life.
It was a sunny Thursday, I remember, in July 1914, a few weeks after my graduation from college. On the inner balcony of his Serampo hermitage, Master dipped a new piece of white silk into a dye of ochre, the traditional colour of the Swami order. After the cloth had dried, my guru draped it around me as a renunciate's robe. Someday you will go to the west where silk is preferred, he said. As a symbol I have chosen for you this silk material instead of the customary cotton.
In India, where monks embrace the ideal of poverty, a silk-clad swami is an unusual sight many yogis however wear garments of silk which preserves certain subtle bodily currents better than cotton i am averse to ceremonies sri yukt physical body of the disciple is represented as dead crem give you the privilege of choosing it yourself he said smilingly the name literally means bliss ananda through divine union yoga be it so forsaking your family name of mukunda lal gosh henceforth you shall be called yogananda of the giri branch of the swami order as i knelt before sri yukteswar and for the first time heard him pronounce my new name my heart overflowed with gratitude how lovingly and tirelessly he had laboured that the boy mukunda be some day transformed into the monk nor ego, feeling, sky nor earth, nor metals am I.
I am he, I am he, blessed spirit, I am he. No birth, no death, no caste have I, father, mother have I none, I am he, I am he, blessed spirit, I am he. Beyond the flights of fancy, formless am I, permeating the flights of fancy formless am i permeating the limbs of all life bondage i do not fear i am free ever free i am he i am he blessed spirit i am he monastic order which was organized in its present form by Shankara. Because it is a formal order, with an unbroken line of saintly representatives serving as active leaders, no man can give himself the title of Swami.
He rightfully receives it only from another Swami. All monks thus trace their spiritual lineage to one common guru, Lord Shankara. vows of poverty chastity and obedience to the spiritual teacher many catholic christian monastic orders resemble the order of swamis in addition to his new name usually ending in ananda the swami takes a title which indicates his formal connection with one of the ten subdivisions of the Swami order. These Dasanamis, or ten Agnomens, include the Giri, mountain, to which Sri Yukteswar and hence myself belong. Among the other branches are the Sagar, sea, Bharati, land, Aranya, forest, Puri, tract, Tirtha, place of pilgrimage, and Saraswati, wisdom of nature.
The new received by a swami thus has a twofold significance and represents the attainment of supreme bliss ananda through some divine quality or state yoga and through harmony with nature as expressed in her infinite vastness of oceans mountains skies the ideal of selfless service to all mankindices of caste creed class colour sex or race a swami follows the precepts of human brotherhood his goal he justify his title of swami one who seeks to achieve union with the swa or self it is needless to add that not all formally titled swamis are equally successful in reaching their high goal sri yktiswar was both a swami and a yogi a swami formerly a monk by virtue of his connection with the ancient order is not always a yogi anyone who practises a scientific technique ofunciation, but a yogi engages himself in a definite step-by-step procedure by which the body and mind are disciplined and the soul liberated, taking nothing for granted on emotional grounds or by faith.
A yogi practices a thoroughly tested series of exercises which were first mapped out by the early rishis. Yoga has produced in every age of India men who became truly free, truly yogi-christs, like any other science. Yoga is applicable to people of every climate and time. The theory advanced by certain ignorant writers that yoga is unsuitable for Westerners is wholly false, and has lamentably prevented many sincere students from seeking its manifold blessings yoga is a method for restraining the natural turbulence of thoughts yoga cannot know a barrier of east and west any more than does the healing and equitable light of the sun so long will there be a universal need for yoga or control the ancient rishi patanjali defines yoga as control of the fluctuations of the mind stuff his very short and masterly expositions the yoga sutras form one of the six systems of Hindu philosophy.
In contradistinction to Western philosophies, all six yoga systems embody not only theoretical but practical teachings. In addition to every conceivable ontological inquiry, the six systems formulate six definite disciplines aimed at the permanent removal of suffering and the attainment of timeless bliss. The common thread linking all six systems is the declaration that no true freedom for man is possible without knowledge of the ultimate reality. The later Upanishads uphold the Yoga Sutras. Among the six systems is containing the most efficacious methods for achieving direct perception of truth.
Through the practical techniques of yoga, man leaves behind forever the barren realms of speculation and cognises and experiences the veritable essence. The yoga system as outlined by Patanjali is known as the Eightfold Path. The first steps, one, yama and two, nayama, require observance of ten negative and positive moralities avoidance of injury to others of untruthfulness of stealing of incontinence of gift receiving which brings obligations and purity of body and mind contentment self-discipline study and devotion to god the The next steps are 3. Asana, right posture.
The spinal column must be held straight and the body firm in a comfortable position for meditation. 4. Pranayama, control of prana, subtle life currents. And 5. Pratyahara, withdrawal of the senses from external objects. The last steps are forms of yoga proper. 6. Dharana, concentration, holding the mind to one thought. 7. Dhyana, meditation. And 8. Samadhi, super-conscious perception. This is the eightfold path of yoga, which leads one to the final goal of kaivalya, absoluteness, a term which might be more comprehensibly put as realization of the truth beyond all intellectual apprehension which is greater one may ask a swami or a yogi if and when final oneness with god is achieved Bhagavad-gita, however, points out that the methods of yoga are all-embracive.
Its techniques are not meant only for certain types and temperaments, such as those few who incline toward the monastic life. Yoga requires no formal allegiance. Because the yogic science satisfies the universal need, it has a natural universal applicability. A true yogi may remain dutifully in the world where he is like butter on water and not like the easily diluted milk of unchurned and undisciplined humanity. To fulfil one's earthly responsibilities is indeed the higher path, provided the yogi, maintaining a mental uninvolvement with egotistical desires, plays his part as a willing instrument of God.
There are a number of great souls living in American or European or other non-Hindu bodies today who, though they may never have heard the words yogi and swami, are yet true exemplars of those terms. Through their disinterested service to mankind, or through their mastery over passions and thoughts, or through their single-hearted love of God, or through their great powers of concentration they are in a sense yogis they have set themselves the goal of yoga self-control these men could rise to even greater heights if they were taught the definite science of yoga a more conscious direction of one's mind and life.
Yoga has been superficially misunderstood by certain Western writers, but its critics have never been its practitioners. Among many thoughtful tributes to yoga may be mentioned one by Dr. C.J. Jung, the famous Swiss psychologist. When a religious method recommends itself as scientific, it can be certain of its public in the West. Yoga fulfils this expectation, Dr. Jung writes, quite apart from the charm of the new and the fascination of the half-understood, there is good cause for yoga to have many adherents. It offers the possibility of controllable experience, and thus satisfies the scientific need of facts, and besides this, by reason of its breadth and depth, its venerable age, its doctrine and methods, which include every phase of life, it promises undreamed-of possibilities.
Every religious or philosophical practice means a psychological discipline, that is, a method of mental hygiene. The manifold, purely bodily procedures of yoga also mean a physiological hygiene, which is superior to ordinary gymnastics and breathing exercises inasmuch as it is not merely mechanistic and scientific but also philosophical as is quite clear, for instance, in the pranayama exercises where prana is both the breath and the universal dynamics of the cosmos. When the thing which the individual is doing is also a cosmic event, the effect experienced in the body, the innovation, unites with the emotion of the spirit, the universal idea, and out of this there develops a lively unity which no technique, however scientific, can produce.
Yoga practice is unthinkable and would also be ineffectual without the concepts on which yoga is based. It combines the bodily and the spiritual with each other in an extraordinarily complete way. In the East, where these ideas and practices have developed, and where for several thousand years an unbroken tradition has created the necessary spiritual foundations yoga is as i can readily believe the perfect and appropriate method of fusing body and mind together This unity creates a psychological disposition which makes possible intuitions that transcend consciousness. The Western day is indeed nearing when the inner science of self-control will be found as necessary as the outer conquest of nature.
This new atomic age will see men's minds sobered and broadened by the now scientifically indisputable truth that matter is in reality a concentrate of energy. Finer forces of the human mind can and must liberate energies greater than those within stones and metals, lest the material atomic giant, newly unleashed, turn on the world in mindless destruction.