Kashi, Reborn and Rediscovered

yogananda kashi reborn and rediscovered please do not go into the water let us bathe by dipping our buckets i was addressing the young ranchi students who were accompanying me on an eight-mile hike to a neighboring hill the pompey for us was inviting mind. The group around me followed my example of dipping buckets, but a few lads yielded to the temptation of the cool waters. No sooner had they dived than large water-snakes wiggled around them. The boys comically came out of the pond with comical alacrity. We enjoyed a picnic lunch.

After we reached our destination, I sat under a tree surrounded by a group of students. Finding me in an inspirational mood, they plied me with questions please tell me sir one youth inquired if i shall always can i be carried home but in a few months his parents arrived to take him away in spite of his tearful resistance some years later he did marry after answering many questions i was addressed by a lad named kashi he was about twelve years old a brilliant student and beloved by all sir Sir, he said, what will be my fate?

You shall soon be dead. The reply came from my lips with an irresistible force. This unexpected disclosure shocked and grieved me, as well as everyone present. Silently rebuking myself as an enfant terrible, I refused to answer further questions. On our return to the school, Kashi came to my room. If I die, will you find me when I'm reborn and bring me again to the spiritual path? He sobbed. I felt constrained to refuse this difficult occult responsibility. But for weeks afterwards, Kashi pressed me doggedly. Seeing him unnerved to the breaking point, I finally consoled him.

Yes, I promised. If the Heavenly Father lends his aid, I will try to find you. During the summer vacation I started on a short trip. Regretting that I could not take Kashi with me, I called him to my room before leaving, and carefully instructed him to remain against all persuasion in the spiritual vibrations of the school. Somehow I felt that if he did not go home, he might avoid the impending calamity. No sooner had I left than Kashi's father arrived in Ranchi. For fifteen days he tried to break the will of his son, explaining that if Kashi would go to Calcutta for only four days to see his mother, he could return.

Kashi persistently refused. The father finally said he would take the boy away with the help of the police. The threat disturbed Kashi, who was unwilling to be the cause of any unfavourable publicity to the school. He saw no choice but to go. I returned to Ranchi a few days later. When I heard how Kashi had been removed, I entrained at once for Calcutta. There I engaged a horse-cab. Very strangely, as the vehicle passed beyond the Horwar Bridge over the G ganges i beheld kashi's father and other relatives in mourning clothes shouting bringing kashi to calcutta during the few days the boy had been there he had eaten contaminated food contracted cholera and passed on my love for kashi and the pledge to find him after death night and day haunted me no matter where i went his face loomed up before me i began a memorable for him, even as long as I had searched for my lost mother.

I felt that inasmuch as God had given me the faculty of reason, I must utilize it and tax my powers to the utmost in order to discover the subtle laws by which I could know the boy's astral whereabouts. He was a soul vibrating with unfulfilled desires. I realized a mass of light floating somewhere amidst millions of luminous souls in the astral regions. How was I to tune in with them, among so many vibrating lights of other souls? Using a secret yoga technique, I broadcasted my love to Kashi's soul through the microphone of the spiritual eye, the inner point between the eyebrows.

With the antenna of upraised hands and fingers, I often turned myself round and round, trying to locate the direction in which he had been reborn as an embryo. I hoped to receive response from him in the concentration-tuned radio of my heart. I intuitively felt that Kashi would soon return to the earth, and that if I kept unceasingly broadcasting my call to him, his soul would reply. I knew that the slightest impulse sent by Kashi would be felt in my fingers, hands, arms, spine, and nerves. With undiminished zeal I practised the yoga method steadily for about six months after Kashi's death.

Walking with a few friends one morning in the crowded Baobaza section of Calcutcutta i lifted my hands in the usual manner for the first time there was response i thrilled to detect electrical impulses trickling down my fingers and palms these currents translated themselves into one overpowering thought from a deep recess of my consciousness i am kashi i am kashi me!" The thought became almost audible, as I concentrated on my heart-radio. In the characteristic, slightly hoarse whisper of Kashi, I heard his summons again and again. I seized the arm of one of my companions, Prokash Das, and smiled at him joyfully.

It looks as though I have located Kashi! I began to turn round and round, to the undisguised amusement of my friends and the passing throng. The electrical impulses tingled through my fingers only when I faced towards a nearby path, aptly named Serpentine Lane. The astral currents disappeared when I turned in other directions. Ah! I exclaimed. Kashi's soul must be living in the womb of some mother whose home is in this lane my companions and i approached closer to serpentine lane the vibrations in my upraised hands grew stronger more pronounced as if by a magnet i was astounded to find myself transfixed i knocked at the door in a state of intense excitement holding my very question at once pertinent and impertinent please tell me sir to you i told him he will have a broad face with a cowlick atop his forehead his disposition will be notably spiritual that the coming child would bear these resemblances to Kashi.

Later I visited the child whose parents had given him his old name of Kashi. Even in infancy he was strikingly similar in appearance to my dear Ranchi student. The child showed me an instantaneous affection. The attraction of the past awoke with redoubled intensity. Years later the teenage boy wrote me, during my stay in America. He explained his deep longing to follow the path of renunciate. I directed him to a Himalayan master, who to this day guides the reborn Kashi.