The Gita puts it succinctly: ‘Jab Jab Jo Hona Hai, Tab Tab Wo Hoga.’ For Hindi-ignorant Souls, ‘Whenever Something Has To Happen, It Will Happen Only Then.’ And it happened exactly like that!
Wandering through the corridors of Connaught Place with a friend, I finally picked up my copy of ‘Autobiography of a Yogi’. It took me 4 decades to come face-to-face with the Manuscript on Life; and another two months to start reading it. And, to put it simply, the book spellbound me and pushed me into the realm of Cosmic Consciousness! The liberating shock of Cosmic Vision was so powerful that I took time to absorb the whole meaning of ever-present, omniscient nature of the nurturer of Life in the ever-expanding Cosmos!
The impact was felt immensely because, being a book-lover with a good collection of books (including on religion and spirituality) and most of my ‘free-time’ spent in reading, I couldn’t believe that I had kept away from the Life Book all along. By the time I reached the end of those magical pages, I felt blessed but simultaneously ignored: I was quarreling with the God that how could It be so cruel in keeping me deprived for so long!
My inner reactions were strong because besides being a book-lover, I am primarily a Life-lover! I love Life immensely and, therefore, I try to be the change that I want to see in Life. And Paramhansa Yogananda’s account of his life is Life-Changing!
As a spiritually ever-evolving being, overcoming my limitations of 5 sensory organs and using my inner eyes to perceive the world around me, the essence of my Life has been in Living: living in the Soul with a beating heart and a functional mind to support my Life; living with peace, love, dignity, health & wealth; living an absolutely a normal life – mundane, day-to-day life of a mere mortal. If the world says that you in effect live in your mind (It’s all in the mind), I say, you actually live in your Soul!
With a Soul-centered approach towards Life, since my beginning I have strongly believed that the common thread running through Life – human and all other forms of life including the inanimate life-supporting objects – is The Spirit, the One Wave who flows through all, ensuring inner-connectedness of Life per se, controlling and connecting Life throughout the Universe through Universal Laws of Nature; that essentially Life is an interplay of energy at various levels. And that we mortals, in spite of having landed on the Moon 4 decades ago, will take at least a couple of millennia more to get a grip on the true definition of Life.
By the time I was at the end of his magical memoir, I experienced a strong soul-stirring emotion; I felt transformed as a human being. My outlook towards my own life and Life per se appeared to undergo seismic alterations; things/aspects which were so dear and crucial for my survival, all of a sudden seemed to dissolve into oblivion; those felt trivial in the Grand Cosmic Scheme of my Life; glancing around I saw people struggling with their ordinary state of living with an eternal quest for ‘something else’ to bring them complete and unending happiness - and I prayed for each of them for the much needed Divine Guidance.
I was hearing Yogananda-ji’s words: “ … You realize that all along that there was something tremendous within you, and you did not know it…”
The beauty lies in Yogananda-ji’s narrative; he doesn’t sound preachy, rather far from it; the saint’s tone is human-like, with expressions extremely close to that of a divinely blessed author; the difference, nevertheless, lies in the content which clearly establishes the fact that he was indeed The Chosen One! And he was indeed the chosen one for spreading the concept of ancient Kriya Yoga in the West (America).
Through his life-story, he unveils the long forgotten secrets of Life and its universal cycles which had got faded from the humanity’s canvas in the daily millings of ordinary survival, and, which was otherwise well understood by the ancient yogis and gurus in the spiritual crucible of the world i.e. India. The revelations are so profound and extraordinary that I, a self-believing spiritually evolving being, marveled at the miracle called Life! How shallow was my knowledge about Life! My mind- prism which spread rainbow understanding even before, however, the real expanse of those lights was actually narrow all along! Today, post reading his autobiography, I am conscious of the veil over my Cosmic Vision earlier.
“When you go beyond the consciousness of this world, knowing that you are not the body or the mind, and yet aware as never before that you exist— that divine consciousness is what you are. You are That in which is rooted everything in the universe.”
Yogananda-ji smoothly initiates his readers into the sphere of the higher beings – the yogis - and their miracles, explaining every aspect with solid scientific evidences through the fundamental theories and laws in Physics viz. Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, Newton’s Laws of Gravitation, Electromagnetism, Optics, etc.; his explanation of Cosmic Illusion presents the otherwise incomprehensible - Supernatural ! - as purely logical!
Yogananda-ji became what he became because of his Masters: an eclectic array of enlightened entities! Reading about his Masters - Babaji, Lahiri Mahasaya, Sri Yukteswar Giri and others – I sensed little bit of Cosmic Intelligence wrapping around me! He intelligently explains that the things – which an ordinary human perception calls as miracles – are accomplished by the great gurus by summoning the basic particles of the Nature and transforming them into the objects of desire -- Babaji being the greatest amongst them all! Introduction to Babaji, the Maha Avatar, transported me into the higher spaces of Infinite Existence!
…The northern Himalayan crags near Badrinarayan are still blessed by the living presence of Babaji, guru of Lahiri Mahasaya. The secluded master has retained his physical form for centuries, perhaps for millenniums. The deathless Babaji is an avatara. This Sanskrit word means "descent"; its roots are ava, "down," and tri, "to pass." In the Hindu scriptures, avatara signifies the descent of Divinity into flesh.
"Babaji's spiritual state is beyond human comprehension," Sri Yukteswar explained to me. "The dwarfed vision of men cannot pierce to his transcendental star. One attempts in vain even to picture the avatar's attainment. It is inconceivable."
The Upanishads have minutely classified every stage of spiritual advancement. A siddha ("perfected being") has progressed from the state of a jivanmukta ("freed while living") to that of a paramukta ("supremely free"-full power over death); the latter has completely escaped from the mayic thralldom and its reincarnational round. The paramukta therefore seldom returns to a physical body; if he does, he is an avatar, a divinely appointed medium of supernal blessings on the world.
An avatar is unsubject to the universal economy; his pure body, visible as a light image, is free from any debt to nature. The casual gaze may see nothing extraordinary in an avatar's form but it casts no shadow nor makes any footprint on the ground. These are outward symbolic proofs of an inward lack of darkness and material bondage. Such a God-man alone knows the Truth behind the relativities of life and death…
My Net search on these Great Souls further established my ignorant state of being so far; The Beatles had them on their cover of their album ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club’; Rajnikant had tried to spread his reverence towards these great saints through his movie ‘Baba’ in 2004.
Thunderbolt hit me while reading the Chapter 43 “The Resurrection of Sri Yukteswar”! Howsoever mindblowing the content – conversation between Yoganand-ji and his resurrected Guru – sounded, but never for a moment did I doubt the pouring Cosmic Revelations! This is a must read for all souls inhabiting the planet earth; the experience is going to be earth-shattering! His Guru shared indepth knowledge about the three phases of a Soul's Life before it merges into the One Soul - which begins on earth (physical) lives, which is followed by astral lives and finally the causal stage of life. Though most of us have a basic understanding about life and its cycles but the details in the chapter is simply out of this world, literally! I had to read it a couple of times before i could get a broader insight into it.
After reading the chapter I was on a celestial journey, floating among the stars and the moons in the Infinite Cosmos beyond my humanly horizons, experiencing a fraction of the Infinite Cosmic Joy, simultaneously trying to get into my past lives and imagine myself in various avatars - I mean, in various humble life-forms possible for a mortal creature like me!
Becoming deeply aware about the real side i.e. the spiritual aspects of Life and its Cycles through Yogananda-ji, I felt immensely sorry for the humanity and especially for the Indians; India, the crucible of culture and spirituality, today is so far removed from all what it realized thousands of years ago and contributed majorly to the evolution of Homo sapiens into humans that it amazes me enormously that how could we lose almost all of our treasure!
That how could we be led to a life so superficial and hollow, devoid of spiritual moorings? That how could we forget the meaning of religion and get into the chaos of dogmas and rituals and castes and other divisive pathways? That how could we, the teachers to the world, forget about the purpose of human life in its transitory phase on earth? That how could we continue to suffer from collective Cosmic Amnesia?
Today, most of the Indians do not even know the definition of spirituality or even religion; for them it is laughable and for either the elderly or for those who “have nothing else to do” or for the “conmen” (India has them in abundance!). The same people, however, regularly resort to religion and flock to places of worship whenever they feel the “need” for it. No wonder it is said that “Ignorance is Bliss”!
Shashi Tharoor describes it comprehensively: “India is not, as people keep calling it, an underdeveloped country, but rather, in the context of its history and cultural heritage, a highly developed one in an advanced state of decay.”
And when I say Indians, I also include myself but only to a limited extent. And, when I say humanity, I mean the entire human race in every part of the world - the conduct has been equally confused and irrational. I wish every human on this earth gets to meet his/her yogi and evolves into a liberated being and soul and enjoys the all-pervading Cosmic Bliss …And for myself, I pray that I complete my journey of life with Cosmic Blessings ... :)
