Margery kempe autobiography of a yogi pdf
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Video Audio icon An illustration of an audio speaker. There I had a singular and instant response to m y prayers. A clever schem e had been prearranged by Ananta. Before seeing m e at Hardwar, he had stopped in Benares to ask a certain scriptural authority to interview m e later. Both the pundit and his son had prom ised to undertake m y dissuasion from the path of a sanny asi.
The son, a young m an of ebullient m anner, greeted m e in the courtyard. He engaged m e in a lengthy philosophic discourse. Professing to have a clairvoyant knowledge of m y future, he discountenanced m y idea of being a m onk. You cannot work out your past karm a without worldly experiences. Becom ing a high-souled being, he soon attains perennial peace.
Arjuna, know this for certain: the devotee who puts his trust in Me never perishes! With all the fervor of m y heart I prayed silently to God: "Please solve m y bewilderm ent and answer m e, right here and now, if Thou dost desire m e to lead the life of a renunciate or a worldly m an! Evidently he had overheard the spirited conversation between the self-styled clairvoyant and m yself, for the stranger called m e to his side.
I felt a trem endous power flowing from his calm eyes. In response to your prayer, the Lord tells m e to assure you that your sole path in this life is that of the renunciate. My saintly guide raised his hand in blessing and slowly departed. He and his son were gazing at m e lugubriously. To Ananta I rem arked that I would not engage in further discussion with our hosts.
My brother agreed to an im m ediate departure; we soon entrained for Calcutta. I stand behind my elder brother, Ananta. My Guru is seated in the center; I am at his right, in the large courtyard of his hermitage in Serampore.
Margery kempe autobiography of a yogi pdf: For good overviews of Kempe's life
Detective, how did you discover I had fled with two com panions? He sm iled m ischievously. I went to his hom e the next m orning and unearthed a m arked tim etable. Am ar's father was just leaving by carriage and was talking to the coachm an. He has disappeared! Our generosity to the coachm an had been slightly m isplaced! He had checked Bareilly, so I wired your friend Dwarka there.
After inquiries in our Calcutta neighborhood, I learned that cousin J atinda had been absent one night but had arrived hom e the following m orning in European garb. I sought him out and invited him to dinner. He accepted, quite disarmed by m y friendly m anner. On the way I led him unsuspectingly to a police station. He was surrounded by several officers whom I had previously selected for their ferocious appearance.
Under their form idable gaze, J atinda agreed to account for his m ysterious conduct. The hilarious sequel on the train was worth all the anguish he had caused m e. I m ust confess to a slight feeling of satisfaction: J atinda too had not escaped an encounter with the police! In m y absence, he had lovingly hatched a plot by arranging for a saintly pundit, Swam i Kebalananda, 4 -5 to com e regularly to the house.
Father hoped to satisfy m y religious yearnings by instructions from a learned philosopher. But the tables were subtly turned: m y new teacher, far from offering intellectual aridities, fanned the em bers of m y God-aspiration. The peerless guru had possessed thousands of disciples, silently drawn to him by the irresistibility of his divine m agnetism.
I learned later that Lahiri Mahasaya had often characterized Kebalananda as rishi or illum ined sage. Luxuriant curls fram ed m y tutor's handsom e face. His dark eyes were guileless, with the transparency of a child's. Ever gentle and loving, he was firm ly established in the infinite consciousness. Many of our happy hours together were spent in deep Kriy a m editation.
Kebalananda was a noted authority on the ancient shastras or sacred books: his erudition had earned him the title of "Shastri Mahasaya," by which he was usually addressed. But m y progress in Sanskrit scholarship was unnoteworthy. I sought every opportunity to forsake prosaic gram mar and to talk of yoga and Lahiri Mahasaya. My tutor obliged m e one day by telling m e som ething of his own life with the m aster.
His Benares hom e was m y nightly goal of pilgrim age. The guru was always present in a sm all front parlor on the first floor. As he sat in lotus posture on a backless wooden seat, his disciples garlanded him in a sem icircle. His eyes sparkled and danced with the joy of the Divine. They were ever half closed, peering through the inner telescopic orb into a sphere of eternal bliss.
He seldom spoke at length. Occasionally his gaze would focus on a student in need of help; healing words poured then like an avalanche of light. I was perm eated with his fragrance, as though from a lotus of infinity. To be with himeven without exchanging a word for days, was experience which changed m y entire being. If any invisible barrier rose in the path of m y concentration, I would m editate at the guru's feet.
There the m ost tenuous states cam e easily within m y grasp.
Margery kempe autobiography of a yogi pdf: "Reading the Book of Margery Kempe."
Such perceptions eluded m e in the presence of lesser teachers. The m aster was a living tem ple of God whose secret doors were open to all disciples through devotion. Effortlessly he dipped into the 'divine library. He had the wondrous clavis which unlocked the profound philosophical science em bedded ages ago in the Vedas. This technique cannot be bound, filed, and forgotten, in the m anner of theoretical inspirations.
Continue ceaselessly on your path to liberation through Kriy a, whose power lies in practice. My saintly tutor recounted the story one day, his eyes rem ote from the Sanskrit texts before us. Should he have no light in his eyes, when he faithfully served our m aster, in whom the Divine was fully blazing? One m orning I sought to speak to Ram u, but he sat for margery kempe autobiography of a yogi pdf hours fanning the guru with a hand-m ade palm -leaf punkha.
When the devotee finally left the roomI followed him. Never have m y eyes been blessed with a glim pse of the sun. Please m ake a supplication. The disciple felt alm ost asham ed to ask that physical wealth be added to his spiritual superabundance. I pray you to bring His light into m y eyes, that I perceive the sun's lesser glow. I have no healing power.
God's lim it is nowhere! He who ignites the stars and the cells of flesh with m ysterious life- effulgence can surely bring luster of vision into your eyes. The splendor of the sun shall have a special dawn for you. For the first tim e, Ram u beheld the fair face of nature. Ram u's faith was the devotionally ploughed soil in which the guru's powerful seed of perm anent healing sprouted.
By perfection of resistless surrender, the m aster enabled the Prim e Healing Power to flow freely through him. But the silent spiritual awakenings he effected, the Christlike disciples he fashioned, are his im perishable m iracles. Krishna was t he great est prophet of I ndia; Arj una was his forem ost disciple. Da is a respect ful suffix which t he eldest brot her in an I ndian fam ily receives from j unior brot hers and sist ers.
His biography has been recent ly published in Bengali. Born in t he Khulna dist rict of Bengal inKebalananda gave up his body in Benares at t he age of sixt y- eight. His fam ily nam e was Ashut osh Chat t erj i. Em erson paid t he following t ribut e in his Journal t o Vedic t hought : " I t is sublim e as heat and night and a breat hless ocean.
I t cont ains every religious sent im entall t he grand et hics which visit in t urn each noble poet ic m ind. This is her creed. Peace, she sait h t o m e, and purit y and absolut e abandonm ent - t hese panaceas expiat e all sin and bring you t o t he beat it ude of t he Eight Gods. At deat h t he consciousness of m an is usually drawn t o t his holy spotaccount ing for t he upraised eyes found in t he dead.
But m y path did not cross his own until after the com pletion of m y margery kempe autobiography of a yogi pdf
school studies. Two years elapsed between m y flight with Am ar toward the Him alayas, and the great day of Sri Yukteswar's arrival into m y life. My encounter with the "Perfum e Saint" had two pream bles, one harm onious and the other hum orous.
Everything else is com plex. Do not seek absolute values in the relative world of nature. Turning, I confronted a tall m an whose garb, or lack of it, revealed him a wandering sadhu. Good and evil is the challenging riddle which life places sphinxlike before every intelligence. Attem pting no solution, m ost m en pay forfeit with their lives, penalty now even as in the days of Thebes.
Here and there, a towering lonely figure never cries defeat. From the m ay a 5 -2 of duality he plucks the cleaveless truth of unity. Self-scrutiny, relentless observance of one's thoughts, is a stark and shattering experience. It pulverizes the stoutest ego. But true self-analysis m athem atically operates to produce seers. The way of 'self-expression,' individual acknowledgm ents, results in egotists, sure of the right to their private interpretations of God and the universe.
The hum an m ind, bared to a centuried slim e, is teem ing with repulsive life of countless world-delusions. Struggles of the battlefields pale into insignificance here, when m an first contends with inward enem ies! No m ortal foes these, to be overcom e by harrowing array of m ight! Om nipresent, unresting, pursuing m an even in sleep, subtly equipped with a m iasm ic weapon, these soldiers of ignorant lusts seek to slay us all.
Thoughtless is the m an who buries his ideals, surrendering to the com m on fate. Can he seem other than im potent, wooden, ignom inious? But ingenuity is equal to the m aze. Inner research soon exposes a unity in all hum an m inds-the stalwart kinship of selfish m otive. In one sense at least, the brotherhood of m an stands revealed.
An aghast hum ility follows this leveling discovery. It ripens into com passion for one's fellows, blind to the healing potencies of the soul awaiting exploration. Release is given him from the deafening dem ands of his ego. The love of God flowers on such soil. The creature finally turns to his Creator, if for no other reason than to ask in anguish: 'Why, Lord, why?
With a sweeping gesture, m y chance com panion dism issed the ornate dignity. The ancient rishis 5 -3 laid down ineradicable patterns of spiritual living. Their hoary dictum s suffice for this day and land. By m illennium s-m ore than em barrassed scholars care to com pute! Take it for your heritage. Turning a corner, I ran into an old acquaintance-one of those long-winded fellows whose conversational powers ignore tim e and em brace eternity.
I m ust leave you now. He was like a ravenous wolf, I thought in am usem ent; the longer I spoke, the m ore hungrily he sniffed for news. Inwardly I petitioned the Goddess Kali to devise a graceful m eans of escape. My com panion left m e abruptly. I sighed with relief and doubled m y pace, dreading any relapse into the garrulous fever. Hearing rapid footsteps behind m e, I quickened m y speed.
I dared not look back. But with a bound, the youth rejoined m e, jovially clasping m y shoulder. You m ay have an unusual experience. Good-by," and he actually left m e. The sim ilarly worded prediction of the sadhu at Kalighat Tem ple flashed to m y m ind. Definitely intrigued, I entered the house and was ushered into a com m odious parlor.
A crowd of people were sitting, Orient-wise, here and there on a thick orange-colored carpet. An awed whisper reached m y ear: "Behold Gandha Baba on the leopard skin. He can give the natural perfum e of any flower to a scentless one, or revive a wilted blossomor m ake a person's skin exude delightful fragrance. He was plum p and bearded, with dark skin and large, gleam ing eyes.
Say what you want. Would you like som e perfum e? God m akes perfum e anyway. Can you m aterialize flowers? My own purpose is to dem onstrate the power of God. Isn't He perform ing m iracles in everything, everywhere? It seem s, m y honored saint, you have been wasting a dozen years for fragrances which you can obtain with a few rupees from a florist's shop.
Why should I desire that which pleases the body only? Philosopher, you please m y m ind. Now, stretch forth your right hand. I was a few feet away from Gandha Baba; no one else was near enough to contact m y body. I extended m y hand, which the yogi did not touch. I sm ilingly took a large white scentless flower from a nearby vase. I thanked the wonder-worker and seated m yself by one of his studen ts.
The Tibetan yogi, I was assured, had attained the age of over a thousand years. He is m arvelous! Many m em bers of the Calcutta intelligentsia are am ong his followers. A guru too literally "m arvelous" was not to m y liking. With polite thanks to Gandha Baba, I departed. Sauntering hom e, I reflected on the three varied encounters the day had brought forth.
My sister Um a m et m e as I entered our Gurpar Road door. It is unusually strong! A ludicrous bafflem ent passed over her face as she repeatedly sniffed the odor of jasm ine from a type of flower she well knew to be scentless. Her reactions disarm ed m y suspicion that Gandha Baba had induced an auto-suggestive state whereby I alone could detect the fragrances.
Later I heard from a friend, Alakananda, that the "Perfum e Saint" had a power which I wish were possessed by the starving m illions of Asia and, today, of Europe as well. Because the yogi was reputed to have the power of extracting objects out of thin air, I laughingly requested him to m aterialize som e out-of-season tangerines. Im m ediately the luchis 5 -4 which were present on all the banana-leaf plates becam e puffed up.
Each of the breadenvelopes proved to contain a peeled tangerine. I bit into m y own with som e trepidation, but found it delicious. The m ethod, alas! The different sensory stim uli to which m an reacts-tactual, visual, gustatory, auditory, and olfactory-are produced by vibratory margeries kempe autobiography of a yogi pdf in electrons and protons.
The vibrations in turn are regulated by "lifetrons," subtle life forces or finer-than-atom ic energies intelligently charged with the five distinctive sensory idea- substances. Gandha Baba, tuning him self with the cosm ic force by certain yogic practices, was able to guide the lifetrons to rearrange their vibratory structure and objectivize the desired result.
His perfum e, fruit and other m iracles were actual m aterializations of m undane vibrations, and not inner sensations hypnotically produced. Having little purpose beyond entertainm ent, they are digressions from a serious search for God. Hypnotism has been used by physicians in m inor operations as a sort of psychical chloroform for persons who m ight be endangered by an anesthetic.
But a hypnotic state is harm ful to those often subjected to it; a negative psychological effect ensues which in tim e deranges the brain cells. Hypnotism is trespass into the territory of another's consciousness. Awake in God, true saints effect changes in this dream -world by m eans of a will harm oniously attuned to the Creative Cosm ic Dream er.
Ostentatious display of unusual powers are decried by m asters. The Persian m ystic, Abu Said, once laughed at certain fakirs who were proud of their m iraculous powers over water, air, and space. A true m an is he who dwells in righteousness am ong his fellow m en, who buys and sells, yet is never for a single instant forgetful of God!
My heart needed no tutor for its recognitions, and cried its own "Bravos! When I finally m et m y m aster, he taught m e by sublim ity of exam ple alone the m easure of a true m an. She is t radit ionally pict ured as a four- arm ed wom an, st anding on t he form of t he God Shiva or t he I nfinit e, because nat ure or t he phenom enal world is root ed in t he Noum enon.
The four arm s sym bolize cardinal at t ribut es, t wo beneficentt wo dest ruct ive, indicat ing t he essent ial dualit y of m at t er or creat ion. Em erson wrot e t he following poemt o which he gave t he t it le of m aya: I llusion works im penet rable, Weaving webs innum erable, Her gay pict ures never fail, Crowd each ot her, veil on veil, Charm er who will be believed By m an who t hirst s t o be deceived.
Transm ut at ion of m et als and ot her alchem ical dream s are seeing fulfillm ent every day in cent ers of scient ific research over t he world. The em inent French chem istM. Georges Claude, perform ed " m iracles" at Font ainebleau in before a scient ific assem blage t hrough his chem ical knowledge of oxygen t ransform at ions. His " m agician's wand" was sim ple oxygen, bubbling in a t ube on a t able.
The scient ist " t urned a handful of sand int o precious st ones, iron int o a st at e resem bling m elt ed chocolat e and, aft er depriving flowers of t heir t int s, t urned t hem int o t he consist ency of glass. Claude explained how t he sea could be t urned by oxygen t ransform at ions int o m any m illions of pounds of horsepower; how wat er which boils is not necessarily burning; how lit t le m ounds of sand, by a single whiff of t he oxygen blowpipe, could be changed int o sapphires, rubies, and t opazes; and he predict ed t he t im e when it will be possible for m en t o walk on t he bot t om of t he ocean m inus t he diver's equipm ent.
Finally t he scient ist am azed his onlookers by t urning t heir faces black by t aking t he red out of t he sun's rays. Let us visit him tom orrow. I was eager to meet the saint who, in his prem on astic life, had caught and fought tigers with his naked hands. A boyish enthusiasm over such rem arkable feats was strong within m e. The next day dawned wintry cold, but Chan di and I sallied forth gaily.
After m uch vain hunting in Bhowanipur, outside Calcutta, we arrived at the right house. The door held two iron rings, which I sounded piercingly. Notwithstanding the clam or, a servant approached with leisurely gait. His ironical sm ile im plied that visitors, despite their noise, were powerless to disturb the calm ness of a saint's hom e.
Feeling the silent rebuke, m y com panion and I were thankful to be invited into the parlor. Our long wait there caused uncom fortable m isgivings. India's unwritten law for the truth seeker is patience; a m aster m ay purposely m ake a test of one's eagerness to m eet him. This psychological ruse is freely em ployed in the West by doctors and dentists!
Finally sum m oned by the servant, Chandi and I entered a sleeping apartm ent. The fam ous Sohong 6 -1 Swam i was seated on his bed. The sight of his trem endous body affected us strangely. With bulging eyes, we stood speechless. We had never before seen such a chest or such football-like biceps. On an im m ense neck, the swam i's fierce yet calm face was adorned with flowing locks, beard and m oustache.
A hint of dovelike and tigerlike qualities shone in his dark eyes. He was unclothed, save for a tiger skin about his m uscular waist. Finding our voices, m y friend and I greeted the m onk, expressing our adm iration for his prowess in the extraordinary feline arena. I could do it today if necessary. One cannot expect victory from a baby who im agines a tiger to be a house cat!
Powerful hands are m y sufficient weapon. A brick crashed to the floor; the sky peered boldly through the gaping lost tooth of the wall. I fairly staggered in astonishm ent; he who can rem ove m ortared bricks from a solid wall with one blow, I thought, m ust surely be able to displace the teeth of tigers! Those who are bodily but not m entally stalwart m ay find them selves fainting at m ere sight of a wild beast bounding freely in the jungle.
The tiger in its natural ferocity and habitat is vastly different from the opium -fed circus anim al! Thus the tiger has converted the m an, in his own m ind, to a state as nerveless as the pussycat's. It is possible for a m an, owning a fairly strong body and an im m ensely strong determ ination, to turn the tables on the tiger, and force it to a conviction of pussycat defenselessness.
How often I have done just that! He seem ed in a didactic m ood; Chandi and I listened respectfully. The force of a ham m er blow depends on the energy applied; the power expressed by a m an's bodily instrum ent depends on his aggressive will and courage. The body is literally m anufactured and sustained by m ind. Through pressure of instincts from past lives, strengths or weaknesses percolate gradually into hum an consciousness.
They express as habits, which in turn ossify into a desirable or an undesirable body. Outward frailty has m ental origin; in a vicious circle, the habit-bound body thwarts the m ind. If the m aster allows him self to be com m anded by a servant, the latter becom es autocratic; the m ind is sim ilarly enslaved by subm itting to bodily dictation.
My will was m ighty, but m y body was feeble. It appeared incredible that this m an, now "with Atlantean shoulders, fit to bear," could ever have known weakness. I have every reason to extol the com pelling m ental vigor which I found to be the real subduer of royal Bengals. No spiritual benefit accrues by knocking beasts unconscious. Rather be victor over the inner prowlers.
Rem oteness cam e into his gaze, sum m oning visions of bygone years. I discerned his slight m ental struggle to decide whether to grant m y request. Finally he sm iled in acquiescence. I decided not only to fight tigers but to display them in various tricks. My am bition was to force savage beasts to behave like dom esticated ones. I began to perform m y feats publicly, with gratifying success.
I would save you from com ing ills, produced by the grinding wheels of cause and effect. Should superstition be allowed to discolor the powerful waters or m y activities? But I believe in the just law of retribution, as taught in the holy scriptures. There is resentm ent against you in the jungle fam ily; som etim e it m ay act to your cost.
You well know what tigers are-beautiful but m erciless!
Margery kempe autobiography of a yogi pdf: Politics, Science and Spirituality, Dublin:
Even im m ediately after an enorm ous m eal of som e hapless creature, a tiger is fired with fresh lust at sight of new prey. Internet Arcade Console Living Room. Open Library American Libraries. Search the Wayback Machine Search icon An illustration of a magnifying glass. Sign up for free Log in. It appears your browser does not have it turned on.
Please see your browser settings for this feature. EMBED for wordpress. The manuscript has been digitized and can can be viewed online. Four distinct hands have been identified writing annotations and making illustrations within the marginalia of the manuscript, the most recognizable script being one made in red ink. The underlining and highlighting by various hands demonstrates the aspects of her text that are valued, perhaps even to draw away from Kempe's more radical and disruptive facets.
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