“A kind of waking trance-this for lack of a
better word-I have frequently had, quite up from boyhood,
when I have been all alone,” Tennyson wrote.
“This has come upon me through repeating
my own name to myself silently, till all at once,
as it were out of the intensity of the consciousness
of individuality, individuality itself seemed to dissolve
and fade away into boundless being, and this not a
confused state but the clearest, the surest of the
surest, utterly beyond words-where death was an almost
laughable impossibility-the loss of personality (if
so it were) seeming no extinction, but the only true
life.” He wrote further: “It
is no nebulous ecstasy, but a state of transcendent
wonder, associated with absolute clearness of mind.”
{FN1-13} Kali is a symbol of God in the aspect of
eternal Mother Nature.
MY MOTHER’S DEATH AND THE MYSTIC AMULET
My mother’s greatest desire was the marriage
of my elder brother. “Ah, when I behold
the face of Ananta’s wife, I shall find heaven
on this earth!” I frequently heard Mother express
in these words her strong Indian sentiment for family
continuity.
I was about eleven years old at the time of Ananta’s
betrothal. Mother was in Calcutta, joyously supervising
the wedding preparations. Father and I alone
remained at our home in Bareilly in northern India,
whence Father had been transferred after two years
at Lahore.
I had previously witnessed the splendor of nuptial
rites for my two elder sisters, Roma and Uma; but
for Ananta, as the eldest son, plans were truly elaborate.
Mother was welcoming numerous relatives, daily arriving
in Calcutta from distant homes. She lodged them
comfortably in a large, newly acquired house at 50
Amherst Street. Everything was in readiness-the
banquet delicacies, the gay throne on which Brother
was to be carried to the home of the bride-to-be,
the rows of colorful lights, the mammoth cardboard
elephants and camels, the English, Scottish and Indian
orchestras, the professional entertainers, the priests
for the ancient rituals.
Father and I, in gala spirits, were planning to join
the family in time for the ceremony. Shortly
before the great day, however, I had an ominous vision.
It was in Bareilly on a midnight. As I slept
beside Father on the piazza of our bungalow, I was
awakened by a peculiar flutter of the mosquito netting
over the bed. The flimsy curtains parted and
I saw the beloved form of my mother.
“Awaken your father!” Her voice was only
a whisper. “Take the first available train,
at four o’clock this morning. Rush to Calcutta
if you would see me!” The wraithlike figure
vanished.
“Father, Father! Mother is dying!”
The terror in my tone aroused him instantly.
I sobbed out the fatal tidings.
“Never mind that hallucination of yours.”
Father gave his characteristic negation to a new situation.
“Your mother is in excellent health. If
we get any bad news, we shall leave tomorrow.”
