{FN23-2} Although my cousin and I have the same family
name of Ghosh, Prabhas has accustomed himself to transliterating
his name in English as Ghose; therefore I follow his
own spelling here.
{FN23-3} A disciple always removes his shoes in an
Indian hermitage.
{FN23-4} Matthew 6:33.
I BECOME A MONK OF THE SWAMI ORDER
“Master, my father has been anxious for me to
accept an executive position with the Bengal-Nagpur
Railway. But I have definitely refused it.”
I added hopefully, “Sir, will you not make me
a monk of the Swami Order?” I looked pleadingly
at my guru. During preceding years, in order
to test the depth of my determination, he had refused
this same request. Today, however, he smiled graciously.
“Very well; tomorrow I will initiate you into
swamiship.” He went on quietly, “I
am happy that you have persisted in your desire to
be a monk. 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.” {FN24-1}
I had analyzed the lives of many of my friends who,
after undergoing certain spiritual discipline, had
then married. Launched on the sea of worldly
responsibilities, they had forgotten their resolutions
to meditate deeply.
To allot 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 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 Serampore
hermitage, Master dipped a new piece of white silk
into a dye of ocher, the traditional color 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.
