{FN34-1} Now a military sanatorium. By 1861 the
British Government had already established certain
telegraphic communciations.
{FN34-2} Ranikhet, in the Almora district of United
Provinces, is situated at the foot of Nanda Devi,
the highest Himalayan peak (25,661 feet) in British
India.
{FN34-3} “The sabbath was made for man, and
not man for the sabbath.”—Mark
2:27.
{FN34-4} The karmic law requires that every human
wish find ultimate fulfillment. Desire is thus
the chain which binds man to the reincarnational wheel.
{FN34-5} “What is a miracle?-’Tis a reproach,
’Tis
an implicit satire on mankind.”
—Edward
Young, in night thoughts.
{FN34-5} The theory of the atomic structure of matter
was expounded in the ancient Indian VAISESIKA and
NYAYA treatises. “There are vast worlds
all placed away within the hollows of each atom, multifarious
as the motes in a sunbeam.”—Yoga
VASISHTHA.
{FN34-7} Physical, mental, and spiritual suffering;
manifested, respectively, in disease, in psychological
inadequacies or “complexes,” and in soul-ignorance.
{FN34-8} Chapter II:40.
{FN34-9} A town near Benares.
{FN34-10} In the path to the Infinite, even illumined
masters like Lahiri Mahasaya may suffer from an excess
of zeal, and be subject to discipline. In the
Bhagavad Gita, we read many passages where
the divine guru Krishna gives chastisement to the
prince of devotees, Arjuna.
{FN34-11} A porridge made of cream of wheat fried
in butter, and boiled with milk.
{FN34-12} The man, Maitra, to whom Lahiri Mahasaya
is here referring, afterward became highly advanced
in self-realization. I met Maitra shortly after
my graduation from high school; he visited the Mahamandal
hermitage in Benares while I was a resident. He
told me then of Babaji’s materialization before
the group in Moradabad. “As a result of
the miracle,” Maitra explained to me, “I
became a lifelong disciple of Lahiri Mahasaya.”
THE CHRISTLIKE LIFE OF LAHIRI MAHASAYA
“Thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness.”
{FN35-1} In these words to John the Baptist, and in
asking John to baptize him, Jesus was acknowledging
the divine rights of his guru.
From a reverent study of the Bible from an Oriental
viewpoint, {FN35-2} and from intuitional perception,
I am convinced that John the Baptist was, in past
lives, the guru of Christ. There are numerous
passages in the Bible which infer that John and Jesus
in their last incarnations were, respectively, Elijah
and his disciple Elisha. (These are the spellings
in the Old Testament. The Greek translators spelled
the names as Elias and Eliseus; they reappear in the
New Testament in these changed forms.)
The very end of the Old Testament is a prediction
of the reincarnation of Elijah and Elisha: “Behold,
I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming
of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.”
{FN35-3} Thus John (Elijah), sent “before the
coming . . . of the Lord,” was born slightly
earlier to serve as a herald for Christ. An angel
appeared to Zacharias the father to testify that his
coming son John would be no other than Elijah (Elias).
