Autobiography of a Yogi eBook

“To a certain extent, all races and nations observe in practice, if not in theory, the features of caste.  Where there is great license or so-called liberty, particularly in intermarriage between extremes in the natural castes, the race dwindles away and becomes extinct.  The purana SAMHITA compares the offspring of such unions to barren hybrids, like the mule which is incapable of propagation of its own species.  Artificial species are eventually exterminated.  History offers abundant proof of numerous great races which no longer have any living representatives.  The caste system of India is credited by her most profound thinkers with being the check or preventive against license which has preserved the purity of the race and brought it safely through millenniums of vicissitudes, while other races have vanished in oblivion.”

{FN41-10} His full title was Sri Sadasivendra Saraswati Swami.  The illustrious successor in the formal Shankara line, Jagadguru Sri Shankaracharya of Sringeri Math, wrote an inspiring Ode dedicated to Sadasiva.  East-west for July, 1942, carried an article on Sadasiva’s life.

CHAPTER:  42

LAST DAYS WITH MY GURU

“Guruji, I am glad to find you alone this morning.”  I had just arrived at the Serampore hermitage, carrying a fragrant burden of fruit and roses.  Sri Yukteswar glanced at me meekly.

“What is your question?” Master looked about the room as though he were seeking escape.

“Guruji, I came to you as a high-school youth; now I am a grown man, even with a gray hair or two.  Though you have showered me with silent affection from the first hour to this, do you realize that once only, on the day of meeting, have you ever said, ’I love you’?” I looked at him pleadingly.

Master lowered his gaze.  “Yogananda, must I bring out into the cold realms of speech the warm sentiments best guarded by the wordless heart?”

“Guruji, I know you love me, but my mortal ears ache to hear you say so.”

“Be it as you wish.  During my married life I often yearned for a son, to train in the yogic path.  But when you came into my life, I was content; in you I have found my son.”  Two clear teardrops stood in Sri Yukteswar’s eyes.  “Yogananda, I love you always.”

“Your answer is my passport to heaven.”  I felt a weight lift from my heart, dissolved forever at his words.  Often had I wondered at his silence.  Realizing that he was unemotional and self-contained, yet sometimes I feared I had been unsuccessful in fully satisfying him.  His was a strange nature, never utterly to be known; a nature deep and still, unfathomable to the outer world, whose values he had long transcended.

A few days later, when I spoke before a huge audience at Albert Hall in Calcutta, Sri Yukteswar consented to sit beside me on the platform, with the Maharaja of Santosh and the Mayor of Calcutta.  Though Master made no remark to me, I glanced at him from time to time during my address, and thought I detected a pleased twinkle in his eyes.