Anniversary of Sri Yukteswarji Mahasamadhi—March 9, 1936.
The Autobiography of a Yogi is an amazingly told story on so many levels, written by such a tremendous soul. Master, a yogi of such great realization did not try pose as “above it all,” rather he gave us a picture of how he suffered the pangs of shock and depression at the passing of his own Master—it created a darkened night for him. He wrote in the Autobiography:
My days were filled with lectures, classes, interviews, and reunions with old friends. Beneath a hollow smile and a life of ceaseless activity, a stream of black brooding polluted the inner river of bliss which for so many years had meandered under the sands of all my perceptions.
In his letters to Rajasi, he expands on the grief that filled him at that time. He wrote this letter on March 17 while he was at Ranchi, just days after his guru’s passing.
In spite of all wisdom and perception, I feel very lonely since our Guruji Swami Sri Yukteswar Giriji left us. Now you know, beloved one, what consolation you have given me, what gratefulness you have won from me and Guruji for being the divine instrument of making it possible for me to come here and pay to him my last respects on earth. I wrote you, “Guruji is planning to give up his body. Perhaps I can stay him.” I had it all planned to go on March 6 to Puri where he was residing, but God didn’t let me lest I pray to keep him here. Instead, I started to go on March 8, and I was prevented. Then I went on March 9 and arrived at Puri March 10 morning, only to see his lifeless body in samadhi posture. According to custom I had to bury his body in the ashram grounds. The body which had reflected omnipresent wisdom lay lifeless before me mocking, “I didn’t let you pray for me.”
On March 9, 7 p.m., our Guruji left his body; and about that time he intimated to me of his departure. Also on the train I saw two tunnels of light and his astral self telling me of his departure. Though since his departure I have been seeing him all of the time, practically, still it is a great, great shock that I won’t ever be able to show you and Mt. Washington devotees Swami Sri Yukteswarji in body. He had told me, “If I live through March (Bengali Chaitra month), I will live longer.” When I had asked him to see an American lady from California, he replied, “I won’t see her now, nor anyone else in this life.” I know there would have been a great battle if I was present at the time of his passing. I wrote a letter to him asking him not to give up his body, but the people through whom I sent it did not read it to him. Guruji was slightly feverish for five days. His fever left in the end; and while his body seemed perfectly well, he left in samadhi.
If there were words, I would write to you how I feel about the material disappearance of Master. Imagine, the Lord God did not want me to pray lest He have to grant my prayer or deny it. The lion has left his cage, the lion whose roar of wisdom kept me undergoing a thousand privations and demands of organization work. If I could weep, I would feel relieved. If I would cry, the gods would cry with me. If I had a thousand mouths, I would say India lost one of the greatest in wisdom. But the saddest of all is I could not show him you.
We can all relate, at least to some extent, the sense of loss and sadness Master was feeling at the passing of his master. What is amazing, is how open Master is with his feelings, with no pretense that he is undisturbed. He puts a human face on being God-realized. For, even as Mother, he was both fully human and divine.
As much as he had grieved, so did he feel the intensity of joy at his guru’s resurrection. Again from the Autobiography:
Gone was the sorrow of parting. The pity and grief for his death, long robber of my peace, now fled in stark shame. Bliss poured forth like a fountain through endless, newly opened soul-pores. Anciently clogged with disuse, they now widened in purity at the driving flood of ecstasy. Subconscious thoughts and feelings of my past incarnations shed their karmic taints, lustrously renewed by Sri Yukteswar’s divine visit.
When I sat meditating at Puri’s Samadhi Temple during my 1998 pilgrimage, I unexpectedly felt Sri Yukteswar’s joy in torrents. Sri Yukteswarji made me know that his promise to his disciple, recorded in the Autobiography, was not just for Paramhansaji, but for all of us:
“Dearest Master! Rebuke me a million times—do scold me now!”
“I shall chide you no more.” His divine voice was grave, yet with an undercurrent of laughter. “You and I shall smile together, so long as our two forms appear different in the maya-dream of God. Finally we shall merge as one in the Cosmic Beloved; our smiles shall be His smile, our unified song of joy vibrating throughout eternity to be broadcast to God-tuned souls!”
It is good to remember that God-realized souls live human lives, they endure what everyone goes through at one time or another. They do this to show us that our humanness is not a bar to experiencing God. Rather, we may feel that it is God living His life through us, and therefore everything—pleasure and pain, happiness and sadness—comes from the one Source of all that is. God plays through us like a fine instrument, hitting any range of notes of His own choosing—for all is made from the musical streams of Ananda/Bliss.
Sri Yukteswarji, an incarnation of wisdom, is a flawless compass guiding us to the Eternal. Such wisdom can be very strict, crushing our meandering dreams and ruthlessly severing our attachments. This is all done without malice, but with the greatest love and solicitude. In fact, all that this great God-man did was done to bring about a revelation that all creation is an explosion of Ananda-Bliss—and as such, the realization that you are part and parcel made up of sacred Joy. You have both the wisdom of the wise in you, and you are a being of bliss without end. This is what Sri Yukteswarji came to awaken in Master, and in us all.