The Christlike Life of Lahiri Mahasaya
"Thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness."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,2 and from intuitional perception, I am convinced that John the Baptist was, in past lives, the guru of Christ. Numerous passages in the Bible imply 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."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 none other than Elijah (Elias).
"But the angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John....And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God. And he shall go before him⁴ in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord."⁵
Jesus twice unequivocally identified Elijah (Elias) as John: "Elias is come already, and they knew him not....Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist."⁶ Again, Christ says: "For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John. And if ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was for to come."⁷ When John denied that he was Elias (Elijah),8 he meant that in the humble garb of John he came no longer in the outward elevation of Elijah the great guru. In his former incarnation he had given the "mantle" of his glory and his spiritual wealth to his disciple Elisha. "And Elisha said, I pray thee, let a double portion of thy spirit be upon me. And he said, Thou hast asked a hard thing: nevertheless, if thou see me when I am taken from thee, it shall be so unto thee....And he took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him."²
The roles became reversed, because Elijah-John was no longer needed to be the ostensible guru of Elisha-Jesus, now divinely perfected. When Christ was transfigured on the mountain¹⁰ it was his guru Elias, with Moses, that he saw. In his hour of extremity on the Cross, Jesus cried out: "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Some of them that stood there, when they heard that, said, This man calleth for Elias....Let us see whether Elias will come to save him."¹¹
The timeless bond of guru and disciple that existed between John and Jesus was present also for Babaji and Lahiri Mahasaya. With tender solicitude the deathless guru swam the abysmal waters that swirled between two lives of his chela, and guided the successive steps taken by the child and then by the man Lahiri Mahasaya. It was not until the disciple had reached his thirty-third year that Babaji deemed the time ripe for reestablishing openly the never-severed link.
After the brief meeting near Ranikhet, the selfless guru did not keep the beloved disciple by his side but released Lahiri Mahasaya for an outward world mission. "My son, I shall come whenever you need me." What mortal lover can fulfill the infinite implications of such a promise? Unknown to society in general, a great spiritual renaissance started in 1861 in a remote corner of Banaras. As the fragrance of flowers cannot be suppressed, so Lahiri Mahasaya, quietly living as an ideal householder, could not hide his innate glory. Devotee-bees from every part of India began to seek the divine nectar of the liberated master.
The English office superintendent was one of the first to notice a strange transcendental change in his employee, whom he affectionately called "Ecstatic Babu." "Sir, you seem sad. What is the trouble?" Lahiri Mahasaya made this sympathetic inquiry one morning to his employer. "My wife in England is critically ill. I am torn by anxiety." "I shall get you some word about her." Lahiri Mahasaya left the room and sat for a short time in a secluded spot. On his return he smiled consolingly.
"Your wife is improving; she is now writing you a letter." The omniscient yogi quoted some parts of the missive. "Ecstatic Babu, I already know that you are no ordinary man. Yet I am unable to believe that, at will, you can banish time and space!" The promised letter finally arrived. The astounded superintendent found that it contained not only the good news of his wife's recovery but also the same phrases that, weeks earlier, the great master had uttered.
The wife came to India some months later. Meeting Lahiri Mahasaya, she gazed at him reverently. "Sir," she said, "it was your form, haloed in glorious light, that I beheld months ago by my sickbed in London. At that moment I was completely healed! Soon after, I was able to undertake the long ocean voyage to India." Day after day the sublime guru initiated one or two devotees into Kriya Yoga. In addition to these spiritual duties and to the responsibilities of his business and family life, the great master took an enthusiastic interest in education. He organized many study groups and played an active part in the growth of a large high school in the Bengalitola section of Banaras. At weekly meetings, which came to be called his "Gita Assembly," the guru expounded the scriptures to many eager truth seekers.
By these manifold activities, Lahiri Mahasaya sought to answer the common challenge: "After performing one's business and social duties, where is the time for devotional meditation?" The harmoniously balanced life of the great householder-guru became the inspiration of thousands of men and women. Earning only a modest salary, thrifty, unostentatious, accessible to all, the master carried on naturally and happily in the path of disciplined worldly life. Though ensconced in the seat of the Supreme One, Lahiri Mahasaya showed reverence to all men, irrespective of their differing merits. When his devotees saluted him, he bowed in turn to them. With a childlike humility, the master often touched the feet of others, but seldom allowed them to pay him similar honor, even though such obeisance toward the guru is an ancient Oriental custom.
A significant feature of Lahiri Mahasaya's life was his gift of Kriya initiation to those of every faith. Not Hindus only, but Moslems and Christians were among his foremost disciples. Monists and dualists, those of various faiths or of no established faith, were impartially received and instructed by the universal guru. One of his highly advanced chelas was Abdul Gufoor Khan, a Moslem. Lahiri Mahasaya, belonging himself to the highest or Brahmin caste, made courageous efforts to dissolve the rigid caste bigotry of his time. Those from every walk of life found shelter under the master's omnipresent wings. Like all other God-inspired prophets,
Lahiri Mahasaya gave new hope to the outcasts and the downtrodden of society. "Remember that you belong to no one and that no one belongs to you. Reflect that some day you will suddenly have to leave everything in this world — so make the acquaintance of God now," the great guru told his disciples. "Prepare yourself for the coming astral journey of death by riding daily in a balloon of divine perception. Through delusion you are perceiving yourself as a bundle of flesh and bones, which at best is a nest of troubles.¹² Meditate unceasingly, that you quickly behold yourself as the Infinite Essence, free from every form of misery. Cease being a prisoner of the body; using the secret key of Kriya, learn to escape into Spirit."
The master encouraged his various disciples to adhere to the good traditional discipline of their own faiths. Stressing the all-inclusive nature of Kriya Yoga as a practical technique of liberation, Lahiri Mahasaya then gave his chelas liberty to express their lives in conformance with environment and upbringing. "A Moslem should perform his namaj¹³ worship five times daily," the master pointed out. "Several times daily a Hindu should sit in meditation. A Christian should go down on his knees several times daily, praying to God and then reading the Bible."
With wise discernment the guru guided his followers into the paths of Bhakti (devotion), Karma (action), Jnana (wisdom), or Raja (royal or complete) Yoga, according to each man's natural tendencies. The master, who was slow to give his permission to devotees wishing to enter the formal path of monkhood, always cautioned them first to reflect well on the austerities of the monastic life. The great guru taught his disciples to avoid theoretical discussion of the scriptures. "He only is wise who devotes himself to realizing, not reading only, the ancient revelations," he said. "Solve all your problems through meditation.¹⁴ Exchange unprofitable speculations for actual God-communion.
"Clear your mind of dogmatic theological debris; let in the fresh, healing waters of direct perception. Attune yourself to the active inner Guidance; the Divine Voice has the answer to every dilemma of life. Though man's ingenuity for getting himself into trouble appears to be endless, the Infinite Succor is no less resourceful." The master's omnipresence was demonstrated one day before a group of disciples who were listening to his exposition of the Bhagavad Gita. As he was explaining the meaning of Kutastha Chaitanya or the Christ Consciousness in all vibratory creation, Lahiri Mahasaya suddenly gasped and cried out:
"I am drowning in the bodies of many souls off the coast of Japan!" The next morning the chelas read a cabled newspaper account of the deaths of a number of persons whose ship had foundered the preceding day near Japan. Many distant disciples of Lahiri Mahasaya were aware of his enfolding presence. "I am ever with those who practice Kriya," he would say consolingly to chelas who could not remain near him. "I will guide you to the Cosmic Home through your ever enlarging spiritual perceptions."
Sri Bhupendra Nath Sanyal,15 an eminent disciple of the great guru, stated that, as a youth in 1892, unable to go to Banaras, he prayed to the master for spiritual instruction. Lahiri Mahasaya appeared before Bhupendra in a dream and gave him diksha (initiation). Later the boy went to Banaras and asked the guru for diksha. "I have already initiated you, in a dream," Lahiri Mahasaya replied. If a disciple neglected any of his worldly obligations, the master would gently correct and discipline him. "Lahiri Mahasaya's words were mild and healing, even when he was forced to speak openly of a chela's faults," Sri Yukteswar once told me. He added ruefully, "No disciple ever fled from our master's barbs." I could not help laughing, but I truthfully assured my guru that, sharp or not, his every word was music to my ears.
Lahiri Mahasaya carefully graded Kriya into four progressive initiations.⁴⁶ He bestowed the three higher techniques only after a devotee had manifested definite spiritual progress. One day a certain chela, convinced that his worth was not being duly evaluated, gave voice to his discontent. "Master," he said, "surely I am ready now for the second initiation." At this moment the door opened to admit a humble disciple, Brinda Bhagat. He was a Banaras postman. "Brinda, sit by me here." The great guru smiled at him affectionately. "Tell me, are you ready for the second Kriya?"
The little postman folded his hands supplicatingly. "Gurudeva," he said in alarm, "no more initiations, please! How can I assimilate any higher teachings? I have come today to ask your blessings, because the first Kriya has filled me with such divine intoxication that I cannot deliver the letters!" "Already Brinda swims in the sea of Spirit." At these words from Lahiri Mahasaya, the other disciple hung his head. "Master," he said, "I see I have been a poor workman, finding fault with my tools."
The lowly postman, who was uneducated, later developed his insight through Kriya to such an extent that scholars occasionally sought his interpretation on involved scriptural points. Innocent alike of sin and syntax, little Brinda won renown in the domain of learned pundits. Besides the numerous Banaras disciples of Lahiri Mahasaya, hundreds came to him from distant parts of India. He himself traveled to Bengal on several occasions, visiting at the homes of the fathers-in-law of his two sons. Thus blessed by his presence, Bengal became honeycombed with small Kriya groups. Particularly in the districts of Krishnanagar and Bishnupur, many silent devotees to this day have kept the invisible current of spiritual meditation flowing.
Among many saints who received Kriya from Lahiri Mahasaya may be mentioned the illustrious Swami Bhaskarananda Saraswati of Banaras; and the Deoghar ascetic of high stature, Balananda Brahmachari. For a time Lahiri Mahasaya served as private tutor to the son of Maharaja Iswari Narayan Sinha Bahadur of Banaras. Recognizing the master's spiritual attainment, the Maharaja, as well as his son, sought Kriya initiation, as did the Maharaja Jotindra Mohan Thakur. A number of Lahiri Mahasaya's disciples with influential worldly position were desirous of expanding the Kriya circle by publicity. The guru refused his permission. One chela, the royal physician to the Lord of Banaras, started an organized effort to spread the master's name as "Kashi Baba" (Exalted One of Banaras).¹⁷ Again the guru forbade it.
"Let the fragrance of the Kriya flower be wafted in a natural way," he said. "The seeds of Kriya will take sure root in the soil of spiritually fertile hearts." Although the great master did not adopt the system of preaching through the modern medium of an organization, or through the printing press, he knew that the power of his message would rise like a resistless flood, inundating by its own force the banks of human minds. The changed and purified lives of devotees were the simple guarantees of the deathless vitality of Kriya.
In 1886, twenty-five years after his Ranikhet initiation, Lahiri Mahasaya was retired on a pension.¹⁸ With his availability in the daytime, disciples sought him out in ever increasing numbers. The great guru now sat in silence most of the time, locked in the tranquil lotus posture. He seldom left his little parlor, even for a walk or to visit other parts of the house. A quiet stream of chelas arrived, almost ceaselessly, for a darshan (holy sight) of the guru.
To the awe of all beholders, Lahiri Mahasaya's habitual physiological state exhibited the superhuman features of breathlessness, sleeplessness, cessation of pulse and heartbeat, calm eyes unblinking for hours, and a profound aura of peace. No visitors departed without upliftment of spirit; all knew they had received the silent blessing of a true man of God. The master now permitted his disciple, Panchanon Bhattacharya, to open in Calcutta a yoga center, the "Arya Mission Institution." The center distributed certain yogic herbal medicines,¹⁹ and published the first inexpensive editions in Bengal of the Bhagavad Gita. The Arya Mission Gita, in Hindi and Bengali, found its way into thousands of homes.
In accordance with ancient custom, the master gave to people in general a neem²⁰ oil for the cure of various diseases. When the guru requested a disciple to distill the oil, he could easily accomplish the task. If anyone else tried, he would encounter strange difficulties; finding, after putting the oil through the required distilling processes, that the liquid had almost completely evaporated. Evidently the master's blessing was a necessary ingredient. Lahiri Mahasaya's handwriting and signature, in Bengali script, are shown below. The lines occur in a letter to a chela; the great master interprets a Sanskrit verse as follows: "He who has attained a state of calmness wherein his eyelids do not blink has achieved Sambhabi Mudra."²¹
[signed, lower left] "Sri Shyama Charan Deva Sharman" Like many other great prophets, Lahiri Mahasaya himself wrote no books, but instructed various disciples in his interpretations of the scriptures. My dear friend Sri Ananda Mohan Lahiri, a late grandson of the master, wrote the following: "The Bhagavad Gita and other parts of the Mahabharata epic possess several knot-points (vyas-kutas). Keep the knot-points unquestioned, and we find only mythical stories of a peculiar and easily misunderstood type. Leave the knot-points unexplained, and we lose a science that India has preserved with superhuman patience after a quest of thousands of years of experiment.²²
"Lahiri Mahasaya brought to light, clear of allegories, the science of religion that had been cleverly put out of sight in a riddle of scriptural imagery. No longer an unintelligible jugglery of words, the formulas of Vedic worship have been proved by the master to be full of scientific significance. "We know that man is usually helpless against evil passions; but these are rendered powerless and man finds no motive for indulging in them when there dawns on him a consciousness of superior and lasting bliss through Kriya Yoga. Here the give-up, the negation of the lower nature, synchronizes with a take-up, the experience of beatitude. Without such a course, moral maxims that embody mere negatives are useless to us.
"It is the Infinite, the Ocean of Power, that lies behind all phenomenal manifestations. Our eagerness for worldly activity kills in us the sense of spiritual awe. Because modern science tells us how to utilize the powers of Nature, we fail to comprehend the Great Life in back of all names and forms. Familiarity with Nature has bred contempt for her ultimate secrets; our relation with her is one of practical business. We tease her, so to speak, to discover the ways in which she may be forced to serve our purposes; we make use of her energies, whose Source yet remains unknown. In science our relation with Nature is like that between an arrogant man and his servant; or, in a philosophical sense, Nature is like a captive in the witness box. We cross-examine her, challenge her, and minutely weigh her evidence in human scales that cannot measure her hidden values.
"On the other hand, when the self is in communion with a higher power, Nature automatically obeys, without stress or strain, the will of man. This effortless command over Nature is called 'miraculous' by the uncomprehending materialist. "The life of Lahiri Mahasaya set an example which changed the erroneous notion that yoga is a mysterious practice. In spite of the matter-of-factness of physical science, every man may find a way through Kriya Yoga to understand his proper relation with Nature and to feel spiritual reverence for all phenomena,²³ whether mystical or of everyday occurrence. We should bear in mind that many things inexplicable a thousand years ago are no longer so, and matters mysterious now may become lawfully intelligible a few years hence.
"The science of Kriya Yoga is eternal. It is true like mathematics; like the simple rules of addition and subtraction, the law of Kriya can never be destroyed. Burn to ashes all books on mathematics; the logically minded will always rediscover such truths. Suppress all books on yoga; its fundamentals will be re-revealed whenever there appears a sage with pure devotion and consequently pure knowledge." Just as Babaji is among the greatest of avatars, a Mahavatar, and as Sri Yukteswar may justly be called a Jnanavatar or Incarnation of Wisdom, so Lahiri Mahasaya was a Yogavatar or Incarnation of Yoga.24
By the standards of both qualitative and quantitative good, the great master elevated the spiritual level of society. In his power to raise his close disciples to Christlike stature and in his wide dissemination of truth among the masses, Lahiri Mahasaya ranks among the saviors of mankind. His uniqueness as a prophet lies in his practical stress on a definite method, Kriya, opening for the first time the doors of yoga freedom to all men. Apart from the miracles of his own life, surely the Yogavatar reached the zenith of all wonders in reducing the ancient complexities of yoga to an effective simplicity within the ordinary grasp.
In reference to miracles, Lahiri Mahasaya often said, "The operation of subtle laws that are unknown to people in general should not be publicly discussed or published without due discrimination." If in these pages I have appeared to flout his cautionary words, it is because he has given me an inner reassurance. However, in recording the lives of Babaji, Lahiri Mahasaya, and Sri Yukteswar, I have thought it advisable to omit certain miraculous stories. I could hardly have included them without writing, also, an explanatory volume of abstruse philosophy.
As a householder-yogi, Lahiri Mahasaya brought a practical message suited to the needs of today's world. The excellent economic and religious conditions of ancient India no longer obtain. The great master therefore did not encourage the old ideal of a yogi as a wandering ascetic with a begging bowl. He stressed, rather, the advantages to a yogi of earning his own living, of not being dependent on a hard-pressed society for support, and of practicing yoga in the privacy of his home. To this counsel Lahiri Mahasaya added the heartening force of his own example. He was a modern, "streamlined" model of a yogi. His way of life, as planned by Babaji, was intended to be a guide for aspiring yogis in all parts of the world.
New hope for new men! "Divine union," the Yogavatar proclaimed, "is possible through self-effort, and is not dependent on theological beliefs or on the arbitrary will of a Cosmic Dictator." Through use of the Kriya key, persons who cannot bring themselves to believe in the divinity of any man will behold at last the full divinity of their own selves.
20 East Indian margosa tree. Its medicinal values are now recognized in the West, where the bitter neem bark is used as a tonic, and the oil from seeds and fruit is given for leprosy and other diseases. 21 Sambhabi Mudra means fixing the gaze at the spot between the eyebrows. When the yogi has reached a certain stage of mental peace his eyelids do not blink; he is absorbed in the inner world. A mudra ("symbol") usually refers to a ritual gesture of the fingers and hands. Many mudras induce calmness by affecting certain nerves. Ancient Hindu treatises minutely classify the nadis (72,000 nerve passages in the body) and their relationships with the mind. The mudras employed in worship and in yoga thus have a scientific foundation. An elaborate language of mudras is also found in the iconography and the ritual dances of India.
22 "A number of seals recently excavated from archaeological sites of the Indus valley, datable in the third millennium B.C., show figures seated in meditative postures now used in the system of Yoga, and warrant the inference that even at that time some of the rudiments of Yoga were already known. We may not unreasonably draw the conclusion that systematic introspection with the aid of studied methods has been practiced in India for five thousand years." — Professor W. Norman Brown, in "Bulletin of the American Council of Learned Societies," Washington, D.C.
The testimony of the Hindu scriptures, however, is that the science of Yoga has been known in India for untold millenniums. 23 "The man who cannot wonder, who does not habitually wonder (and worship), were he president of innumerable Royal Societies and carried....the epitome of all laboratories and observatories, with their results, in his single head, is but a pair of spectacles behind which there is no eye." — Carlyle, "Sartor Resartus." 24 Sri Yukteswar had referred to his chela Paramahansa Yogananda as an incarnation of divine love. After Paramahansaji's passing, his chief disciple and spiritual successor Rajarsi Janakananda (James J. Lynn) officially bestowed on him the title of Premavatar or Incarnation of Love. (Publisher's Note)