The Levitating Saint

"I"I saw a yogi remain in the air, several feet above the ground, last night at a group meeting." My friend, Upendra Mohun Chowdhury, spoke impressively. I gave him an enthusiastic smile. "Perhaps I can guess his name. Was it Bhaduri Mahasaya, of Upper Circular Road?" Upendra nodded, a little crestfallen not to be a news-bearer. My inquisitiveness about saints was well known to my friends; they delighted in setting me on a fresh track.

"The yogi lives so close to my home that I often visit him." My words brought keen interest to Upendra's face, and I made a further confidence. "I have seen him in remarkable feats. He has expertly mastered the various pranayamas¹ mentioned in the ancient eightfold yoga outlined by Patanjali.² Once Bhaduri Mahasaya performed the Bhastrika Pranayama before me with such amazing force that it seemed an actual storm had arisen iⁿ the room! Then he extinguished the thundering breath and remained motⁱonless in a high state of superconsciousness.³ The aura of peace after the storm was vivid beyond forgetting."

"I have heard that the saint never leaves his home." Upendra's tone was a trifle incredulous. "Indeed it is true! He has lived indoors for the past twenty years. He slightly relaxes his self-imposed rule at the times of our holy festivals, when he goes as far as his front sidewalk! The beggars gather there, because Saint Bhaduri is known for his tender heart." "How does he remain in the air, defying the law of gravitation?"

"A yogi's body loses its grossness after use of certain pranayamas. Then it will levitate or hop about like a leaping frog. Even saints who do not practice a formal yoga have been known to levitate during a state of intense devotion to God." "I would like to know more of this sage. Do you attend his evening meetings?" Upendra's eyes were sparkling with curiosity. "Yes, I go often. I am vastly entertained by the wit in his wisdom. Occasionally my prolonged laughter mars the solemnity of his gatherings. The saint is not displeased, but his disciples look daggers!"

On my way home from school that afternoon, I passed Bhaduri Mahasaya's cloister and decided on a visit. The yogi was inaccessible to the general public. A lone disciple, occupying the ground floor, guarded his master's privacy. The student was something of a martinet; he now inquired formally if I had an "engagement." His guru put in an appearance just in time to save me from summary ejection. "Let Mukunda come when he will." The sage's eyes twinkled. "My rule of seclusion is not for my own comfort, but for that of others. Worldly people do not like the candor that shatters their delusions. Saints are not only rare but disconcerting. Even in scripture, they are often found embarrassing!"

I followed Bhaduri Mahasaya to his austere quarters on the top floor, from which he seldom stirred. Masters often ignore the panorama of the world's ado, out of focus till centered in the ages. The contemporaries of a sage are not only those of the narrow present. "Maharishi,² you are the first yogi I have known who always stays indoors." "God plants His saints sometimes in unexpected soil, lest we think we may reduce Him to a rule!"

The sage locked his vibrant body in the lotus posture. In his seventies, he displayed no unpleasing signs of age or sedentary life. Stalwart and straight, he was ideal in every respect. His face was that of a rishi, as described in the ancient texts. Noble-headed, abundantly bearded, he always sat firmly upright, his quiet eyes fixed on Omnipresence. The saint and I entered the meditative state. After an hour his gentle voice roused me.

"You go often into the silence, but have you developed anubhava?"⁵ He was reminding me to love God more than meditation. "Do not mistake the technique for the Goal." He offered me some mangoes. With the good-humored wit that I found so delightful in his grave nature, he remarked, "People in general are more fond of Jala Yoga (union with food) than of Dhyana Yoga (union with God)." His yogic pun affected me uproariously. "What a laugh you have!" An affectionate gleam came into his gaze. His own face was always serious, yet subtly touched with an ecstatic smile. His large, lotus eyes held a hidden divine laughter.

"Those letters come from far-off America." The sage indicated several thick envelopes on a table. "I correspond with a few societies there whose members are interested in yoga. They are discovering India anew, with a better sense of direction than Columbus! I am glad to help them. A knowledge of yoga, like the daylight, is free to all who will receive it. "What rishis perceived as essential for human salvation need not be diluted for the West. Alike in soul though diverse in outer experience, neither West nor East will flourish if some form of disciplinary yoga be not practiced."

The saint held me with his tranquil eyes. I did not realize that his speech was a veiled prophetic guidance. It is only now, as I write these words, that I understand the full meaning in the casual intimations he often gave me that someday I would carry India's teachings to America. "Maharishi, I wish you would write a book on yoga for the benefit of the world." "I am training disciples. They and their line of students will serve as living volumes, proof against the natural disintegrations of time and the unnatural interpretations of the critics."

I remained alone with the yogi until his disciples arrived in the evening. Bhaduri Mahasaya began one of his inimitable discourses. Like a peaceful flood he swept away the mental debris of his listeners, floating them Godward. His striking parables were expressed in a flawless Bengali. This evening Bhaduri expounded various philosophical points connected with the life of Mirabai, a medieval Rajputani princess who had abandoned her court life to seek the company of saints. One great sannyasi, Sanatana Goswami, refused to receive her because she was a woman; her reply brought him humbly to her feet.

"Tell the master," she had said, "that I did not know there was any Male in the universe save God; are we all not females before Him?" (A scriptural conception of the Lord as the only Positive Creative Principle, His creation being naught but a passive maya.) Mirabai composed many ecstatic songs, which are still treasured in India. I translate one of them here:

Several students put rupees in Bhaduri's slippers, which lay by his side as he sat in yoga posture. This respectful offering, customary in India, indicates that the disciple places his material goods at the guru's feet. Grateful friends are only the Lord in disguise, looking after His own. "Master, you are wonderful!" A student, taking his leave, gazed ardently at the patriarchal sage. "You have renounced riches and comforts to seek God and teach us wisdom!" It was well known that Bhaduri Mahasaya had forsaken great family wealth in his early childhood, when single-mindedly he had entered the yogic path.

"You are reversing the case!" The saint's face held a mild rebuke. "I have left a few paltry rupees, a few petty pleasures, for a cosmic empire of endless bliss. How then have I denied myself anything? I know the joy of sharing the treasure. Is that a sacrifice? The shortsighted worldly folk are verily the real renunciants! They relinquish an unparalleled divine possession for a poor handful of earthly toys!" I chuckled over this paradoxical view of renunciation — one that puts the cap of Croesus on any saintly beggar, whilst transforming all proud millionaires into unconscious martyrs. "The divine order arranges our future more wisely than any insurance company." The master's concluding words were the realized creed of his faith. "The world is full of uneasy believers in an outward security. Their bitter thoughts are like scars on their foreheads. The One who gave us air and milk from our first breath knows how to provide day by day for His devotees."

I continued my after-school pilgrimages to the saint's door. With silent zeal he aided me to attain anubhava. One day he moved to Ram Mohan Roy Road, away from the neighborhood of my home. His loving disciples had built him a new hermitage, known as Nagendra Math.⁶ Although i^t throws me ahead of my story by a number of years, I will recount here the last words given to me by Bhaduri Mahasaya. Shortly before I embarked for the West, I sought him out and humbly knelt for his farewell blessing:

"Son, go to America. Take the dignity of hoary India for your shield. Victory is written on your brow; the noble distant people will well receive you."

1 Methods of controlling life force (prāṇa) through regulation of breath. The Bhastrikā ("bellows") Prāṇāyāma makes the mind steady. 2 The foremost ancient exponent of yoga. 3 Professor Jules-Bois of the Sorbonne said in 1928 that French psychologists have investigated and accorded recognition to the superconsciousness, which, in its grandeur, "is the exact opposite of the subconscious mind as conceived of by Freud; and which comprises the faculties that make man really man and not just a super-animal." The French savant explained that the awakening of the higher consciousness is "not to be confused with Couéism or hypnotism. The existence of a superconscious mind has long been recognized philosophically, being in reality the Over-Soul spoken of by Emerson; but only recently has it been recognized scientifically."

In "The Over-Soul," Emerson wrote: "A man is the facade of a temple wherein all wisdom and all good abide. What we commonly call man, the eating, drinking, planting, counting man, does not, as we know him, represent himself, but misrepresents himself. Him we do not respect; but the soul, whose organ he is, would he let it appear through his actions, would make our knees bend... .We lie open on one side to the deeps of spiritual nature, to all the attributes of God."

Among "levitating saints" of the Christian world was the 17th-century St. Joseph of Cupertino. His feats received ample attestation from eyewitnesses. St. Joseph exhibited a worldly absent-mindedness that was really divine recollectedness. His monastery brothers could not permit him to serve at the common table, lest he ascend to the ceiling with the crockery. The saint, indeed, was uniquely disqualified for earthly duties by his inability to remain, for any long period, on the earth! Often the sight of a holy statue was enough to exalt St. Joseph in vertical flight; the two saints, one of stone and the other of flesh, would be seen circling together in the upper air.

St. Teresa of Avila, she of the great elevation of soul, found physical elevation very disconcerting. Charged with heavy organizational duties, she vainly tried to prevent her "uplifting" experiences. "But little precautions are unavailing," she wrote, "when the Lord will have it otherwise." The body of St. Teresa, which lies in a church at Alba in Spain, has for four centuries manifested incorruptibility, accompanied by a perfume of flowers. The site has witnessed innumerable miracles.