Message #32281

[Jitendra Hydonus]

 Sri Yukteswar

Topic
In Autobiography of a Yogi, Paramahansa Yogananda recalls when, as a teenager, he followed his own whim instead of the wisdom of his guru, Swami Sri Yukteswar. An excerpt:

“Please permit me to go to the Himalayas. I hope in unbroken solitude to achieve continuous divine communion.”

I actually once addressed these ungrateful words to my Master. Seized by one of the unpredictable delusions which occasionally assail the devotee, I felt a growing impatience with hermitage duties and college studies. A feebly extenuating circumstance is that my proposal was made when I had been only six months with Sri Yukteswar. Not yet had I fully surveyed his towering stature.

“Many hillmen live in the Himalayas, yet possess no God-perception.” My guru’s answer came slowly and simply. “Wisdom is better sought from a man of realization than from an inert mountain.”

Ignoring Master’s plain hint that he, and not a hill, was my teacher, I repeated my plea. Sri Yukteswar vouchsafed no reply. I took his silence for consent, a precarious interpretation readily accepted at one’s convenience.



In the next chapter, Yogananda wrote about his guru’s reaction to his return from the Himalayas. An excerpt:

“I am here, Guruji.” My shamefacedness spoke more eloquently for me.

“Let us go to the kitchen and find something to eat.” Sri Yukteswar’s manner was as natural as if hours and not days had separated us.

“Master, I must have disappointed you by my abrupt departure from my duties here; I thought you might be angry with me.”

“No, of course not! Wrath springs only from thwarted desires. I do not expect anything from others, so their actions cannot be in opposition to wishes of mine. I would not use you for my own ends; I am happy only in your own true happiness.