Yogananda, Paramahansa, 1893-1952; Yogis -- India -- Biography
A year later I was visiting my guru at the Calcutta home of his
disciple, Naren Babu. About ten o’clock in the morning, as Sri
Yukteswar and I were sitting quietly in the second-floor parlor,
I heard the front door open. Master straightened stiffly.
“It is that Sasi,” he remarked gravely. “The year is now up; both
his lungs are gone. He has ignored my counsel; tell him I don’t
want to see him.”
Half stunned by Sri Yukteswar’s sternness, I raced down the stairway.
Sasi was ascending.
“O Mukunda! I do hope Master is here; I had a hunch he might be.”
“Yes, but he doesn’t wish to be disturbed.”
Sasi burst into tears and brushed past me. He threw himself at Sri
Yukteswar’s feet, placing there three beautiful sapphires.
“Omniscient guru, the doctors say I have galloping tuberculosis!
They give me no longer than three more months! I humbly implore
your aid; I know you can heal me!”
“Isn’t it a bit late now to be worrying over your life? Depart
with your jewels; their time of usefulness is past.” Master then
sat sphinxlike in an unrelenting silence, punctuated by the boy’s
sobs for mercy.
An intuitive conviction came to me that Sri Yukteswar was merely
testing the depth of Sasi’s faith in the divine healing power. I was
not surprised a tense hour later when Master turned a sympathetic
gaze on my prostrate friend.
“Get up, Sasi; what a commotion you make in other people’s houses!
Return your sapphires to the jeweler’s; they are an unnecessary
expense now. But get an astrological bangle and wear it. Fear not;
in a few weeks you shall be well.”
Sasi’s smile illumined his tear-marred face like sudden sun over
a sodden landscape. “Beloved guru, shall I take the medicines
prescribed by the doctors?”
Sri Yukteswar’s glance was longanimous. “Just as you wish-drink
them or discard them; it does not matter. It is more possible for
the sun and moon to interchange their positions than for you to
die of tuberculosis.” He added abruptly, “Go now, before I change
my mind!”
With an agitated bow, my friend hastily departed. I visited him
several times during the next few weeks, and was aghast to find
his condition increasingly worse.
“Sasi cannot last through the night.” These words from his physician,
and the spectacle of my friend, now reduced almost to a skeleton,
sent me posthaste to Serampore. My guru listened coldly to my
tearful report.
“Why do you come here to bother me? You have already heard me assure
Sasi of his recovery.”
I bowed before him in great awe, and retreated to the door. Sri
Yukteswar said no parting word, but sank into silence, his unwinking
eyes half-open, their vision fled to another world.
I returned at once to Sasi’s home in Calcutta. With astonishment
I found my friend sitting up, drinking milk.
“O Mukunda! What a miracle! Four hours ago I felt Master’s presence
in the room; my terrible symptoms immediately disappeared. I feel
that through his grace I am entirely well.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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