Yogananda, Paramahansa, 1893-1952; Yogis -- India -- Biography
{FN24-8} Dr. Jung is here referring to HATHA YOGA, a specialized
branch of bodily postures and techniques for health and longevity.
HATHA is useful, and produces spectacular physical results, but this
branch of yoga is little used by yogis bent on spiritual liberation.
{FN24-9} In Plato’s TIMAEUS story of Atlantis, he tells of
the inhabitants’ advanced state of scientific knowledge. The lost
continent is believed to have vanished about 9500 B.C. through a
cataclysm of nature; certain metaphysical writers, however, state
that the Atlanteans were destroyed as a result of their misuse of
atomic power. Two French writers have recently compiled a BIBLIOGRAPHY
OF ATLANTIS, listing over 1700 historical and other references.
CHAPTER: 25
BROTHER ANANTA AND SISTER NALINI
“Ananta cannot live; the sands of his karma for this life have run
out.”
These inexorable words reached my inner consciousness as I sat one
morning in deep meditation. Shortly after I had entered the Swami
Order, I paid a visit to my birthplace, Gorakhpur, as a guest of
my elder brother Ananta. A sudden illness confined him to his bed;
I nursed him lovingly.
The solemn inward pronouncement filled me with grief. I felt that
I could not bear to remain longer in Gorakhpur, only to see my
brother removed before my helpless gaze. Amidst uncomprehending
criticism from my relatives, I left India on the first available
boat. It cruised along Burma and the China Sea to Japan. I disembarked
at Kobe, where I spent only a few days. My heart was too heavy for
sightseeing.
On the return trip to India, the boat touched at Shanghai. There
Dr. Misra, the ship’s physician, guided me to several curio shops,
where I selected various presents for Sri Yukteswar and my family
and friends. For Ananta I purchased a large carved bamboo piece.
No sooner had the Chinese salesman handed me the bamboo souvenir
than I dropped it on the floor, crying out, “I have bought this
for my dear dead brother!”
A clear realization had swept over me that his soul was just being
freed in the Infinite. The souvenir was sharply and symbolically
cracked by its fall; amidst sobs, I wrote on the bamboo surface:
“For my beloved Ananta, now gone.”
My companion, the doctor, was observing these proceedings with a
sardonic smile.
“Save your tears,” he remarked. “Why shed them until you are sure
he is dead?”
When our boat reached Calcutta, Dr. Misra again accompanied me. My
youngest brother Bishnu was waiting to greet me at the dock.
“I know Ananta has departed this life,” I said to Bishnu, before he
had had time to speak. “Please tell me, and the doctor here, when
Ananta died.”
Bishnu named the date, which was the very day that I had bought
the souvenirs in Shanghai.
“Look here!” Dr. Misra ejaculated. “Don’t let any word of this
get around! The professors will be adding a year’s study of mental
telepathy to the medical course, which is already long enough!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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