Yogananda, Paramahansa, 1893-1952; Yogis -- India -- Biography
No sooner had I left than Kashi’s father arrived in Ranchi. For
fifteen days he tried to break the will of his son, explaining that
if Kashi would go to Calcutta for only four days to see his mother,
he could then return. Kashi persistently refused. The father finally
said he would take the boy away with the help of the police. The
threat disturbed Kashi, who was unwilling to be the cause of any
unfavorable publicity to the school. He saw no choice but to go.
I returned to Ranchi a few days later. When I heard how Kashi had
been removed, I entrained at once for Calcutta. There I engaged a
horse cab. Very strangely, as the vehicle passed beyond the Howrah
bridge over the Ganges, I beheld Kashi’s father and other relatives
in mourning clothes. Shouting to my driver to stop, I rushed out
and glared at the unfortunate father.
“Mr. Murderer,” I cried somewhat unreasonably, “you have killed my
boy!”
The father had already realized the wrong he had done in forcibly
bringing Kashi to Calcutta. During the few days the boy had been
there, he had eaten contaminated food, contracted cholera, and
passed on.
My love for Kashi, and the pledge to find him after death, night and
day haunted me. No matter where I went, his face loomed up before
me. I began a memorable search for him, even as long ago I had
searched for my lost mother.
I felt that inasmuch as God had given me the faculty of reason, I
must utilize it and tax my powers to the utmost in order to discover
the subtle laws by which I could know the boy’s astral whereabouts.
He was a soul vibrating with unfulfilled desires, I realized-a mass
of light floating somewhere amidst millions of luminous souls in
the astral regions. How was I to tune in with him, among so many
vibrating lights of other souls?
Using a secret yoga technique, I broadcasted my love to Kashi’s
soul through the microphone of the spiritual eye, the inner point
between the eyebrows. With the antenna of upraised hands and
fingers, I often turned myself round and round, trying to locate
the direction in which he had been reborn as an embryo. I hoped to
receive response from him in the concentration-tuned radio of my
heart. {FN28-1}
I intuitively felt that Kashi would soon return to the earth, and
that if I kept unceasingly broadcasting my call to him, his soul
would reply. I knew that the slightest impulse sent by Kashi would
be felt in my fingers, hands, arms, spine, and nerves.
With undiminished zeal, I practiced the yoga method steadily for
about six months after Kashi’s death. Walking with a few friends
one morning in the crowded Bowbazar section of Calcutta, I lifted
my hands in the usual manner. For the first time, there was response.
I thrilled to detect electrical impulses trickling down my fingers
and palms. These currents translated themselves into one overpowering
thought from a deep recess of my consciousness: “I am Kashi; I am
Kashi; come to me!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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