Yogananda, Paramahansa, 1893-1952; Yogis -- India -- Biography
The grace of the Christlike yogi, Trailanga, was once bestowed on
my SAJO MAMA (maternal uncle). One morning Uncle saw the master
surrounded by a crowd of devotees at a Benares ghat. He managed
to edge his way close to Trailanga, whose feet he touched humbly.
Uncle was astonished to find himself instantly freed from a painful
chronic disease. {FN31-7}
The only known living disciple of the great yogi is a woman, Shankari
Mai Jiew. Daughter of one of Trailanga’s disciples, she received
the swami’s training from her early childhood. She lived for
forty years in a series of lonely Himalayan caves near Badrinath,
Kedarnath, Amarnath, and Pasupatinath. The BRAHMACHARINI (woman
ascetic), born in 1826, is now well over the century mark. Not aged
in appearance, however, she has retained her black hair, sparkling
teeth, and amazing energy. She comes out of her seclusion every
few years to attend the periodical MELAS or religious fairs.
This woman saint often visited Lahiri Mahasaya. She has related
that one day, in the Barackpur section near Calcutta, while she was
sitting by Lahiri Mahasaya’s side, his great guru Babaji quietly
entered the room and held converse with them both.
On one occasion her master Trailanga, forsaking his usual silence,
honored Lahiri Mahasaya very pointedly in public. A Benares disciple
objected.
“Sir,” he said, “why do you, a swami and a renunciate, show such
respect to a householder?”
“My son,” Trailanga replied, “Lahiri Mahasaya is like a divine
kitten, remaining wherever the Cosmic Mother has placed him.
While dutifully playing the part of a worldly man, he has received
that perfect self-realization for which I have renounced even my
loincloth!”
{FN31-1} One is reminded here of Milton’s line: “He for God only,
she for God in him.”
{FN31-2} The venerable mother passed on at Benares in 1930.
{FN31-3} Staff, symbolizing the spinal cord, carried ritually by
certain orders of monks.
{FN31-4} He was a MUNI, a monk who observes MAUNA, spiritual
silence. The Sanskrit root MUNI is akin to Greek MONOS, “alone,
single,” from which are derived the English words MONK, MONISM,
etc.
{FN31-5} ROMANS 12:19.
{FN31-6} LUKE 19:37-40.
{FN31-7} The lives of Trailanga and other great masters remind us
of Jesus’ words: “And these signs shall follow them that believe;
In my name (the Christ consciousness) they shall cast out devils;
they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents;
and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they
shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.”-MARK 16:17-18.
CHAPTER: 32
RAMA IS RAISED FROM THE DEAD
“Now a certain man was sick, named Lazarus. . . . When Jesus heard
that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory
of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.’” {FN32-1}
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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