“‘From my birth, sir! Never have my eyes been blessed with a glimpse of the sun.’ “‘Our omnipotent guru can help you. Please make a supplication.’ “The following day Ramu diffidently approached Lahiri Mahasaya. The disciple felt almost ashamed to ask that physical wealth be added to his spiritual superabundance. “‘Master, the Illuminator of the cosmos is in you. I pray you to bring His light into my eyes, that I perceive the sun’s lesser glow.’ “‘Ramu, someone has connived to put me in a difficult position. I have no healing power.’ “‘Sir, the Infinite One within you can certainly heal.’ “‘That is indeed different, Ramu. God’s limit is nowhere! He who ignites the stars and the cells of flesh with mysterious life-effulgence can surely bring luster of vision into your eyes.’ “The master touched Ramu’s forehead at the point between the eyebrows. {FN4-7} “‘Keep your mind concentrated there, and frequently chant the name of the prophet Rama {FN4-8} for seven days. The splendor of the sun shall have a special dawn for you.’ “Lo! in one week it was so. For the first time, Ramu beheld the fair face of nature. The Omniscient One had unerringly directed his disciple to repeat the name of Rama, adored by him above all other saints. Ramu’s faith was the devotionally ploughed soil in which the guru’s powerful seed of permanent healing sprouted.” Kebalananda was silent for a moment, then paid a further tribute to his guru. “It was evident in all miracles performed by Lahiri Mahasaya that he never allowed the ego-principle {FN4-9} to consider itself a causative force. By perfection of resistless surrender, the master enabled the Prime Healing Power to flow freely through him. “The numerous bodies which were spectacularly healed through Lahiri Mahasaya eventually had to feed the flames of cremation. But the silent spiritual awakenings he effected, the Christlike disciples he fashioned, are his imperishable miracles.” I never became a Sanskrit scholar; Kebalananda taught me a diviner syntax. {FN4-1} Literally, “renunciate.” From Sanskrit verb roots, “to cast aside.” {FN4-2} Effects of past actions, in this or a former life; from Sanskrit KRI, “to do.” {FN4-3} BHAGAVAD GITA, IX, 30-31. Krishna was the greatest prophet of India; Arjuna was his foremost disciple. {FN4-4} I always addressed him as Ananta-da. DA is a respectful suffix which the eldest brother in an Indian family receives from junior brothers and sisters. {FN4-5} At the time of our meeting, Kebalananda had not yet joined the Swami Order and was generally called “Shastri Mahasaya.” To avoid confusion with the name of Lahiri Mahasaya and of Master Mahasaya (../chapter 9), I am referring to my Sanskrit tutor only by his later monastic name of Swami Kebalananda. His biography has been recently published in Bengali. Born in the Khulna district of Bengal in 1863, Kebalananda gave up his body in Benares at the age of sixty-eight. His family name was Ashutosh Chatterji.