If anyone observed the unpretentious master and myself as we walked away from the crowded pavement, the onlooker surely suspected us of intoxication. I felt that the falling shades of evening were sympathetically drunk with God. When darkness recovered from its nightly swoon, I faced the new morning bereft of my ecstatic mood. But ever enshrined in memory is the seraphic son of Divine Mother-Master Mahasaya! Trying with poor words to do justice to his benignity, I wonder if Master Mahasaya, and others among the deep-visioned saints whose paths crossed mine, knew that years later, in a Western land, I would be writing about their lives as divine devotees. Their foreknowledge would not surprise me nor, I hope, my readers, who have come thus far with me. {FN9-1} These are respectful titles by which he was customarily addressed. His name was Mahendra Nath Gupta; he signed his literary works simply “M.” {FN9-2} The Oxford English Dictionary gives, as rare, this definition of BIOSCOPE: A view of life; that which gives such a view. Master Mahasaya’s choice of a word was, then, peculiarly justified. CHAPTER: 10 I MEET MY MASTER, SRI YUKTESWAR “Faith in God can produce any miracle except one-passing an examination without study.” Distastefully I closed the book I had picked up in an idle moment. “The writer’s exception shows his complete lack of faith,” I thought. “Poor chap, he has great respect for the midnight oil!” My promise to Father had been that I would complete my high school studies. I cannot pretend to diligence. The passing months found me less frequently in the classroom than in secluded spots along the Calcutta bathing GHATS. The adjoining crematory grounds, especially gruesome at night, are considered highly attractive by the yogi. He who would find the Deathless Essence must not be dismayed by a few unadorned skulls. Human inadequacy becomes clear in the gloomy abode of miscellaneous bones. My midnight vigils were thus of a different nature from the scholar’s. The week of final examinations at the Hindu High School was fast approaching. This interrogatory period, like the sepulchral haunts, inspires a well-known terror. My mind was nevertheless at peace. Braving the ghouls, I was exhuming a knowledge not found in lecture halls. But it lacked the art of Swami Pranabananda, who easily appeared in two places at one time. My educational dilemma was plainly a matter for the Infinite Ingenuity. This was my reasoning, though to many it seems illogic. The devotee’s irrationality springs from a thousand inexplicable demonstrations of God’s instancy in trouble. “Hello, Mukunda! I catch hardly a glimpse of you these days!” A classmate accosted me one afternoon on Gurpar Road. “Hello, Nantu! My invisibility at school has actually placed me there in a decidedly awkward position.” I unburdened myself under his friendly gaze. Nantu, who was a brilliant student, laughed heartily; my predicament was not without a comic aspect.