I hope in unbroken solitude
to achieve continuous divine communion."
I actually once addressed these ungrateful words to my Master.
Seized by one of the unpredictable delusions which occasionally
assail the devotee, I felt a growing impatience with hermitage
duties and college studies. A feebly extenuating circumstance is
that my proposal was made when I had been only six months with Sri
Yukteswar. Not yet had I fully surveyed his towering stature.
"Many hillmen live in the Himalayas, yet possess no God-perception."
My guru's answer came slowly and simply. "Wisdom is better sought
from a man of realization than from an inert mountain."
Ignoring Master's plain hint that he, and not a hill, was my teacher,
I repeated my plea. Sri Yukteswar vouchsafed no reply. I took his
silence for consent, a precarious interpretation readily accepted
at one's convenience.
In my Calcutta home that evening, I busied myself with travel
preparations. Tying a few articles inside a blanket, I remembered
a similar bundle, surreptitiously dropped from my attic window a
few years earlier. I wondered if this were to be another ill-starred
flight toward the Himalayas. The first time my spiritual elation had
been high; tonight conscience smote heavily at thought of leaving
my guru.
The following morning I sought out Behari Pundit, my Sanskrit
professor at Scottish Church College.
"Sir, you have told me of your friendship with a great disciple of
Lahiri Mahasaya.
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