"The morning you left for the Allahabad MELA," Prafulla told me,
"Master dropped heavily on the davenport.
"'Yogananda is gone!' he cried. 'Yogananda is gone!' He added
cryptically, 'I shall have to tell him some other way.' He sat then
for hours in silence."
My days were filled with lectures, classes, interviews, and reunions
with old friends. Beneath a hollow smile and a life of ceaseless
activity, a stream of black brooding polluted the inner river of
bliss which for so many years had meandered under the sands of all
my perceptions.
"Where has that divine sage gone?" I cried silently from the depths
of a tormented spirit.
No answer came.
"It is best that Master has completed his union with the Cosmic
Beloved," my mind assured me. "He is eternally glowing in the
dominion of deathlessness."
"Never again may you see him in the old Serampore mansion," my
heart lamented. "No longer may you bring your friends to meet him,
or proudly say: 'Behold, there sits India's JNANAVATAR!'"
Mr. Wright made arrangements for our party to sail from Bombay
for the West in early June. After a fortnight in May of farewell
banquets and speeches at Calcutta, Miss Bletch, Mr. Wright and myself
left in the Ford for Bombay. On our arrival, the ship authorities
asked us to cancel our passage, as no room could be found for the
Ford, which we would need again in Europe.
"Never mind," I said gloomily to Mr.
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