Part 31 (1/2)
I started to kneel at his feet in gratitude, but he quickly prevented me
”Don't be childish Get up and enjoy the beauty of thehappily as I stood in silence beside him I understood by his attitude that he wanted me to feel that not he, but God, had been the Healer
I wear even now the heavy silver and lead bangle, a -past, ever-cherished-when I found anew that I was living with a personage indeed superhuht , he invariably reco their use as an act of astrological wisdoy from my childhood, partly because I observed that many people are sequaciously attached to it, and partly because of a prediction er: ”You willtwice a er” I brooded over thesacrifice before the tened to your fate,” my brother Ananta had remarked ”Your written horoscope has correctly stated that you would fly fro your early years, but would be forcibly returned The forecast of your es is also bound to be true”
A clear intuition caht that the prophecy holly false I set fire to the horoscope scroll, placing the ashes in a paper bag on which I wrote: ”Seeds of past karerminate if they are roasted in the divine fires of wisdo in a conspicuous spot; Ananta immediately read my defiant comment
”You cannot destroy truth as easily as you have burnt this paper scroll” My brother laughed scornfully
It is a fact that on three occasions before I reached e my betrothal Each ti that ical persuasion from the past
”The deeper the self-realization of a man, the more he influences the whole universe by his subtle spiritual vibrations, and the less he himself is affected by the phenoly to ers to selectto planetary indications, and I would still accomplish whatever task I set myself It is true that my success at such times has been accompanied by extraordinary difficulties But my conviction has always been justified: faith in the divine protection, and the right use of iven will, are forces formidable beyond any the ”inverted bowl” can muster
The starry inscription at one's birth, I came to understand, is not that e is rather a prod to pride; the very heavens seek to arouse man's determination to be free from every limitation God created each man as a soul, dowered with individuality, hence essential to the universal structure, whether in the temporary role of pillar or parasite His freedom is final and immediate, if he so wills; it depends not on outer but inner victories
Sri Yukteswar discovered the mathematical application of a 24,000-year equinoctial cycle to our present age {FN16-4} The cycle is divided into an Ascending Arc and a Descending Arc, each of 12,000 years
Within each Arc fall four YUGAS or Ages, called KALI, DWAPARA, TRETA, and SATYA, corresponding to the Greek ideas of Iron, Bronze, Silver, and Golden Ages
My guru determined by various calculations that the last KALI YUGA or Iron Age, of the Ascending Arc, started about AD 500 The Iron Age, 1200 years in duration, is a span of materialism; it ended about AD 1700 That year ushered in DWAPARA YUGA, a 2400-year period of electrical and atoraph, radio, airplanes, and other space-annihilators
The 3600-year period of TRETA YUGA will start in AD 4100; its age will be e of telepathic co the 4800 years of SATYA YUGA, final age in an ascending arc, the intelligence of a man will be completely developed; he ork in har arc of 12,000 years, starting with a descending Golden Age of 4800 years, then begins {FN16-5} for the world; norance These cycles are the eternal rounds of MAYA, the contrasts and relativities of the phenomenal universe
{FN16-6} Man, one by one, escapes from creation's prison of duality as he awakens to consciousness of his inseverable divine unity with the Creator
Master enlarged y but of the world's scriptures Placing the holy texts on the spotless table of his mind, he was able to dissect the, and to separate errors and interpolations of scholars froinally expressed by the prophets
”Fix one's vision on the end of the nose” This inaccurate interpretation of a BHAGAVAD GITA stanza, {FN16-7} widely accepted by Eastern pundits and Western translators, used to arouse Master's droll criticish as it is,” he remarked ”Why counsel hi of NASIKAGRAM is 'origin of the nose, not 'end of the nose' The nose begins at the point between the two eyebrows, the seat of spiritual vision” {FN16-8} Because of one SANKHYA {FN16-9} aphorism, ”ISWAR-Ashi+DHA,”-”A Lord of Creation cannot be deduced”
or ”God is not proved,” {FN16-10}--many scholars call the whole philosophy atheistical
”The verse is not nihilistic,” Sri Yukteswar explained ”It htened ments, proof of God must remain unknown and therefore non-existent True SANKHYA followers, with unshakable insight born of meditation, understand that the Lord is both existent and knowable”
Master expounded the Christian Bible with a beautiful clarity
It was frouru, unknown to the roll call of Christian membershi+p, that I learned to perceive the deathless essence of the Bible, and to understand the truth in Christ's assertion-surely the ent ever uttered: ”Heaven and earth shall pass away, but reat masters of India mold their lives by the same Godly ideals which animated Jesus; these men are his proclaimed kin: ”Whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother” {FN16-12} ”If ye continue in my word,” Christ pointed out, ”then are ye my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” {FN16-13} Freei-Christs of India are part of the i knowledge of the One Father
”The Adam and Eve story is incomprehensible to me!” I observed with considerable heat one day in ory
”Why did God punish not only the guilty pair, but also the innocent unborn generations?”
Master was norance ”GENESIS is deeply syrasped by a literal interpretation,”
he explained ”Its 'tree of life' is the human body The spinal cord is like an upturned tree, with man's hair as its roots, and afferent and efferent nerves as branches The tree of the nervous systeht, sound, se; but he was forbidden the experience of sex, the 'apple' at the center of the bodily garden {FN16-14}