|
|
I had an
unaccountable feeling of fear and uncertainty. At last in the midst of misgivings I fell asleep. I slept fitfully, dreaming
strange dreams, and woke up after short intervals in sharp contrast to my usual deep, uninterrupted sleep. After about 3
a.m. sleep refused to come. I sat up in bed for some time. Sleep had not refreshed me. I still felt fatigued and my
thoughts lacked clarity. The usual time for my meditation was approaching. I decided to begin earlier so that I would not
have the sun on my hands and face, and without disturbing my wife, went upstairs to my study. I spread the blanket, and
sitting cross-legged as usual, began to meditate.
I could not concentrate with the same intensity as on the previous day, though I tried my best. My thoughts wandered,
and instead of being in a state of happy expectancy I felt strangely nervous and uneasy. At last, after repeated efforts, I
held my attention at the usual point for some time, waiting for results. Nothing happened and I began to feel doubts
about the validity of my previous experience. I tried again, this time with better success. Pulling myself together, I
steadied my wandering thoughts, and fixing my attention on the crown, tried to visualize a lotus in full bloom as was my
custom. As soon as I arrived at the usual pitch of mental fixity, I again felt the current moving upward. I did not allow
my attention to waver, and again with a rush and a roaring noise in my ears the stream of effulgent light entered my
brain, filling me with power and vitality, and I felt myself expanding in all directions, spreading beyond the boundaries
of flesh, entirely absorbed in the contemplation of a brilliant conscious glow, one with it and yet not entirely merged in
it. The condition lasted for a shorter duration than it had done yesterday. The feeling of exaltation was not so strong.
When I came back to normal, I felt my heart thumping wildly and there was a bitter taste in my mouth. It seemed as if a
scorching blast of hot air had passed through my body. The feeling of exhaustion and weariness was more pronounced
than it had been yesterday.
I rested for some time to recover my strength and poise. It was still dark. I had now no doubts that the experience was
real and that the sun had nothing to do with the internal lustre that I saw. But, why did I feel uneasy and depressed?
Instead of feeling exceedingly happy at my luck and blessing my stars, why had despondency overtaken me? I felt as if I
were in imminent danger of something beyond my understanding and power, something intangible and mysterious,
which I could neither grasp nor analyse. A heavy cloud of depression and gloom seemed to hang round me, rising from
my own internal depths without relation to external circumstances, I did not feel I was the same man I had been but a
few days before, and a condition of horror, on account of the inexplicable change, began to settle on me, from which, try
as I might, I could not make myself free by any effort of my will. Little did I realize that from that day onwards I was
never to be my old normal self again, that I had unwittingly and without preparation or even adequate knowledge of it
roused to activity the most wonderful and stern power in man, that I had stepped unknowingly upon the key to the most
guarded secret of the ancients, and that thenceforth for a long time I had to live suspended by a thread, swinging
between life on the one hand and death on the other, between sanity and insanity, between light and darkness, between
heaven and earth.
I began the practice of meditation at the age of seventeen. Failure in a house examination at the College, which
prevented me from appearing in the University that year, created a revolution in my young mind. I was not so much
worried by the failure and the loss of one year as by the thoughts of the extreme pain it would cause my mother, whom I
loved dearly. For days and nights I racked my brain for a plausible excuse to mitigate the effect of the painful news on
her. She was so confident of my success that I simply had not the courage to disillusion her. I was a merit scholarship
holder, occupying a distinguished position in College, but instead of devoting time to the study of assigned texts, I
busied myself in reading irrelevant books borrowed from the library. Too late I realized that I knew next to nothing
about some of the subjects, and had no chance whatever of passing the test. Having never suffered the ignominy of a
failure in my school life, and always highly spoken of by the teachers, I felt crestfallen, pierced to the quick by the
thought that my mother, proud of my distinction and sure of my ability to get through the examination with merit, would
be deeply hurt at this avowal of my negligence.
Born, in a village, of a family of hard-working and God-fearing peasants, fate had destined her as a partner to a man
considerably senior to her in age, hailing from Amritsar, at that time no less than six days' journey by rail and cart from
the place of her birth. Insecurity and lawlessness in the country had forced one of my forefathers to bid adieu to his cool
native soil and to seek his fortune in the torrid plains of distant Punjab. There, changed in dress and speaking a different
tongue, my grandfather and greatgrandfather lived and prospered like other exiles of their kind, altered in all save their
religious rites and customs and the unmistakable physiognomy of Kashmiri Brahmins. My father, with a deep mystical
vein in him, returned to the land of his ancestors when almost past his prime, to marry and settle there. Even during the
most active period of his worldly life he was always on the look-out for Yogis and ascetics reputed to possess occult
powers, and never tired of serving them and sitting in their company to learn the secret of their marvellous gifts.
He was a firm believer in the traditional schools of religious discipline and Yoga, extant in India from the earliest times,
which among all the numerous factors contributing to success allot the place of honour to renunciation, to the voluntary
relinquishment of all worldly pursuits and possessions, to enable the mind, released from the heavy chains binding it to
the earth, to plumb its own ethereal depths undisturbed by desire and passion. The authority for such conduct emanates
from the Vedas, nay, from the examples themselves set by the inspired authors of the Vedic hymns and the celebrated
seers of the Upanishads, who conforming to an established practice prevailing in the ancient society of Indo-Aryans,
retired from the busy life of householders at the ripe age of fifty and above, sometimes accompanied by their consorts,
to spend the rest of their lives in forest hermitages in uninterrupted meditation and preaching, the prelude to a grand and
peaceful exit.
This unusual mode of passing the eve of life has exercised a deep fascination over countless spiritually inclined men and
women in India and even now hundreds of accomplished and, from the worldly point of view, happily circumstanced
family men of advanced age, bidding farewell to their otherwise comfortable homes and dutiful progeny, betake
themselves to distant retreats to pass their remaining days peacefully in spiritual pursuits, away from the fret and fever
of the world. My father, an ardent admirer of this ancient ideal, which provides for many a refreshing contrast to the
'dead-to-heaven and wed-to-earth' old age of today, chose for himself a recluse's life, about twelve years after marriage,
his gradually formed decision hastened by the tragic death of his first-born son at the age of five. Retiring voluntarily
from a lucrative Government post, before he was even fifty, he gave up all the pleasures and cares of life and shut
himself in seclusion with his books, leaving the entire responsibility of managing the household on the inexperienced
shoulders of his young wife.
She had suffered terribly. My father renounced the world when she was in her twenty-eighth year, the mother of three
children, two daughters and a son. How she brought us up, with what devotion she attended to the simple needs of our
austere father, who cut himself off completely from the world, never even exchanging a word with any of us, and by
what ceaseless labour and colossal self-sacrifice she managed to maintain the good name and honour of the family
would make fit themes for a great story of matchless heroism, unflinching regard to duty, chastity, and supreme
self-abnegation. I felt guilty and mortified. How could I face her with an admission of my weakness? Realizing that by
my lack of self-control I had betrayed the trust reposed in me, I determined to make up for the lost opportunity in other
ways. At no other time in my life should I be guilty of the same offence again. But in order to curb the vagrant element
in my nature and to regulate my conduct it was necessary that I should make a conquest of my mind, which by
following unhindered its own inclinations to the neglect of duty had brought me to such a sorry plight, a prey to
poignant grief and remorse, fallen low in my own eyes.
Having made the resolve, I looked around for a means to carry it into effect. In order to succeed it was necessary to have
at least some knowledge of the methods to bring one's rebellious self into subjugation. Accordingly, I read a few books
of the usual kind on the development of personality and mind control. Out of the huge mass of material contained in
these writings, I devoted my attention to only two things: concentration of mind and cultivation of will. |
|