Must read this.

[dhana yoga]

"MUKUNDA, why don't you get an astrological armlet?"
      "Should I, Master? I don't believe in astrology."
      "It's never a question of belief; the only scientific attitude one can take on any subject is whether it's true. The law of gravitation worked as efficiently before Newton as after him. The cosmos would be fairly chaotic if its laws couldn't operate without the sanction of human belief.
      "Charlatans have brought the stellar science to its present state of disrepute. Astrology is too vast, both mathematically [1] and philosophically, to be rightly grasped except by men of profound understanding. If ignoramuses misread the heavens, and see there a scrawl instead of a script, that is to be expected in this imperfect world. One shouldn't dismiss the wisdom with the 'wise.'
"Imperfect world, imperfect teachings," one may say. Stay awake. We have more on astrology here: LINK. And next there is a still quite unfinished astrosophy site with more fun for children.

"All parts of creation are linked together and interchange their influences. The balanced rhythm of the universe is rooted in reciprocity," my guru continued. "Man, in his human aspect, has to combat two sets of forces—first, the tumults within his being, caused by the admixture of earth, water, fire, air, and ethereal elements; second, the outer disintegrating powers of nature. So long as man struggles with his mortality, he is affected by the myriad mutations of heaven and earth.
      "Astrology is the study of man's response to planetary stimuli. The stars have no conscious benevolence or animosity; they merely send forth positive and negative radiations. Of themselves, these don't help or harm humanity, but offer a lawful channel for the outward operation of cause-effect equilibriums which each man has set into motion in the past.
      "A child is born on that day and at that hour when the celestial rays are in mathematical harmony with his individual karma. His horoscope is a challenging portrait, revealing his unalterable past and its probable future results. But the natal chart can be rightly interpreted only by men of intuitive wisdom: these are few.
      "The message boldly blazoned across the heavens at the moment of birth isn't meant to emphasise fate—the result of past good and evil—but to arouse man's will to escape from his universal thraldom. What he has done, he can undo. None other than himself was the instigator of the causes of whatever effects are now prevalent in his life. He can overcome any limitation, because he created it by his own actions in the first place, and because he has spiritual resources which are not subject to planetary pressure.
      "Superstitious awe of astrology makes one an automaton, slavishly dependent on mechanical guidance. The wise man defeats his planets—which is to say, his past—by transferring his allegiance from the creation to the Creator. The more he realises his unity with spirit, the less he can be dominated by matter. The soul is ever-free; it's deathless because birthless. It can't be regimented by stars.
      "Man is a soul, and has a body. When he properly places his sense of identity, he leaves behind all compulsive patterns. So long as he remains confused in his ordinary state of spiritual amnesia, he will know the subtle fetters of environmental law.
      "God is harmony; the devotee who attunes himself will never perform any action amiss. His activities will be correctly and naturally timed to accord with astrological law. After deep prayer and meditation he is in touch with his divine consciousness; there's no greater power than that inward protection."
      "Then, dear Master, why do you want me to wear an astrological bangle?" I ventured this question after a long silence, during which I had tried to assimilate Sri Yukteswar's noble exposition.
      "It's only when a traveller has reached his goal that he is justified in discarding his maps. During the journey, he takes advantage of any convenient short cut. The ancient rishis discovered many ways to curtail the period of man's exile in delusion. There are certain mechanical features in the law of karma which can be skilfully adjusted by the fingers of wisdom.
      "All human ills arise from some transgression of universal law. The scriptures point out that man must satisfy the laws of nature, while not discrediting the divine omnipotence. He should say: 'Lord, I trust in you, and know you can help me, but I too will do my best to undo any wrong I've done.' By a number of means—by prayer, by will power, by yoga meditation, by consultation with saints, by use of astrological bangles—the adverse effects of past wrongs can be minimised or nullified.
      "Just as a house can be fitted with a copper rod to absorb the shock of lightning, so the bodily temple can be benefited by various protective measures. Ages ago our yogis discovered that pure metals emit an astral light which is powerfully counteractive to negative pulls of the planets. Subtle electrical and magnetic radiations are constantly circulating in the universe; when a man's body is being aided, he doesn't know it; when it's being disintegrated, he is still in ignorance. Can he do anything about it?
      "This problem received attention from our rishis; they found helpful not only a combination of metals, but also of plants and—most effective of all—faultless jewels of not less than two carats. The preventive uses of astrology have seldom been seriously studied outside of India. One little-known fact is that the proper jewels, metals, or plant preparations are valueless unless the required weight is secured, and unless these remedial agents are worn next to the skin."
      "Sir, of course I shall take your advice and get a bangle. I'm intrigued at the thought of outwitting a planet!"
      "For general purposes I counsel the use of an armlet made of gold, silver, and copper. But for a specific purpose I want you to get one of silver and lead." Sri Yukteswar added careful directions.
      "Guruji, what 'specific purpose' do you mean?"
      "The stars are about to take an unfriendly interest in you, Mukunda. Fear not; you shall be protected. In about a month your liver will cause you much trouble. The illness is scheduled to last for six months, but your use of an astrological armlet will shorten the period to twenty-four days."
      I sought out a jeweller the next day, and was soon wearing the bangle. My health was excellent; Master's prediction slipped from my mind. He left Serampore to visit Varanasi. Thirty days after our conversation, I felt a sudden pain in the region of my liver. The following weeks were a nightmare of excruciating pain. Reluctant to disturb my guru, I thought I would bravely endure my trial alone.
      But twenty-three days of torture weakened my resolution; I entrained for Varanasi. There Sri Yukteswar greeted me with unusual warmth, but gave me no opportunity to tell him my woes in private. Many devotees visited Master that day, just for a darshan. [2] Ill and neglected, I sat in a corner. It wasn't till after the evening meal that all guests had departed. My guru summoned me to the octagonal balcony of the house.
      "You must have come about your liver disorder." Sri Yukteswar's gaze was averted; he walked to and fro, occasionally intercepting the moonlight. "Let me see; you've been ailing for twenty-four days, haven't you?"
      "Yes, sir."
      "Please do the stomach exercise I've taught you."
      "If you knew the extent of my suffering, Master, you wouldn't ask me to exercise." Nevertheless I made a feeble attempt to obey him.
      "You say you have pain; I say you have none. How can such contradictions exist?" My guru looked at me inquiringly.
      I was dazed and then overcome with joyful relief. No longer could I feel the continuous torment that had kept me nearly sleepless for weeks; at Sri Yukteswar's words the agony vanished as though it had never been.
      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 the moon over the Ganges." But Master's eyes were twinkling happily 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 memento of that day—long-past, ever-cherished—when I found anew that I was living with a personage indeed superhuman. On later occasions, when I brought my friends to Sri Yukteswar for healing, he invariably recommended jewels or the bangle, extolling their use as an act of astrological wisdom.
      I had been prejudiced against astrology from my childhood, partly because I observed that many people are sequaciously attached to it, and partly because of a prediction made by our family astrologer: "You'll marry three times, being twice a widower." I brooded over the matter, feeling like a goat awaiting sacrifice before the temple of triple matrimony.
      "You may as well be resigned to your fate," my brother Ananta had remarked. "Your written horoscope has correctly stated that you would fly from home toward the Himalayas during your early years, but would be forcibly returned. The forecast of your marriages is also bound to be true."
      A clear intuition came to me one night that the prophecy was wholly false. I set fire to the horoscope scroll, placing the ashes in a paper bag on which I wrote: "Seeds of past karma can't germinate if they are roasted in the divine fires of wisdom." I put the bag in a conspicuous spot; Ananta at once read my defiant comment.
      "You can't destroy truth as easily as you've burnt this paper scroll." My brother laughed scornfully.
      It's a fact that on three occasions before I reached manhood, my family tried to arrange my betrothal. Each time I refused to fall in with the plans, [3] knowing that my love for God was more overwhelming than any astrological persuasion from the past.
      "The deeper the self-realisation of a man, the more he influences the whole universe by his subtle spiritual vibrations, and the less he himself is affected by the phenomenal flux." These words of Master's often returned inspiringly to my mind.
      Occasionally I told astrologers to select my worst periods, according to planetary indications, and I would still accomplish whatever task I set myself. It's 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 man's God-given will, are forces formidable beyond any the "inverted bowl" can muster.
      The starry inscription at one's birth, I came to understand, isn't that man is a puppet of his past. Its message 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 doesn't depend on outer but inner victories.
      Sri Yukteswar discovered the mathematical application of a 24,000-year equinoctial cycle to our present age. [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.

These "ages" or distinctive, cyclic periods that are postulated, are found in Manu Samhita 1:68 ff [Mux] and Visnhupuranam [Vim]. They are both hoary scriptures.
     As for the length of the postulated cycles, the nearest known cycle in astronomy refers to the Platonic Year, which is rooted in a slow "backwards" glide of the zodiak through the constellations, i.e. in a retrogression of the vernal point. The complete cycle that is made, is almost 26 000 years. Sri Yukteswar uses the Platonic Year as time reference for the yugas, but astronomical evidence does not fit the 24.000 years scheme. In consequence, Sri Yukteswar's yuga system appears to be much defective. [MORE]

My guru determined by various calculations that the last Kali Yuga or Iron Age, of the Ascending Arc, started about AD 500. [Some astronomers suggest about AD 560] 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 atomic-energy developments, the age of telegraph, radio, aeroplanes, and other space-annihilators.
      The 3600-year period of Treta Yuga will start in AD 4100; its age will be marked by common knowledge of telepathic communications and other time-annihilators. During the 4800 years of Satya Yuga, final age in an ascending arc, the intelligence of a man will be completely developed; he will work in harmony with the divine plan.
      A descending arc of 12,000 years, starting with a descending Golden Age of 4800 years, then begins [5] for the world; man gradually sinks into ignorance. These cycles are the eternal rounds of maya, the contrasts and relativities of the phenomenal universe. [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.

Hello, homo sapiens: There are not a few cyclic calculations in Hinduism. One page by Joseph Morales goes into many of them. One should enjoy various viewpoints - it can and should help against downgrading oneself into blunt belief in any one of them. Further, in the Manu Samhita [Mux] one important outlook of Swami Sri Yukteswar is confirmed: the years presented by Manu are not over-long years, but 24 000 of our common years: The extended year scale in chapter 1, verse 68, is interpolated. That is why it's put in brackets in that book. [Mux]  

Master enlarged my understanding not only of astrology but of the world's scriptures. Placing the holy texts on the spotless table of his mind, he was able to dissect them with the scalpel of intuitive reasoning, and to separate errors and interpolations of scholars from the truths as originally expressed by the prophets.
      "Fix one's vision on the end of the nose." This inaccurate interpretation of a Bhagavad Gita stanza, [7] widely accepted by Eastern pundits and Western translators, used to arouse Master's droll criticism.
      "The path of a yogi is singular enough as it is," he remarked. "Why counsel him that he must also make himself cross-eyed? The true meaning 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." [8]
      Because of one Sankhya [9] aphorism, "Iswar-ashidha,"—"A Lord of Creation can't be deduced" or "God isn't proved," [10]—many scholars call the whole philosophy atheistical.
      "The verse isn't nihilistic," Sri Yukteswar explained. "It merely signifies that to the unenlightened man, dependent on his senses for all final judgements, proof of God must remain unknown and therefore non-existent. True Sankhya followers, with unshakeable insight born of meditation, understand that the Lord is both existent and knowable."
      Master expounded the Christian Bible with a beautiful clarity. It was from my Hindu guru, unknown to the roll call of Christian membership, that I learned to perceive the deathless essence of the Bible, and to understand the truth in Christ's assertion—surely the most thrillingly intransigent ever uttered: "Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away." [11]

The Gospel of Thomas can serve to show all his words didn't remain intact for all to learn from. And one had better not get dumbfounded.

The great masters of India mould 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." [12] "If you continue in my word," Christ pointed out, "then you are my disciples indeed; and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." [13] Freemen all, lords of themselves, the yogi-Christs of India are part of the immortal fraternity: those who have attained a liberating knowledge of the one Father.
      "The Adam and Eve story is incomprehensible to me!" I observed with considerable heat one day in my early struggles with the allegory. "Why did God punish not only the guilty pair, but also the innocent unborn generations?"
      Master was more amused by my vehemence than my ignorance. "Genesis is deeply symbolic, and can't be grasped 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 system bears many enjoyable fruits, or sensations of sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. In these, man may rightfully indulge; but he was forbidden the experience of sex, the 'apple' at the centre of the bodily garden. [14]
      "The 'serpent' represents the coiled-up spinal energy which stimulates the sex nerves. 'Adam' is reason, and 'Eve' is feeling. When the emotion or Eve-consciousness in any human being is overpowered by the sex impulse, his reason or Adam also succumbs. [15]

This talk on Genesis can be a repeatedly upheld old trick that enervates. Or the interpretations or interpolations serve interest groups of this and that kind. It is not automatically forbidden that some might serve dominant views of gurus if basic fairness and true-sounding presentation is into it. And yet Sri Yukteswar's interpretation does not sound too good; you can check for yourself: LINK  

"God created the human species by materialising the bodies of man and woman through the force of his will; He endowed the new species with the power to create children in a similar 'immaculate' or divine manner. [16] Because his manifestation in the individualised soul had hitherto been limited to animals, instinct-bound and lacking the potentialities of full reason, God made the first human bodies, symbolically called Adam and Eve. To these, for advantageous upward evolution, He transferred the souls or divine essence of two animals. [17] In Adam or man, reason predominated; in Eve or woman, feeling was ascendant. Thus was expressed the duality or polarity which underlies the phenomenal worlds. Reason and feeling remain in a heaven of cooperative joy so long as the human mind isn't tricked by the serpentine energy of animal propensities.
      "The human body was therefore not solely a result of evolution from beasts, but was produced by an act of special creation by God. The animal forms were too crude to express full divinity; the human being was uniquely given a tremendous mental capacity—the 'thousand-petalled lotus' of the brain—as well as acutely awakened occult centres in the spine.
      "God, or the divine consciousness [mind] present within the first created pair, counselled them to enjoy all human sensibilities, but not to put their concentration on touch sensations. [18] These were banned in order to avoid the development of the sex organs, which would enmesh humanity in the inferior animal method of propagation. The warning not to revive subconsciously-present bestial memories wasn't heeded. Resuming the way of brute procreation, Adam and Eve fell from the state of heavenly joy natural to the original perfect man.
      "Knowledge of 'good and evil' refers to the cosmic dualistic compulsion. Falling under the sway of maya through misuse of his feeling and reason, or Eve—and Adam—consciousness, man relinquishes his right to enter the heavenly garden of divine self-sufficiency. [19] The personal responsibility of every human being is to restore his 'parents' or dual nature to a unified harmony or Eden."

Interesting as Yukteswar's teaching might sound, it is no big deal. And it appears he is out of tune with the bible message to press his own thoughts onto an old story.
      Eve and Adam that were made with organs fit for sex and breeding - and commanded to procreate and become many so even before the Fall in the first of the Genesis tales that are amalgamated in the first few chapters of the Bible. It is also worth noting and comparing with passages from letters by the apostle Paul:
"Christ.
      In him we were also chosen [also: made heirs], having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, [Ephesians 1:10-11]
By him all things were created ... whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together (...) so that in everything he might have the supremacy. - Colossians 1:15-18)

Then we don't have to give up a very handy, all right fare, all in all. Frankly, even if you're told you're predestined too, slightly in step with such sayings of Jesus as "None comes to him unless the Father draws that one (slight paraphrase)", you can or should (?) be admonished to repent and do your very best each day to find heaven, and follow good teachings to your ability. What looks mightily like personal efforts are asked for - and work and its possible value is not left out in the letter of James and the Catholic church either.
     For all that we see that some gurus were just knocked into the fruits of kriya. It happend to Lahiri Baba, it happened to Yogananda, and who else?
      You could ask what right a Hindu swami has to "interpret" biblical teachings in order to promote his own sort of thinking that diverges from quite sensible, bibically grounded ones.
      The swami guru's ideas that man and woman misused their reason and will and so on, and thus brought on the Fall of man, conflicts in no small way with other words they hail. Here is one: "God is the sole Doer, not you and I." That God (the Lord) is the (sole) Doer is taught by Babaji, Lahiri Mahasaya, and Yogananda. If that is a premised, then, God caused the Fall as the Sole Doer . . . That is their teaching - too. And so on.
     Two very conflicting attitudes are to be counted on as valid - is that the hallmark of modern physics too? Yes, somehow. There may appear paradoxes for a time. [Cf. Thd]
      To do one's best and leave the rest to no blunders should bring an easy fare, all in all. The guru also talks of "personal responsibility" to restore Eden harmony inside oneself and so on. Yes, the guru of Yogananda maintains the value of personal endeavours too. And if he and the other sheltering avatars of SRF seem to contradict one another or themselves and "talk in riddles" - so did Jesus too here and there.
     It is sensible to find a good way to go on living. And you could grow cabbage instead of licking guru boots, if those are your alternatives. It should be good to be forewarned.
     The favoured teachings of gurus of former days and years and centuries will be found to vary and diverge. Historically there is a glide towards more Vedanta opinions among gurus. That is much of what Britannica Online finds out, if not Klaus Klostermaier in a textbook on Hinduism. [Soh] One such outlook is that the universe is not real. Yogananda finds that to be fit too, and teaches it at times. Hence: "Make efforts, but it's not real . . ." that is also their teaching.
     Conclusion: Gurus and others frequently have odd and inconsistent teachings. Some seem to help many of them on and up.  

As Sri Yukteswar ended his discourse, I glanced with new respect at the pages of Genesis.
      "Dear Master,' I said, "for the first time I feel a proper filial obligation toward Adam and Eve!"

Sasi and the three sapphires

"BECAUSE you and my son think so highly of Swami Sri Yukteswar, I'll take a look at him." The tone of voice used by Dr. Narayan Chunder Roy implied that he was humouring the whim of half-wits. I concealed my indignation, in the best traditions of the proselyter.
      My companion, a veterinary surgeon, was a confirmed agnostic. His young son Santosh had implored me to take an interest in his father. So far my invaluable aid had been a bit on the invisible side.
      Dr. Roy accompanied me the following day to the Serampore hermitage. After Master had granted him a brief interview, marked for the most part by stoic silence on both sides, the visitor brusquely departed.
      "Why bring a dead man to the ashram?" Sri Yukteswar looked at me inquiringly as soon as the door had closed on the Calcutta sceptic.
      "Sir! The doctor is very much alive!"
      "But in a short time he'll be dead."
      I was shocked. "Sir, this will be a terrible blow to his son. Santosh yet hopes for time to change his father's materialistic views. I beseech you, Master, to help the man."
      "Very well; for your sake." My guru's face was impassive. "The proud horse doctor is far gone in diabetes, although he doesn't know it. In fifteen days he'll take to his bed. The physicians will give him up for lost; his natural time to leave this earth is six weeks from today. Due to your intercession, however, on that date he'll recover. But there's one condition. You must get him to wear an astrological bangle; he'll doubtless object as violently as one of his horses before an operation!" Master chuckled.
      After a silence, during which I wondered how Santosh and I could best employ the arts of cajolery on the recalcitrant doctor, Sri Yukteswar made further disclosures.
      "As soon as the man gets well, advise him not to eat meat. He won't heed this counsel, however, and in six months, just as he is feeling at his best, he'll drop dead. Even that six-month extension of life is granted him only because of your plea."
      The following day I suggested to Santosh that he order an armlet at the jeweller's. It was ready in a week, but Dr. Roy refused to put it on.
      "I'm in the best of health. You'll never impress me with these astrological superstitions." The doctor glanced at me belligerently.
      I recalled with amusement that Master had justifiably compared the man to a balky horse. Another seven days passed; the doctor, suddenly ill, meekly consented to wear the bangle. Two weeks later the physician in attendance told me that his patient's case was hopeless. He supplied harrowing details of the ravages inflicted by diabetes.
      I shook my head. "My guru has said that after a sickness lasting one month, Dr. Roy will be well."
      The physician stared at me incredulously. But he sought me out a fortnight later, with an apologetic air.
      "Dr. Roy has made a complete recovery!" he exclaimed. "It's the most amazing case in my experience. Never before have I seen a dying man show such an inexplicable comeback. Your guru must indeed be a healing prophet!"
      After one interview with Dr. Roy, during which I repeated Sri Yukteswar's advice about a meatless diet, I didn't see the man again for six months. He stopped for a chat one evening as I sat on the piazza of my family home on Gurpar Road.
      "Tell your teacher that by eating meat often, I've wholly regained my strength. His unscientific ideas on diet haven't influenced me." It was true that Dr. Roy looked a picture of health.
      But the next day Santosh came running to me from his home on the next block. "This morning Father dropped dead!"
      This case was one of my strangest experiences with Master. He healed the rebellious veterinary surgeon in spite of his disbelief, and extended the man's natural term on earth by six months, just because of my earnest supplication. Sri Yukteswar was boundless in his kindness when confronted by the urgent prayer of a devotee.
      It was my proudest privilege to bring college friends to meet my guru. Many of them would lay aside—at least in the ashram!—their fashionable academic cloak of religious scepticism.
      One of my friends, Sasi, spent a number of happy week ends in Serampore. Master became immensely fond of the boy, and lamented that his private life was wild and disorderly.
      "Sasi, unless you reform, one year hence you'll be dangerously ill." Sri Yukteswar gazed at my friend with affectionate exasperation. "Mukunda is the witness: don't say later that I didn't warn you."
      Sasi laughed. "Master, I'll leave it to you to interest a sweet charity of cosmos in my own sad case! My spirit is willing but my will is weak. You're my only saviour on earth; I believe in nothing else."
      "At least you should wear a two-carat blue sapphire. It will help you."
      "I can't afford one. Anyhow, dear guruji, if trouble comes, I fully believe you'll protect me."
      "In a year you'll bring three sapphires," Sri Yukteswar replied cryptically. "They will be of no use then."
      Variations on this conversation took place regularly. "I can't reform!" Sasi would say in comical despair. "And my trust in you, Master, is more precious to me than any stone!"
      A year later I was visiting my guru at the Calcutta home of his disciple, Naren Babu. About ten o'clock in the morning, as Sri Yukteswar and I were sitting quietly in the second-floor parlour, I heard the front door open. Master straightened stiffly.
      "It's that Sasi," he remarked gravely. "The year is now up; both his lungs are gone. He has ignored my counsel; tell him I don't want to see him."
      Half stunned by Sri Yukteswar's sternness, I raced down the stairway. Sasi was ascending.
      "Mukunda! I do hope Master is here; I had a hunch he might be."
      "Yes, but he doesn't wish to be disturbed."
      Sasi burst into tears and brushed past me. He threw himself at Sri Yukteswar's feet, placing there three beautiful sapphires.
      "Omniscient guru, the doctors say I have galloping tuberculosis! They give me no longer than three more months! I humbly implore your aid; I know you can heal me!"
      "Isn't it a bit late now to be worrying over your life? Depart with your jewels; their time of usefulness is past." Master then sat sphinxlike in an unrelenting silence, punctuated by the boy's sobs for mercy.
      An intuitive conviction came to me that Sri Yukteswar was merely testing the depth of Sasi's faith in the divine healing power. I wasn't surprised a tense hour later when Master turned a sympathetic gaze on my prostrate friend.
      "Get up, Sasi; what a commotion you make in other people's houses! Return your sapphires to the jeweller's; they are an unnecessary expense now. But get an astrological bangle and wear it. Fear not; in a few weeks you shall be well."
      Sasi's smile illumined his tear-marred face like sudden sun over a sodden landscape. "Beloved guru, shall I take the medicines prescribed by the doctors?"
      Sri Yukteswar's glance was longanimous. "Just as you wish—drink them or discard them; it doesn't matter. It's more possible for the sun and moon to interchange their positions than for you to die of tuberculosis." He added abruptly, "Go now, before I change my mind!"
      With an agitated bow, my friend hastily departed. I visited him several times during the next few weeks, and was aghast to find his condition increasingly worse.
      "Sasi can't last through the night." These words from his physician, and the spectacle of my friend, now reduced almost to a skeleton, sent me post-haste to Serampore. My guru listened coldly to my tearful report.
      "Why do you come here to bother me? You've already heard me assure Sasi of his recovery."
      I bowed before him in great awe, and retreated to the door. Sri Yukteswar said no parting word, but sank into silence, his unwinking eyes half-open, their vision fled to another world.
      I returned at once to Sasi's home in Calcutta. With astonishment I found my friend sitting up, drinking milk.
      "Mukunda! What a miracle! Four hours ago I felt Master's presence in the room; my terrible symptoms at once disappeared. I feel that through his grace I'm entirely well."
      In a few weeks Sasi was stouter and in better health than ever before. [1] But his singular reaction to his healing had an ungrateful tinge: he seldom visited Sri Yukteswar again! My friend told me one day that he so deeply regretted his previous mode of life that he was ashamed to face Master.
      I could only conclude that Sasi's illness had had the contrasting effect of stiffening his will and impairing his manners.
      The first two years of my course at Scottish Church College were drawing to a close. My classroom attendance had been very spasmodic; what little studying I did was only to keep peace with my family. My two private tutors came regularly to my house; I was regularly absent: I can discern at least this one regularity in my scholastic career!
      In India two successful years of college bring an Intermediate Arts diploma; the student may then look forward to another two years and his AB degree.
      The Intermediate Arts final examinations loomed ominously ahead. I fled to Puri, where my guru was spending a few weeks. Vaguely hoping that he would sanction my non-appearance at the finals, I related my embarrassing unpreparedness.
      But Master smiled consolingly. "You've wholeheartedly pursued your spiritual duties, and couldn't help neglecting your college work. Apply yourself diligently to your books for the next week: you shall get through your ordeal without failure."
      I returned to Calcutta, firmly suppressing all reasonable doubts that occasionally arose with unnerving ridicule. Surveying the mountain of books on my table, I felt like a traveller lost in a wilderness. A long period of meditation brought me a labour-saving inspiration. Opening each book at random, I studied only those pages which lay thus exposed. Pursuing this course during eighteen hours a day for a week, I considered myself entitled to advise all succeeding generations on the art of cramming.
      The following days in the examination halls were a justification of my seemingly haphazard procedure. I passed all the tests, though by a hairbreadth. The congratulations of my friends and family were ludicrously mixed with ejaculations betraying their astonishment.
      On his return from Puri, Sri Yukteswar gave me a pleasant surprise. "Your Calcutta studies are now over. I'll see that you pursue your last two years of university work right here in Serampore."
      I was puzzled. "Sir, there's no Bachelor of Arts course in this town." Serampore College, the sole institution of higher learning, offered only a two-year course in Intermediate Arts.
      Master smiled mischievously. "I'm too old to go about collecting donations to establish an AB college for you. I guess I shall have to arrange the matter through someone else."
      Two months later Professor Howells, president of Serampore College, publicly announced that he had succeeded in raising sufficient funds to offer a four-year course. Serampore College became a branch affiliation of the University of Calcutta. I was one of the first students to enrol in Serampore as an AB candidate.
      "Guruji, how kind you're to me! I've been longing to leave Calcutta and be near you every day in Serampore. Professor Howells doesn't dream how much he owes to your silent help!"
      Sri Yukteswar gazed at me with mock severity. "Now you won't have to spend so many hours on trains; what a lot of free time for your studies! Perhaps you'll become less of a last-minute crammer and more of a scholar." But somehow his tone lacked conviction.

[Milind]

Infact one should read the whole book "Autobiography of a Yogi" by Parmhans Yogananda from which the chapter/article has been taken. The book has extract of "Complete Yoga" through an eye of a Common Man who became a Yogi.

It has been said in many Holy Indian texts that, Power of Prana works with Medicine, Blessings and Efforts. Guruji has said the same to his disciple in this chapter.

Good work Dhanyoga !!!