Chapter 17: Life is The Teacher
Each person’s karma is unique and complex. Subtly, the teacher gives each one a custom-designed lesson plan to show us the way out of the maze of our karma. We are given the chance to fail repeatedly in our efforts to learn our lessons. Without judgment or criticism, the divine guide patiently works with us no matter how slow we are in getting the point. The true teacher is a role model for how to live in the world. Through his example, we are shown how to deal with the situations and challenges that confront us: how to overcome obstacles, how always to be gracious with others, how to serve joyfully, to name a few. Over time the divine guide will step back to allow us to guide and train others. Slowly as we grow in spiritual confidence and strength, we must learn to stand on our own two feet and draw from the wisdom we’ve gained within ourselves. We can then use the role model of our teacher to help others.
The following day I received a post card from my guru. “I shall leave Calcutta Wednesday morning,” he had written. “You and Dijen meet the nine o’clock train at Serampore station.”
About eight-thirty on Wednesday morning, a telepathic message from Sri Yukteswar flashed insistently to my mind: “I am delayed; don’t meet the nine o’clock train.”
I conveyed the latest instructions to Dijen, who was already dressed for departure.
“You and your intuition!” My friend’s voice was edged in scorn. “I prefer to trust Master’s written word.”
I shrugged my shoulders and seated myself with quiet finality. Muttering angrily, Dijen made for the door and closed it noisily behind him.
As the room was rather dark, I moved nearer to the window overlooking the street. The scant sunlight suddenly increased to an intense brilliancy in which the iron-barred window completely vanished. Against this dazzling background appeared the clearly materialized figure of Sri Yukteswar!
Bewildered to the point of shock, I rose from my chair and knelt before him. With my customary gesture of respectful greeting at my guru’s feet, I touched his shoes. These were a pair familiar to me, of orange-dyed canvas, soled with rope. His ocher swami cloth brushed against me; I distinctly felt not only the texture of his robe, but also the gritty surface of the shoes, and the pressure of his toes within them. Too much astounded to utter a word, I stood up and gazed at him questioningly.
“I was pleased that you got my telepathic message.” Master’s voice was calm, entirely normal. “I have now finished my business in Calcutta, and shall arrive in Serampore by the ten o’clock train.”
As I still stared mutely, Sri Yukteswar went on, “This is not an apparition, but my flesh and blood form. I have been divinely commanded to give you this experience, rare to achieve on earth. Meet me at the station; you and Dijen will see me coming toward you, dressed as I am now. I shall be preceded by a fellow passenger—a little boy carrying a silver jug.”
My guru placed both hands on my head, with a murmured blessing. As he concluded with the words, “Taba asi,” 1 I heard a peculiar rumbling sound.2 His body began to melt gradually within the piercing light. First his feet and legs vanished, then his torso and head, like a scroll being rolled up. To the very last, I could feel his fingers resting lightly on my hair. The effulgence faded; nothing remained before me but the barred window and a pale stream of sunlight.
