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"Rajendra and the others can go ahead now, and wait for you at Calcutta. There will be plenty of time to catch the last evening train leaving Calcutta for Kashmir." "Sir, I don't care to go without you," I said mournfully. My friends paid not the slightest attention to my remark. They summoned a hackney carriage and departed with all the luggage. Kanai and I sat quietly at our guru's feet.
We would often see Sri Yukteswar standing on his second-floor balcony, welcoming our approach with a smile. One afternoon Kanai, a young hermitage resident, met Dijen and me at the door with disappointing news. "Master is not here; he was summoned to Calcutta by an urgent note." The following day I received a post card from my guru. "I shall leave Calcutta Wednesday morning," he had written.
In view of the paramount importance thus attached to purity, a celebrated couplet of ancient times is often quoted as the unique and complete canon of Shinto morality, *His nails were extracted and his beard was plucked out. "Unsought in prayer, "The gods will guard "The pure of heart."* *Kokoro dani Makoto no michi ni Kanai naba Inorazu tote mo Kami ya mamoran.
I bethought myself of Behari, previously a servant in my family home, who was now employed by a Serampore schoolmaster. As I walked along briskly, I met my guru in front of the Christian church near Serampore Courthouse. "Where are you going?" Sri Yukteswar's face was unsmiling. "Sir, I hear that you and Kanai will not take the trip we have been planning. I am seeking Behari.
"I hardly think your theoretical trip needs such practical props," he remarked, "but here they are." That afternoon I exhibited my booty to Sri Yukteswar. Though he smiled at my enthusiasm, his words were noncommittal: "I would like to go; we shall see." He made no comment when I asked his little hermitage disciple, Kanai, to accompany us.
Groping blindly toward my guru, I collapsed before him, attacked by all symptoms of the dread Asiatic cholera. Sri Yukteswar and Kanai carried me to the sitting room. Racked with agony, I cried, "Master, I surrender my life to you;" for I believed it was indeed fast ebbing from the shores of my body. Sri Yukteswar put my head on his lap, stroking my forehead with angelic tenderness.
A disciple named Kanai and myself were also present. The officer's attitude toward Master was offensive. "It will do you good to leave the shadows of your hermitage and breathe the honest air of a courtroom." The deputy grinned contemptuously. I could not contain myself. "Another word of your impudence and you will be on the floor!" I advanced threateningly. "You wretch!"
This is done either by subtle praise, which can then only refer to the person addressed or by more or less bald self-depreciation, which can then only refer to the first person. "Go kanai," "honorable within the house," can only mean, according to Japanese etiquette, "your wife," or "your family," while "gu-sai," "foolish wife," can only mean "my wife."
He has refused to go." I was equally grieved and obdurate. "I will not give Father a third chance to ridicule my chimerical plans for Kashmir. Come; the rest of us will go anyhow." Rajendra agreed; I left the ashram to find a servant. Kanai, I knew, would not take the trip without Master, and someone was needed to look after the luggage.
He had worked his will through Behari and my Uncle Sarada and Rajendra and the others in such an inconspicuous manner that probably everyone but myself thought the situations had been logically normal. As Sri Yukteswar never failed to observe his social obligations, he instructed Kanai to go for a specialist, and to notify my uncle. "Master," I protested, "only you can heal me.
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