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Hoping to allay suspicion in his politically troubled mind, I touchingly explained my predicament. He took me to his home and offered a hospitable welcome. "Ranbajpur is far from here," he remarked. "At the crossroad, you should have turned left, not right." My earlier informant, I thought sadly, was a distinct menace to travelers.
The following morning I sought out Behari Pundit, my Sanskrit professor at Scottish Church College. "Sir, you have told me of your friendship with a great disciple of Lahiri Mahasaya. Please give me his address." "You mean Ram Gopal Muzumdar. I call him the 'sleepless saint. He is always awake in an ecstatic consciousness. His home is at Ranbajpur, near Tarakeswar."
Short and slight, he was physically unimpressive save for an extraordinary pair of piercing dark eyes. "I was planning to leave Ranbajpur, but your purpose was good, so I awaited you." He shook his finger in my astounded face. "Aren't you clever to think that, unannounced, you could pounce on me? That professor Behari had no right to give you my address."
Cosmic abstractions are not alien even to the humblest Indian peasant; he has been accused by Westerners, in fact, of living on abstractions! My own mood at the moment was so austere that I felt disinclined to bow before the stone symbol. God should be sought, I reflected, only within the soul. I left the temple without genuflection and walked briskly toward the outlying village of Ranbajpur.
After a relishable meal of coarse rice, lentil-DHAL, and curry of potatoes with raw bananas, I retired to a small hut adjoining the courtyard. Sleep was inconsiderable that night; I prayed deeply to be directed to the secret yogi, Ram Gopal. As the first streaks of dawn penetrated the fissures of my dark room, I set out for Ranbajpur.
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