Autobiography of a Yogi. Paramahansa Yogananda

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СКАЧАТЬ bowls, are virtually identical with those of single nerve fibers. Furthermore, they found that nitella fibers, on being excited, propagate electrical waves that are similar in every way, except velocity, to those of the nerve fibers in animals and man. The electrical nerve impulses in the plant were found to be much slower than those in animals. This discovery was therefore seized upon by the Columbia workers as a means for taking slow motion pictures of the passage of the electrical impulses in nerves.

      The nitella plant thus may become a sort of Rosetta stone for deciphering the closely guarded secrets close to the very borderland of mind and matter.

      The poet Rabindranath Tagore was a stalwart friend of India's idealistic scientist. To him, the sweet Bengali singer addressed the following lines: ^8–6

      O Hermit, call thou in the authentic words

       Of that old hymn called sama; "Rise! Awake!" Call to the man who boasts his shastric lore From vain pedantic wranglings profitless, Call to that foolish braggart to come forth Out on the face of nature, this broad earth, Send forth this call unto thy scholar band; Together round thy sacrifice of fire Let them all gather. So may our India, Our ancient land unto herself return O once again return to steadfast work, To duty and devotion, to her trance Of earnest meditation; let her sit Once more unruffled, greedless, strifeless, pure, O once again upon her lofty seat And platform, teacher of all lands.

8–1: "All science is transcendental or else passes away. Botany is now acquiring the right theory-the avatars of Brahma will presently be the textbooks of natural history."-Emerson.

8–2: From the Latin root, crescere, to increase. For his crescograph and other inventions, Bose was knighted in 1917.

8–3: The lotus flower is an ancient divine symbol in India; its unfolding petals suggest the expansion of the soul; the growth of its pure beauty from the mud of its origin holds a benign spiritual promise.

8–4: "At present, only the sheerest accident brings India into the purview of the American college student. Eight universities (Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Princeton, Johns Hopkins, Pennsylvania, Chicago, and California) have chairs of Indology or Sanskrit, but India is virtually unrepresented in departments of history, philosophy, fine arts, political science, sociology, or any of the other departments of intellectual experience in which, as we have seen, India has made great contributions. … We believe, consequently, that no department of study, particularly in the humanities, in any major university can be fully equipped without a properly trained specialist in the Indic phases of its discipline. We believe, too, that every college which aims to prepare its graduates for intelligent work in the world which is to be theirs to live in, must have on its staff a scholar competent in the civilization of India."-Extracts from an article by Professor W. Norman Brown of the University of Pennsylvania which appeared in the May, 1939, issue of the Bulletin of the American Council of Learned Societies, 907 15th St., Washington, D. C., 25 cents copy. This issue (#28) contains over 100 pages of a "Basic Bibliography for Indic Studies."

8–5: The atomic structure of matter was well-known to the ancient Hindus. One of the six systems of Indian philosophy is Vaisesika, from the Sanskrit root visesas, "atomic individuality." One of the foremost Vaisesika expounders was Aulukya, also called Kanada, "the atom- eater," born about 2800 years ago.

      In an article in East-West, April, 1934, a summary of Vaisesika scientific knowledge was given as follows: "Though the modern 'atomic theory' is generally considered a new advance of science, it was brilliantly expounded long ago by Kanada, 'the atom-eater.' The Sanskrit anus can be properly translated as 'atom' in the latter's literal Greek sense of 'uncut' or indivisible. Other scientific expositions of Vaisesika treatises of the B.C. era include (1) the movement of needles toward magnets, (2) the circulation of water in plants, (3) akash or ether, inert and structureless, as a basis for transmitting subtle forces, (4) the solar fire as the cause of all other forms of heat, (5) heat as the cause of molecular change, (6) the law of gravitation as caused by the quality that inheres in earth- atoms to give them their attractive power or downward pull, (7) the kinetic nature of all energy; causation as always rooted in an expenditure of energy or a redistribution of motion, (8) universal dissolution through the disintegration of atoms, (9) the radiation of heat and light rays, infinitely small particles, darting forth in all directions with inconceivable speed (the modern 'cosmic rays' theory), (10) the relativity of time and space.

      "Vaisesika assigned the origin of the world to atoms, eternal in their nature, i.e., their ultimate peculiarities. These atoms were regarded as possessing an incessant vibratory motion. … The recent discovery that an atom is a miniature solar system would be no news to the old Vaisesika philosophers, who also reduced time to its furthest mathematical concept by describing the smallest unit of time (kala) as the period taken by an atom to traverse its own unit of space."

8–6: Translated from the Bengali of Rabindranath Tagore, by Manmohan Ghosh, in Viswa-Bharati.

CHAPTER: 9

       Table of Contents

      The Blissful Devotee And His Cosmic Romance

       Table of Contents

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      "Little sir, please be seated. I am talking to my Divine Mother."

      Silently I had entered the room in great awe. The angelic appearance of Master Mahasaya fairly dazzled me. With silky white beard and large lustrous eyes, he seemed an incarnation of purity. His upraised chin and folded hands apprized me that my first visit had disturbed him in the midst of his devotions.

      His simple words of greeting produced the most violent effect my nature had so far experienced. The bitter separation of my mother's death I had thought the measure of all anguish. Now an agony at separation from my Divine Mother was an indescribable torture of the spirit. I fell moaning to the floor.

      "Little sir, quiet yourself!" The saint was sympathetically distressed.

      Abandoned in some oceanic desolation, I clutched his feet as the sole raft of my rescue.

      "Holy sir, thy intercession! Ask Divine Mother if I find any favor in Her sight!"

      This promise is one not easily bestowed; the master was constrained to silence.

      Beyond reach of doubt, I was convinced that Master Mahasaya was in intimate converse with the Universal Mother. It was deep humiliation to realize that my eyes were blind to Her who even at this moment was perceptible to the faultless gaze of the saint. Shamelessly gripping his feet, deaf to his gentle remonstrances, I besought him again and again for his intervening grace.

      "I will make your plea to the Beloved." The master's capitulation came with a slow, compassionate smile.

      What power in those few words, that my being should know release from its stormy exile?

      "Sir, remember your pledge! I shall return soon for Her message!" Joyful anticipation rang in my voice that only a moment ago had been sobbing in sorrow.

      Descending the long stairway, I was overwhelmed by memories. This house at 50 Amherst Street, СКАЧАТЬ