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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Teflon Billy" data-source="post: 542407" data-attributes="member: 264">Ok, folks...I'm not going to wait for the others to get the writeups in. Here are their pics and their Stats.Writeups to come.From the depths of Bombay's slums to the heights of Tibet's temples...Evil Beware! for here comes the crimebusting Mystical Yogic power of THE FAKIR <img src="http://www.members.shaw.ca/PanzerGeist/fakir.JPG" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /> I passed my first eight years at Gorakhpur. This was my birthplace in the United Provinces of northeastern India. We were eight children: four boys and four girls. I, Babu Nath Pranabanandaji, was the second son and the fourth child. Father and Mother were Bengalis, of the Kshatriya caste. (traditionally, the second caste of warriors and rulers.) Both were blessed with saintly nature. Their mutual love, tranquil and dignified, never expressed itself frivolously. A perfect parental harmony was the calm center for the revolving tumult of eight young lives. Father was kind, grave, at times stern. Loving him dearly, we children yet observed a certain reverential distance. An outstanding mathematician and logician, he was guided principally by his intellect. But Mother was a queen of hearts, and taught us only through love. After her death, Father displayed more of his inner tenderness. In Mother's presence we tasted our earliest bitter-sweet acquaintance with the scriptures. Tales from the Mahabharata and Ramayana were resourcefully summoned to meet the exigencies of discipline. Instruction and chastisement went hand in hand. Father's position was similar to that of a vice-president, in the Bengal-Nagpur Railway, one of India's large companies. His work involved traveling, and our family lived in several cities during my childhood. Lahiri Mahasaya initiated my parents in the spiritual practice of Kriya Yoga. Lahiri Mahasaya took a definite interest in my birth. Lahiri left this world shortly after I had entered it. His picture, in an ornate frame, always graced our family altar in the various cities to which Father was transferred by his office. Many a morning and evening found Mother and me meditating before an improvised shrine, offering flowers dipped in fragrant sandalwood paste. As I grew, the thought of the master grew with me. In meditation I would often see his photographic image emerge from its small frame and, taking a living form, sit before me. When I attempted to touch the feet of his luminous body, it would change and again become the picture. As childhood slipped into boyhood, I found Lahiri Mahasaya transformed in my mind from a little image, cribbed in a frame, to a living, enlightening presence. I frequently prayed to him in moments of trial or confusion, finding within me his solacing direction. At first I grieved because he was no longer physically living. As I began to discover his secret omnipresence, I lamented no more. He had often written to those of his disciples who were over-anxious to see him: "Why come to view my bones and flesh, when I am ever within range of your kutastha (spiritual sight)?" Father and I, in gala spirits, were planning to join the family in time for my eldest brother's marriage ceremony. Shortly before the great day, however, I had an ominous vision. It was in Bareilly on a midnight. As I slept beside Father on the piazza of our bungalow, I was awakened by a peculiar flutter of the mosquito netting over the bed. The flimsy curtains parted and I saw the beloved form of my mother. "Awaken your father!" Her voice was only a whisper. "Take the first available train, at four o'clock this morning. Rush to Calcutta if you would see me!" The wraithlike figure vanished. When we reached our Calcutta home, it was only to confront the stunning mystery of death. I collapsed into an almost lifeless state. Years passed before any reconciliation entered my heart. Storming the very gates of heaven, my cries at last summoned the Divine Mother. Her words brought final healing to my suppurating wounds: "It is I who have watched over thee, life after life, in the tenderness of many mothers! See in My gaze the two black eyes, the lost beautiful eyes, thou seekest!" Intense pangs of longing for God assailed me. I felt powerfully drawn to the Himalayas. One year later, I learned that mother had an experience with a swami many years before. She wrote to me the swami's words: "'You are to be the custodian of a certain silver amulet. I will not give it to you today; to demonstrate the truth in my words, the talisman shall materialize in your hands tomorrow as you meditate. On your deathbed, you must instruct your eldest son Ananta to keep the amulet for one year and then to hand it over to your second son. Babu will understand the meaning of the talisman from the great ones. He should receive it about the time he is ready to renounce all worldly hopes and start his vital search for God. When he has retained the amulet for some years, and when it has served its purpose, it shall vanish. Even if kept in the most secret spot, it shall return whence it came." A blaze of illumination came over me with possession of the amulet; many dormant memories awakened. The talisman, round and anciently quaint, was covered with Sanskrit characters. I understood that it came from teachers of past lives, who were invisibly guiding my steps. A further significance there was, indeed; but one does not reveal fully the heart of an amulet. In my new dignity, I was now openly planning to leave home. Together with a young friend, Jitendra Mazumdar, I decided to join a Mahamandal hermitage in Benares, and receive its spiritual discipline. The sole treasure which had accompanied me from Calcutta was the sadhu's silver amulet bequeathed to me by Mother. Guarding it for years, I now had it carefully hidden in my ashram room. To renew my joy in the talismanic testimony, one morning I opened the locked box. The sealed covering untouched, lo! the amulet was gone. It had vanished, in accordance with the sadhu's prediction, into the ether whence he had summoned it. In the hermitage I met Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri, who was to be my guru. Years were spent under his tutelage. He did not support my wish to go to the Himalayas but I took to the road just the same, until I met the Sleepless Saint "Young yogi, I see you are running away from your master. He has everything you need; you must return to him. Mountains cannot be your guru." Ram Gopal was repeating the same thought which Sri Yukteswar had expressed at our last meeting. "Masters are under no cosmic compulsion to limit their residence." My companion glanced at me quizzically. "The Himalayas in India and Tibet have no monopoly on saints. What one does not trouble to find within will not be discovered by transporting the body hither and yon. As soon as the devotee is willing to go even to the ends of the earth for spiritual enlightenment, his guru appears near-by." I silently agreed, recalling my prayer in the Benares hermitage, followed by the meeting with Sri Yukteswar in a crowded lane. "Are you able to have a little room where you can close the door and be alone? That is your cave." The yogi bestowed on me a gaze of illumination which I have never forgotten. "That is your sacred mountain. That is where you will find the kingdom of God." His simple words instantaneously banished my lifelong obsession for the Himalayas. In a burning paddy field I awoke from the monticolous dreams of eternal snows. Years passed. On his return from Puri, Sri Yukteswar gave me a pleasant surprise. "Your Calcutta studies are now over. I will see that you pursue your last two years of university work right here in Serampore." Two months later Serampore College became a branch affiliation of the University of Calcutta. I was one of the first students to enroll in Serampore as an A.B. candidate. My father had been anxious for me to accept an executive position with the Bengal-Nagpur Railway. But I refused it. As I explained this to my Master, I added hopefully, "Sir, will you not make me a monk of the Swami Order?" I looked pleadingly at my guru. During preceding years, in order to test the depth of my determination, he had refused this same request. Today, however, he smiled graciously. "Very well; tomorrow I will initiate you into swamiship." He went on quietly, "I am happy that you have persisted in your desire to be a monk. Lahiri Mahasaya often said: 'If you don't invite God to be your summer Guest, He won't come in the winter of your life. I am averse to ceremonies," Sri Yukteswar remarked. "I will make you a swami in the bidwat (non-ceremonious) manner." The bibidisa or elaborate initiation into swamiship includes a fire ceremony, during which symbolical funeral rites are performed. The physical body of the disciple is represented as dead, cremated in the flame of wisdom. The newly-made swami is then given a chant, such as: "This atma is Brahma" or "Thou art That" or "I am He." Sri Yukteswar, however, with his love of simplicity, dispensed with all formal rites and merely asked me to select a new name. "I will give you the privilege of choosing it yourself," he said, smiling. "Poojananda," I replied, after a moment's thought. The name literally means "Bliss (ananda) through prayer (pooja)." I will recount here the last words given to me by Bhaduri Mahasaya. Shortly before I embarked for the West, I sought him out and humbly knelt for his farewell blessing: "Son, go to America. Take the dignity of hoary India for your shield. Victory is written on your brow; the noble distant people will well receive you."</blockquote>

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