187
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
passengera 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," 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.