Overview and Significance
Sri Yukteswar Giri (also written Sri Yuktesvara, Sri Yukteshwar) (10 May 1855 – 9 March 1936) is the monastic name of Priya Nath Karar (also spelled as Priya Nath Karada and Preonath Karar), an Indian monk and yogi, and the guru of Paramahansa Yogananda and Swami Satyananda Giri. Born in Serampore, West Bengal, Sri Yukteswar was a Kriya yogi, a Jyotisha (Vedic astrologer), a scholar of the Bhagavad Gita, and the Upanishads, an educator, author, and astronomer. He was a disciple of Lahiri Mahasaya of Varanasi and a member of the Giri branch of the Swami Order. As a guru, he had two ashrams, one in Serampore and another in Puri, Odisha, between which he alternated his residence throughout the year as he trained disciples.
Described by Tibetologist W.Y. Evans-Wentz as being “of gentle mien and voice, of pleasing presence,” and with “high character and holiness,” Sri Yukteswar was a progressive-minded figure in 19th-century Serampore society. He regularly held religious festivals around the towns and at his ashrams throughout the year, created a “Satsanga Sabha” spiritual study organization, established syllabi for educational institutions, and re-analyzed the Vedic astrological yugas. Noted for his sharp mind and insightful knowledge, he became a respected guru throughout the greater Kolkata area to his Kriya yoga students and regularly invited individuals from all social backgrounds to his ashrams to discuss and exchange ideas on a range of topics.
As a guru, he was nonetheless known for his candid insight, stern nature, and strict disciplinary training methods, as noted by his disciple Yogananda in his autobiography. The rigorous nature of his training eventually prepared his disciples, such as Satyananda and Yogananda himself, for their intense social work in India and America, respectively. Following the high ideals and “penetrating insight” with which he lived, Sri Yukteswar was considered by Yogananda as a Jnanavatar, or “Incarnation of Wisdom.”
When describing his Guru Sri Yukteswar, Sri Paramahamsa Yogananda wrote, “Softer than a flower, where kindness is concerned; stronger than thunder, where principles are at stake.”
Life History
Sri Yukteswar was born as Priya Nath Karar to a wealthy businessman, Kshetranath Karar, and his wife, Kadambini, in Serampore, India. Priya Nath lost his father at a young age and managed his family’s landholdings. A bright student, he passed the entrance exams and enrolled in Srirampur Christian Missionary College, where he developed an interest in the Bible. This interest would later express itself in his book, The Holy Science, which discusses the unity behind the scientific principles underlying Yoga and the Bible. He also attended Calcutta Medical College (then affiliated with the University of Calcutta) for almost two years.
A particular episode led to an abrupt ending of Priyanath’s College education. The episode is interesting as it also reflects on the mental setup of a man destined to be one of the greatest spiritual gurus of Kriya Yoga in modern times. Once, Priyanath was attending his physics class where his teacher explained the human eye by comparing it with the technical functions of a photographic camera. When Priyanath didn’t understand his teacher’s logic on how an inverted image on the retina failed to see anything erect, he repeatedly asked his teacher for a better explanation. Finally, his teacher got angry and asked him to leave the class. For a man of serious convictions like Priyanath, it wasn’t possible to leave his stand at any cost, and he left the class and the college for good. He talked about this episode with the Principal of Calcutta Medical College, who allowed him to attend lectures on various scientific subjects, including Chemistry, Biology, Physics, Physiology, and Anatomy. He attended all the classes with total dedication to clarify his concepts on different topics in science.
After leaving college, Priya Nath married and had a daughter. Unfortunately, his wife died a few years after their marriage. He eventually was formally initiated into the monastic Swami order as “Sri Yuktesvar Giri” (note: thus ‘Sri’ is not a separate honorific, but part of his given name). In 1884, Priya Nath met Lahiri Mahasaya, who became his Guru and initiated him into the path of Kriya Yoga. Sri Yukteswar spent a great deal of time in the next several years in the company of his guru, often visiting Lahiri Mahasaya in Benares. In 1894, while attending the Kumbha Mela in Allahabad, he met the Guru of Lahiri Mahasaya, Mahavatar Babaji, who asked Sri Yukteswar to write a book comparing Hindu scriptures and the Christian Bible. Mahavatar Babaji also bestowed on Sri Yukteswar the title of ‘Swami’ at that meeting. Sri Yukteswar completed the requested book in 1894, naming it Kaivalya Darsanam, or The Holy Science. Babaji told him that he would send Sri Yukteswar a disciple who would share the teachings of yoga in the West one day. This disciple turned out to be Paramhansa Yogananda, best known for his book, Autobiography of a Yogi.
Sri Yukteswar established his first ashram by converting his two-story home into a spiritual abode for his disciples. He stayed there with many of his students, and the place was named ‘Priyadham.’ Again, in 1903, he established his second ashram at Puri, Orissa. The ashram was named ‘Kararashram.’ Throughout his life, Sri Yukteswar taught his students in these two ashrams and started his ‘Sadhu Sabha’ organization to spread his teachings further.
An interest in education resulted in Sri Yukteswar developing a syllabus for schools on physics, physiology, geography, astronomy, and astrology. He also wrote a book for Bengalis on learning basic English and Hindi called First Book and an introductory text on astrology. Later, he became interested in women’s education, which was uncommon in Bengal at that time.
Yukteswar was exceptionally skilled in Jyotiṣa (Indian astrology) and prescribed his student’s various astrological gemstones and bangles. He also studied astronomy and science, as evidenced in the formulation of his Yuga theory in The Holy Science.
He had only a few long-term disciples, but in 1910, the young Mukunda Lal Ghosh would become Sri Yukteswar’s most well-known disciple, eventually spreading Kriya Yoga’s teachings throughout the world. This student would become famous as Paramahansa Yogananda, known by his church of all religions – Self-Realization Fellowship/ Yogoda Satsanga Society of India. Yogananda attributed Sri Yukteswar’s small number of disciples to his rigorous training methods, which Yogananda said: “cannot be described as other than drastic.”
Author W.Y. Evans-Wentz described his impression of Sri Yukteswar in the preface to Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi, “Sri Yukteswar was of gentle manner and voice, of pleasing presence, and worthy of the reverence, which his followers spontaneously accorded to him. Whether of his own community or not, every person who knew him held him in the highest esteem. I vividly recall his tall, straight, ascetic figure, garbed in the saffron-colored garb of one who has renounced worldly quests, as he stood at the entrance of the hermitage to give me welcome. His hair was long and somewhat curly, and his face bearded. His body was muscularly firm but slender and well-formed, and his step energetic.”
Sri Yukteswar (at about his 80th year) attained mahasamadhi at Karar Ashram, Puri, India, on 9 March 1936. It is noteworthy that he consciously left the world while peacefully meditating in a lotus position. At the time of his mahasamadhi, Yogananda was in Calcutta and arrived in Puri soon after he heard the message.
As Paramhansa Yogananda wrote in chapter 42 of Autobiography of Yogi,
“I entered the ashram room where Master’s body, unimaginably lifelike, was sitting in the lotus posture—a picture of health and loveliness. A short time before his passing, my guru had been slightly ill with fever, but before the day of his ascension into the Infinite, his body had become completely well. No matter how often I looked at his dear form, I could not realize that his life had departed. His skin was smooth and soft; in his face was a beatific expression of tranquillity. He had consciously relinquished his body at the hour of mystic summoning.”
Soon after, he appeared to Yogananda and described to him the nature of the afterlife. This description can be found in the Autobiography of a Yogi.
Tradition and Gurus
Sri Yukteswar was originally initiated into the Swami order, later initiated by Sri Lahiri Mahasaya into Kriya Yoga.
Teachings
Kriya Yoga
Sri Yukteswar dedicated his life to disseminating the practice of Kriya Yoga. He was followed by thousands of disciples and was known for his great sincerity and strict discipline.
Regarding the role of the Guru, Sri Yukteswar said, “Look, there is no point in blindly believing that after I touch you, you will be saved, or that a chariot from heaven will be waiting for you. Because of the guru’s attainment, the sanctifying touch becomes a helper in the blossoming of knowledge, and being respectful towards having acquired this blessing, you must yourself become a sage and proceed on the path to elevate your Soul by applying the techniques of sadhana given by the guru.”
Some of his quotes:
“It is the spirit of God that actively sustains every form and force in the universe. The Lord has created all men from the limitless joy of his being.”
“Forget the past. The vanished lives of all men are dark with many shames. Human conduct is ever unreliable until anchored in the divine. Everything in the future will improve if you are making a spiritual effort now.”
Sri Yukteshwar on Astrology
“It is never a question of belief; the only scientific attitude one can take on any subject is whether it is true. The law of gravitation worked as efficiently before Newton as after him. The cosmos would be somewhat chaotic if its laws could not operate without the sanction of human belief.
“Charlatans have brought the stellar science to its present state of disrepute. Astrology is too vast, both mathematically and philosophically, to be rightly grasped except by men of profound understanding. If ignoramuses misread the heavens and see a scrawl instead of a script, that is to be expected in this imperfect world. Nevertheless, one should not dismiss wisdom with the ‘wise.’
“All parts of creation are linked together and interchange their influences. The balanced rhythm of the universe is rooted in reciprocity. In his human aspect, man has to combat two sets of forces — first, the tumults within his being, caused by the admixture of earth, water, fire, air, and ethereal elements; second, the external disintegrating powers of nature. So long as man struggles with his mortality, he is affected by the myriad mutations of heaven and earth.
“Astrology is the study of man’s response to planetary stimuli. The stars have no conscious benevolence or animosity; they merely send forth positive and negative radiations. Of themselves, these do not help or harm humanity but offer a lawful channel for the outward operation of cause-effect equilibriums which each man has set into motion in the past.
A child is born on that day and at that hour when the celestial rays are in mathematical harmony with his individual karma.
His horoscope is a challenging portrait, revealing his unalterable past and its probable future results. But the natal chart can be rightly interpreted only by men of intuitive wisdom: these are few.
“The message boldly blazoned across the heavens at the moment of birth is not meant to emphasize fate — the result of past good and evil — but to arouse man’s will to escape from his universal thralldom. What he has done, he can undo. None other than himself was the instigator of the causes of whatever effects are now prevalent in his life. He can overcome any limitation because he created it by his actions in the first place and because he has spiritual resources which are not subject to planetary pressure.
“Superstitious awe of astrology makes one an automaton, slavishly dependent on mechanical guidance. But the wise man defeats his planets — which is to say, his past — by transferring his allegiance from the creation to the Creator.
“The more he realizes his unity with Spirit, the less he can be dominated by matter. The soul is ever-free; it is deathless because birthless. Therefore, it cannot be regimented by stars.
“Man is a soul and has a body. When he correctly places his sense of identity, he leaves behind all compulsive patterns. So long as he remains confused in his normal state of spiritual amnesia, he will know the subtle fetters of environmental law.
“God is harmony; the devotee who attunes himself will never perform any action amiss. He will correctly and naturally time his activities following astrological law. After deep prayer and meditation, he is in touch with his divine consciousness; there is no greater power than that inward protection.”
Yuga Theory by Sri Yukteshwar
Sri Yukteswar’s introduction to The Holy Science includes his explanation of the Yuga Cycle, which differs from the traditional position because of his premise that the earth is now in the age of Dwapara Yuga, not the Kali Yuga that most Indian pundits believe to be the current age. His theory is based on the idea that the sun “takes some star for its dual and revolves around it in about 24,000 years of our earth – a celestial phenomenon which causes the backward movement of the equinoctial points around the zodiac.” The standard explanation for this celestial phenomenon is precession, the ‘wobbling’ rotating movement of the earth axis. Research into Sri Yukteswar’s explanation is being conducted by the Binary Research Institute.
He further states that the sun also has another motion by which it revolves around a grand center called Vishnu-Naabhi, which is the seat of the creative power Brahma, the universal magnetism. Brahma regulates Dharma, the mental virtues of the inner world. When the sun in its revolution around its dual comes to the place nearest to this grand center, the seat of Brahma (an event which takes place when the autumnal equinox comes to the first point of Aries), Dharma the mental virtue becomes so developed that man can easily comprehend all, even the mysteries of Spirit.
In The Holy Science, Sri Yukteswar concludes that we are currently in the beginning stages of Dwapara Yuga, which began around 1699 A.D., moving closer to the grand center, and will pass into Treta Yuga around the year 4099 A.D.
If we represent the yugas in a clock, the lowest spiritual time would be at 6 o’clock, approx. Year 550 A.D., which is the center of Kali Yuga (more or less the Middle Ages), and the highest point is 12 o’clock, in the center of Satya Yuga (literally Age of Truth, as sat=truth), or Golden Age. It takes approx. 12,000 years from the lowest to the highest point, and about 24,000 in a complete turn. Now we would be at approx. 7 o’clock, ascending in Dwapara Yuga or Bronze Age which started in 1699.
[Note : The graphic in the image displays the Zodiac symbols in its inner circle based on their alignment with the Northern Hemisphere AUTUMNAL Equinox, NOT the Vernal Equinox. The Great Year/Yuga Cycle commences when the Autumnal Equinox is aligned with the First Point of the Constellation Aries, as stated above (ref “The Holy Science” by Sri Yukteswar). Hence, they may appear to be rotated 180 degrees to those who typically use the Northern Hemisphere VERNAL Equinox as their reference point for the Zodiac ‘Ages’]
Sacred Practices/Sadhana
After being initiated by his Guru Sri Lahiri Mahasaya into Kriya Yoga, that became the only sadhana prescribed to his disciples. It is also noteworthy that Sri Yukteswar observed a vegetarian diet which helped to speed up spiritual progress.
Kriya Yoga is a yogic science that can quicken human evolution. The ancient Yogic text “The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali” describes Kriya Yoga in the second chapter. Kriya Yoga, the origin of God-communion taught by Lord Jesus Christ and Lord Sri Krishna, frees the mind from sensory obstacles. Mahavatar Babaji is known for manifesting a majestic palace to initiate Lahiri Mahasaya into Kriya Yoga. The three Kriya Lineage Masters who spread this ancient spiritual science in modern times are Sri Lahiri Mahasaya, Sri Yukteswar, and Paramahansa Yogananda. Babaji avowed to Lahiri Mahasaya, “The Kriya Yoga that I am giving to the world through you in this 19th century is a revival of the same science that Krishna gave millenniums ago to Arjuna, and later was known to Patanjali and Christ, St. John, St. Paul, and other disciples.”
Miracles
The Resurrection of Sri Yukteswar and His Discussion of the Nature of the Astral and Causal Worlds as described by Paramahamsa Yogananda in Autobiography of a Yogi.
Sitting on my (Paramhansa Yogananda’s) bed in the Bombay hotel at three o’clock in the afternoon of June 19, 1936, I was roused from my meditation by a heavenly light. Before my open and astonished eyes, the whole room was transformed into a strange world, the sunlight transmuted into supernal splendour.
Waves of rapture engulfed me as I beheld the flesh and blood form of Sri Yukteswar!
“My son!” Master spoke tenderly, on his face an angel-bewitching smile.
For the first time in my life, I did not kneel at his feet in greeting but instantly advanced to gather him hungrily in my arms. Moment of moments! The anguish of past months was toll I counted weightless against the torrential bliss now descending.
“Master mine, beloved of my heart, why did you leave me?” I was incoherent in excess of joy. “Why did you let me go to the Kumbha Mela? How bitterly have I blamed myself for leaving you!”
“I did not want to interfere with your happy anticipation of seeing the pilgrimage spot where first I met Babaji. I left you only for a little while; am I not with you again?”
“But is it you, Master, the same Lion of God? Are you wearing a body like the one I buried beneath the cruel Puri sands?”
“Yes, my child, I am the same. This is a flesh and blood body. Though I see it as ethereal, to your sight it is physical. I created an entirely new body from the cosmic atoms, exactly like that cosmic-dream physical body you laid beneath the dream-sands at Puri in your dream-world. I am, in truth, resurrected — not on earth but on an astral planet. Its inhabitants are better able than earthly humanity to meet my lofty standards. There you and your exalted loved ones shall someday come to be with me.”
“Deathless guru, tell me more!”
Master gave a quick, mirthful chuckle. “Please, dear one,” he said, “won’t you relax your hold a little?”
“Only a little!” I had been embracing him with an octopus grip. I could detect the same faint, fragrant, natural odour characteristic of his body before. The thrilling touch of his divine flesh persists around the inner sides of my arms and in my palms whenever I recall those glorious hours.
“As prophets are sent on earth to help men work out their physical karma, so I have been directed by God to serve on an astral planet as a saviour,” Sri Yukteswar explained. “It is called Hiranyaloka or ‘Illumined Astral Planet.’ I am aiding advanced beings to rid themselves of astral karma and thus attain liberation from astral rebirths. The dwellers on Hiranyaloka are highly developed spiritually; all of them had acquired, in their last earth-incarnation, the meditation-given power of consciously leaving their physical bodies at death. No one can enter Hiranyaloka unless he has passed on earth beyond the state of savikalpa samadhi into the higher state of nirvikalpa samadhi.
“The Hiranyaloka inhabitants have already passed through the ordinary astral spheres, where nearly all beings from earth must go at death; there they worked out many seeds of their past actions in the astral worlds. None but advanced beings can perform such redemptive work effectively in the astral worlds. Then, in order to free their souls more fully from the cocoon of karmic traces lodged in their astral bodies, these higher beings were drawn by cosmic law to be reborn with new astral bodies on Hiranyaloka, the astral sun or heaven, where I have resurrected to help them. There are also highly advanced beings on Hiranyaloka who have come from the superior, subtler, causal world.”
My mind was now in such perfect attunement with my guru’s that he was conveying his word-pictures to me partly by speech and partly by thought-transference. I was thus quickly receiving his idea-tabloids.
“You have read in the scriptures,” Master went on, “that God encased the human soul successively in three bodies — the idea, or causal, body; the subtle astral body, seat of man’s mental and emotional natures; and the gross physical body. On earth, man is equipped with his physical senses. An astral being works with his consciousness and feelings and a body made of lifetrons. A causal-bodied being remains in the blissful realm of ideas. My work is with those astral beings who are preparing to enter the causal world.”
“Adorable Master, please tell me more about the astral cosmos.” Though I had slightly relaxed my embrace at Sri Yukteswar’s request, my arms were still around him. Treasure beyond all treasures, my guru who had laughed at death to reach me!
“There are many astral planets, teeming with astral beings,” Master began. “The inhabitants use astral planes, or masses of light, to travel from one planet to another, faster than electricity and radioactive energies.
“The astral universe, made of various subtle light and colour vibrations, is hundreds of times larger than the material cosmos. The entire physical creation hangs like a little solid basket under the huge luminous balloon of the astral sphere. Just as many physical suns and stars roam in space, countless astral solar and stellar systems exist. Their planets have astral suns and moons, more beautiful than the physical ones. The astral luminaries resemble the aurora borealis — the sunny astral aurora being more dazzling than the mild-rayed moon-aurora. The astral day and night are longer than those of earth.
“The astral world is infinitely beautiful, clean, pure, and orderly. There are no dead planets or barren lands. The terrestrial blemishes — weeds, bacteria, insects, snakes — are absent. Unlike the variable climates and seasons of the earth, the astral planets maintain the even temperature of eternal spring, with occasional luminous white snow and rain of many-coloured lights. Astral planets abound in opal lakes and bright seas, and rainbow rivers.
“The ordinary astral universe — not the subtler astral heaven of Hiranyaloka — is peopled with millions of astral beings who have come, more or less recently, from the earth, and also with myriads of fairies, mermaids, fishes, animals, goblins, gnomes, demigods and spirits, all residing on different astral planets in accordance with karmic qualifications. Various spheric mansions or vibratory regions are provided for good and evil spirits. Good ones can travel freely, but evil spirits are confined to limited zones. In the same way that human beings live on the surface of the earth, worms inside the soil, fish in water, and birds in air, so astral beings of different grades are assigned to suitable vibratory quarters.
“Among the fallen dark angels expelled from other worlds, friction and war take place with lifetronic bombs or mental mantric vibratory rays. These beings dwell in the gloom-drenched regions of the lower astral cosmos, working out their evil karma.
“In the vast realms above the dark astral prison, all is shining and beautiful. The astral cosmos is more naturally attuned than the earth to the divine will and plan of perfection. Every astral object is manifested primarily by the will of God and partially by the will-call of astral beings. They possess the power of modifying or enhancing the grace and form of anything already created by the Lord. He has given His astral children the freedom and privilege of changing or improving at will the astral cosmos. On earth, a solid must be transformed into liquid or another form through natural or chemical processes, but astral solids are changed into astral liquids, gases, or energy solely and instantly by the inhabitants’ will.
“The earth is dark with warfare and murder in the sea, land, and air,” my guru continued, “but the astral realms know a happy harmony and equality. Astral beings dematerialize or materialize their forms at will. Flowers or fish or animals can metamorphose themselves, for a time, into astral men. All astral beings are free to assume any form and can easily commune together. No fixed, definite, natural law hems them round — any astral tree, for example, can be successfully asked to produce an astral mango or other desired fruit, flower, or indeed any other object. Certain karmic restrictions are present, but there are no distinctions in the astral world about the desirability of various forms. Everything is vibrant with God’s creative light.
“No one is born of woman; astral beings materialize offspring through the help of their cosmic will into specially patterned, astrally condensed forms. The recently physically disembodied being arrives in an astral family through invitation, drawn by similar mental and spiritual tendencies.
“The astral body is not subject to cold or heat or other natural conditions. The anatomy includes an astral brain, or the thousand-petaled lotus of light, and six awakened centers in the sushumna, or astral cerebro-spinal axis. The heart draws cosmic energy as well as light from the astral brain, and pumps it to the astral nerves and body cells, or lifetrons. Astral beings can affect their bodies by lifetronic force or by mantric vibrations.
“The astral body is an exact counterpart of the last physical form. Astral beings retain the same appearance which they possessed in youth in their previous earthly sojourn; occasionally, an astral being chooses, like me, to retain his old age appearance.” Master, emanating the very essence of youth, chuckled merrily.
“Unlike the spatial, three-dimensional physical world cognized only by the five senses, the astral spheres are visible to the all-inclusive sixth sense — intuition,” Sri Yukteswar went on. “By sheer intuitional feeling, all astral beings see, hear, smell, taste, and touch. They possess three eyes, two of which are partly closed. The third and chief astral eye, vertically placed on the forehead, is open. Astral beings have all the outer sensory organs — ears, eyes, nose, tongue, and skin — but they employ the intuitional sense to experience sensations through any part of the body; they can see through the ear, nose, or skin. They can hear through the eyes or tongue, taste through the ears or skin, and so forth.
“Man’s physical body is exposed to countless dangers and is easily hurt or maimed; the ethereal astral body may occasionally be cut or bruised but is healed at once by mere willingness.”
“Gurudeva, are all astral persons beautiful?”
“Beauty in the astral world is known to be a spiritual quality and not an outward conformation,” Sri Yukteswar replied. “Astral beings, therefore, attach little importance to facial features. However, they have the privilege of costuming themselves at will with new, colourful, astrally materialized bodies. Just as worldly men don a new array for gala events, so astral beings find occasions to adorn themselves in specially designed forms.
“Joyous astral festivities on the higher astral planets like Hiranyaloka take place when a being is liberated from the astral world through spiritual advancement and is therefore ready to enter the heaven of the causal world. On such occasions, the Invisible Heavenly Father, and the saints who are merged in Him, materialize Themselves into bodies of Their own choice and join the astral celebration. In order to please His beloved devotee, the Lord takes any desired form. If the devotee worshiped through devotion, he sees God as the Divine Mother. To Jesus, the Father-aspect of the Infinite One was appealing beyond other conceptions. The individuality with which the Creator has endowed each of His creatures makes every conceivable and inconceivable demand on the Lord’s versatility!” My guru and I laughed happily together.
“Friends of other lives easily recognize one another in the astral world,” Sri Yukteswar went on in his beautiful, flutelike voice. “Rejoicing at the immortality of friendship, they realize the indestructibility of love, often doubted at the time of the sad, delusive partings of earthly life.
“The intuition of astral beings pierces through the veil and observes human activities on earth, but man cannot view the astral world unless his sixth sense is somewhat developed. Thousands of earth-dwellers have momentarily glimpsed an astral being or an astral world.
“The advanced beings on Hiranyaloka remain mostly awake in ecstasy during the long astral day and night, helping to work out intricate problems of cosmic government and the redemption of prodigal sons, earthbound souls. When the Hiranyaloka beings sleep, they have occasional dreamlike astral visions. However, their minds are usually engrossed in the conscious state of highest nirvikalpa bliss.
“Inhabitants in all parts of the astral worlds are still subject to mental agonies. The sensitive minds of the higher beings on planets like Hiranyaloka feel keen pain if any mistake is made in conduct or perception of truth. These advanced beings endeavour to attune their every act and thought with the perfection of spiritual law.
“Communication among the astral inhabitants is held entirely by astral telepathy and television; there is none of the confusion and misunderstanding of the written and spoken word which earth-dwellers must endure. Just as persons on the cinema screen appear to move and act through a series of light pictures and do not actually breathe, so the astral beings walk and work as intelligently guided and coordinated images of light, without the necessity of drawing power from oxygen. Man depends upon solids, liquids, gases, and energy for sustenance; astral beings sustain themselves principally by cosmic light.”
“Master mine, do astral beings eat anything?” I was drinking in his marvellous elucidations with the receptivity of all my faculties — mind, heart, soul. Superconscious perceptions of truth are permanently real and changeless, while fleeting sense experiences and impressions are never more than temporarily or relatively true and soon lose in memory all their vividness. My guru’s words were so penetratingly imprinted on the parchment of my being that at any time, by transferring my mind to the superconscious state, I can clearly relive the divine experience.
“Luminous raylike vegetables abound in the astral soils,” he answered. “The astral beings consume vegetables and drink nectar flowing from glorious fountains of light and from astral brooks and rivers. Just as invisible images of persons on the earth can be dug out of the ether and made visible by a television apparatus, later being dismissed again into space, so the God-created, unseen astral blueprints of vegetables and plants floating in the ether are precipitated on an astral planet by the will of its inhabitants. In the same way, from the wildest fancy of these beings, whole gardens of fragrant flowers are materialized, returning later to the etheric invisibility. Although dwellers on the heavenly planets like Hiranyaloka are almost freed from any necessity of eating, still higher is the unconditioned existence of almost completely liberated souls in the causal world, who eat nothing save the manna of bliss.
“The earth-liberated astral being meets a multitude of relatives, fathers, mothers, wives, husbands, and friends, acquired during different incarnations on earth, as they appear from time to time in various parts of the astral realms. He is therefore at a loss to understand whom to love especially; he learns in this way to give a divine and equal love to all, as children and individualized expressions of God. Though the outward appearance of loved ones may have changed, more or less according to the development of new qualities in the latest life of any particular soul, the astral being employs his unerring intuition to recognize all those once dear to him in other planes of existence and to welcome them to their new astral home. Because every atom in creation is inextinguishable, dowered with individuality, an astral friend will be recognized no matter what costume he may don, even as on earth an actor’s identity is discoverable by close observation despite any disguise.
“The span of life in the astral world is much longer than on earth. A normal advanced astral being’s average life period is from five hundred to one thousand years, measured in accordance with earthly standards of the time. As certain redwood trees outlive most trees by millenniums, or as some yogis live several hundred years though most men die before the age of sixty, so some astral beings live much longer than the usual span of astral existence. Visitors to the astral world dwell there for a longer or shorter period in accordance with the weight of their physical karma, which draws them back to earth within a specified time.
“The astral being does not have to contend painfully with death at the time of shedding his luminous body. Many of these beings nevertheless feel slightly nervous at the thought of dropping their astral form for the subtler causal one. The astral world is free from unwilling death, disease, and old age. These three dreads are the curse of the earth, where man has allowed his consciousness to identify itself almost wholly with a frail physical body requiring constant aid from air, food, and sleep in order to exist at all.
“Physical death is attended by the disappearance of breath and the disintegration of fleshly cells. Astral death consists of the dispersement of lifetrons, which manifest energy units that constitute the life of astral beings. At physical death, a being loses his flesh consciousness and becomes aware of his subtle body in the astral world. Experiencing astral death in due time, a being thus passes from the consciousness of astral birth and death to that of physical birth and death. These recurrent cycles of astral and physical encasement are the ineluctable destiny of all unenlightened beings. Scriptural definitions of heaven and hell sometimes stir man’s deeper-than-subconscious memories of his long series of experiences in the blithesome astral and disappointing terrestrial worlds.”
“Beloved Master,” I asked, “will you please describe more in detail the difference between rebirth on the earth and in the astral and causal spheres?”
“Man as an individualized soul is essentially causal-bodied,” my guru explained. “That body is a matrix of the thirty-five ideas required by God as the basic or causal thought forces from which He later formed the subtle astral body of nineteen elements and the gross physical body of sixteen elements.
“The nineteen elements of the astral body are mental, emotional, and lifetronic. The nineteen components are intelligence; ego; feeling; mind (sense-consciousness); five instruments of knowledge, the subtle counterparts of the senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch; five instruments of action, the mental correspondence for the executive abilities to procreate, excrete, talk, walk, and exercise manual skill; and five instruments of life force, those empowered to perform the crystallizing, assimilating, eliminating, metabolizing, and circulating functions of the body. This subtle astral encasement of nineteen elements survives the death of the physical body, which is made of sixteen gross metallic and non-metallic elements.
“God thought out different ideas within Himself and projected them into dreams. Lady Cosmic Dream thus sprang out decorated in all her colossal endless ornaments of relativity.
“In thirty-five thought categories of the causal body, God elaborated all the complexities of man’s nineteen astral and sixteen physical counterparts. By condensation of vibratory forces, first subtle, then gross, He produced man’s astral body and finally his physical form. According to the law of relativity, by which the Prime Simplicity has become the bewildering manifold, the causal cosmos and causal body are different from the astral cosmos and astral body; the physical cosmos and physical body are likewise characteristically at variance with the other forms of creation.
The fleshly body is made of the fixed, objectified dreams of the Creator. The dualities are ever-present on earth: disease and health, pain and pleasure, loss and gain. Human beings find limitation and resistance in three-dimensional matter. When man’s desire to live is severely shaken by disease or other causes, death arrives; the heavy overcoat of the flesh is temporarily shed. The soul, however, remains encased in the astral and causal bodies. The adhesive force by which all three bodies are held together is desire. The power of unfulfilled desires is the root of all man’s slavery.
“Physical desires are rooted in egotism and sense pleasures. The compulsion or temptation of sensory experience is more powerful than the desire-force connected with astral attachments or causal perceptions.
“Astral desires center around enjoyment in terms of vibration. Astral beings enjoy the ethereal music of the spheres and are entranced by the sight of all creation as exhaustless expressions of changing light. The astral beings also smell, taste, and touch light. Astral desires are thus connected with an astral being’s power to precipitate all objects and experiences as forms of light or as condensed thoughts or dreams.
“Causal desires are fulfilled by perception only. The nearly-free beings who are encased only in the causal body see the whole universe as realizations of the dream-ideas of God; they can materialize anything and everything in sheer thought. Causal beings, therefore, consider the enjoyment of physical sensations or astral delights as gross and suffocating to the soul’s fine sensibilities. Causal beings work out their desires by materializing them instantly. Those who find themselves covered only by the delicate veil of the causal body can bring universes into manifestation even as the Creator. Because all creation is made of the cosmic dream texture, the soul thinly clothed in the causal universe has vast realizations of power.
“A soul, being invisible by nature, can be distinguished only by the presence of its body or bodies. The mere presence of a body signifies that its existence is made possible by unfulfilled desires.
“So long as the soul of man is encased in one, two, or three body-containers, sealed tightly with the corks of ignorance and desires, he cannot merge with the sea of Spirit. When the hammer of death destroys the gross physical receptacle, the other two coverings — astral and causal — still remain to prevent the soul from consciously joining the Omnipresent Life. When desirelessness is attained through wisdom, its power disintegrates the two remaining vessels. The tiny human soul emerges, free at last; it is one with the Measureless Amplitude.”
I asked my divine guru to shed further light on the high and mysterious causal world.
“The causal world is indescribably subtle,” he replied. “To understand it, one would have to possess such tremendous powers of concentration that he could close his eyes and visualize the astral cosmos and the physical cosmos in all their vastness — the luminous balloon with the solid basket — as existing in ideas only. If one succeeded in converting or resolving the two cosmos with all their complexities into sheer ideas by this superhuman concentration, he would then reach the causal world and stand on the borderline of fusion between mind and matter. There one perceives all created things — solids, liquids, gases, electricity, energy, all beings, gods, men, animals, plants, bacteria — as forms of consciousness, just as a man can close his eyes and realize that he exists, even though his body is invisible to his physical eyes and is present only as an idea.
“Whatever a human being can do in fancy, a causal being can do in reality. The colossal imaginative human intelligence is able, in mind only, to range from one extreme of thought to another, to skip mentally from planet to planet, or tumble endlessly down a pit of eternity, or soar rocket-like into the galaxied canopy, or scintillate like a searchlight over milky ways and the starry spaces. But beings in the causal world have much greater freedom and can effortlessly manifest their thoughts into instant objectivity, without any material or astral obstruction or karmic limitation.
“Causal beings realize that the physical cosmos is not primarily constructed of electrons, nor is the astral cosmos basically composed of lifetrons — both in reality are created from the minutest particles of God-thought, chopped and divided by Maya, the law of relativity which intervenes to apparently separate the Noumenon from His phenomena.
“Souls in the causal world recognize one another as individualized points of joyous Spirit; their thought-things are the only objects which surround them. Causal beings see the difference between their bodies and thoughts to be merely ideas. As a man, closing his eyes, can visualize a dazzling white light or a faint blue haze, so causal beings by thought alone are able to see, hear, feel, taste, and touch; they create anything, or dissolve it, by the power of the cosmic mind.
“Both death and rebirth in the causal world are in thought. Causal-bodied beings feast only on the ambrosia of eternally new knowledge. They drink from the springs of peace, roam on the trackless soil of perceptions, swim in the ocean-endlessness of bliss. Lo! see their bright thought-bodies zoom past trillions of Spirit-created planets, fresh bubbles of universes, wisdom-stars, spectral dreams of golden nebulae, all over the sky, blue bosom of Infinity!
“Many beings remain for thousands of years in the causal cosmos. By deeper ecstasies, the freed soul then withdraws itself from the little causal body and puts on the vastness of the causal cosmos. All the separate eddies of ideas, particularized waves of power, love, will, joy, peace, intuition, calmness, self-control, and concentration melt into the ever-joyous Sea of Bliss. No longer does the soul have to experience its joy as an individualized wave of consciousness, but is merged in the One Cosmic Ocean, with all its waves — eternal laughter, thrills, throbs.
“When a soul is out of the cocoon of the three bodies, it escapes forever from the law of relativity and becomes the ineffable Ever-Existent. Behold the butterfly of Omnipresence; its wings etched with stars and moons and suns! The soul expanded into Spirit remains alone in the region of lightless light, darkless dark, thoughtless thought, intoxicated with its ecstasy of joy in God’s dream of cosmic creation.”
“A free soul!” I ejaculated in awe.
“When a soul finally gets out of the three jars of bodily delusions,” Master continued, “it becomes one with the Infinite without any loss of individuality. Christ had won this final freedom even before he was born as Jesus. In three stages of his past, symbolized in his earth-life as the three days of his experience of death and resurrection, he had attained the power to fully arise in Spirit.
“The undeveloped man must undergo countless earthly and astral and causal incarnations in order to emerge from his three bodies. A master who achieves this final freedom may elect to return to earth as a prophet to bring other human beings back to God, or like myself, he may choose to reside in the astral cosmos. There, a saviour assumes some of the burdens of the inhabitants’ karma and thus helps them terminate their reincarnation cycle in the astral cosmos and go on permanently to the causal spheres. Or a freed soul may enter the causal world to aid its beings to shorten their span in the causal body and thus attain Absolute Freedom.”
“Resurrected One, I want to know more about the karma which forces souls to return to the three worlds.” I could listen forever, I thought, to my omniscient Master. Never in his earth-life had I been able at one time to assimilate so much of his wisdom. Now for the first time, I was receiving a clear, definite insight into the enigmatic interspaces on the checkerboard of life and death.
“The physical karma or desires of man must be completely worked out before his permanent stay in astral worlds becomes possible,” my guru elucidated in his thrilling voice. “Two kinds of beings live in the astral spheres. Those who still have earthly karma to dispose of and who must therefore reinhabit a gross physical body in order to pay their karmic debts could be classified, after physical death, as temporary visitors to the astral world rather than as permanent residents.
“Beings with unredeemed earthly karma are not permitted after astral death to go to the high causal sphere of cosmic ideas but must shuttle to and fro from the physical and astral worlds only, conscious successively of their physical body of sixteen gross elements, and of their astral body of nineteen subtle elements. After each loss of his physical body, however, an undeveloped being from the earth remains for the most part in the deep stupor of the death sleep, and is hardly conscious of the beautiful astral sphere. After the astral rest, such a man returns to the material plane for further lessons, gradually accustoming himself, through repeated journeys, to the worlds of subtle astral texture.
“Normal or long-established residents of the astral universe, on the other hand, are those who, freed forever from all material longings, need return no more to the gross vibrations of the earth. Such beings have only astral and causal karma to work out. At astral death, these beings pass to the infinitely finer and more delicate causal world. Shedding the thought-form of the causal body at the end of a certain span, determined by cosmic law, these advanced beings then return to Hiranyaloka or a similar high astral planet, reborn in a new astral body to work out their unredeemed astral karma.
“My son, you may now comprehend more fully that I am resurrected by divine decree,” Sri Yukteswar continued, “as a saviour of astrally reincarnating souls coming back from the causal sphere, in particular, rather than of those astral beings who are coming up from the earth. If they still retain vestiges of material karma, those from the earth do not rise to the very high astral planets like Hiranyaloka.
“Just as most people on earth have not learned through a meditation-acquired vision to appreciate the superior joys and advantages of astral life and thus, after death, desire to return to the limited, imperfect pleasures of earth, so many astral beings, during the normal disintegration of their astral bodies, fail to picture the advanced state of spiritual joy in the causal world and, to dwell on thoughts of the more gross and gaudy astral happiness, yearn to revisit the astral paradise. Such beings must redeem heavy astral karma before achieving a permanent stay in the causal thought-world after astral death, so thinly partitioned from the Creator.
“Only when a being has no further desires for experiences in the pleasing-to-the-eye astral cosmos, and cannot be tempted to go back there, does he remain in the causal world. Completing there the work of redeeming all causal karma or seeds of past desires, the confined soul thrusts out the last of the three corks of ignorance and, emerging from the final jar of the causal body, commingles with the Eternal.
“Now, do you understand?” Master smiled so enchantingly!
“Yes, through your grace. I am speechless with joy and gratitude.”
Never from song or story had I ever received such inspiring knowledge. Though the Hindu scriptures refer to the causal and astral worlds and to man’s three bodies, how remote and meaningless those pages are compared with the warm authenticity of my resurrected Master! For him indeed existed not a single “undiscovered country from whose bourn no traveller returns”!
“The interpenetration of man’s three bodies is expressed in many ways through his threefold nature,” my great guru went on. “In the wakeful state on earth, a human being is conscious more or less of his three vehicles. When he is sensuously intent on tasting, smelling, touching, listening, or seeing, he is working principally through his physical body. Visualizing or willing, he is working mainly through his astral body. His causal medium finds expression when a man is thinking or diving deep into introspection or meditation; the cosmical thoughts of genius come to the man who habitually contacts his causal body. In this sense, an individual may be classified broadly as ‘a material man,’ ‘an energetic man,’ or ‘an intellectual man.’
“A man identifies himself about sixteen hours daily with his physical vehicle. Then he sleeps; if he dreams, he remains in his astral body, effortlessly creating any object, even as do the astral beings. If man’s sleep is deep and dreamless, he can transfer his consciousness, or sense of I-ness, to the causal body; such sleep is revivifying. If a dreamer is contacting his astral body and not his causal body; his sleep is not fully refreshing.”
I had been lovingly observing Sri Yukteswar while he gave his excellent exposition.
“Angelic guru,” I said, “your body looks exactly as it did when last I wept over it in the Puri ashram.”
“O yes, my new body is a perfect copy of the old one. I materialize or dematerialize this form any time at will, much more frequently than I did while on earth. By quick dematerialization, I now travel instantly by light express from planet to planet or, indeed, from astral to causal or to physical cosmos.” My divine guru smiled. “Though you move about so fast these days, I had no difficulty in finding you in Bombay!”
“O Master, I was grieving so deeply about your death!”
“Ah, wherein did I die? Isn’t there some contradiction?” Sri Yukteswar’s eyes were twinkling with love and amusement.
“You were only dreaming on earth; on that earth, you saw my dream-body,” he went on. “Later, you buried that dream image. Now my finer fleshly body — which you behold and are even now embracing rather closely! — is resurrected on another finer dream-planet of God. Someday that finer dream-body and finer dream-planet will pass away; they too are not forever. All dream bubbles must eventually burst at a final wakeful touch. Differentiate, my son Yogananda, between dreams and Reality!”
This idea of Vedantic resurrection struck me with wonder. I was ashamed that I had pitied Master when I had seen his lifeless body at Puri. I comprehended at last that my guru had always been fully awake in God, perceiving his own life and passing on earth, and his present resurrection, as nothing more than relativities of divine ideas in the cosmic dream.
“I have now told you, Yogananda, the truths of my life, death, and resurrection. Grieve not for me; rather broadcast everywhere the story of my resurrection from the God-dreamed earth of men to another God-dreamed planet of astrally garbed souls! New hope will be infused into the hearts of misery-mad, death-fearing dreamers of the world.”
“Yes, Master!” How willingly would I share with others my joy at his resurrection!
“On earth, my standards were uncomfortably high, unsuited to the natures of most men. Often I scolded you more than I should have. You passed my test; your love shone through the clouds of all reprimands.” He added tenderly, “I have also come today to tell you: Never again shall I wear the stern gaze of censure. I shall scold you no more.”
How much I had missed the chastisements of my great guru! Each one had been a guardian angel of protection.
“Dearest Master! Rebuke me a million times — do scold me now!”
“I shall chide you no more.” His divine voice was grave, yet with an undercurrent of laughter. “You and I shall smile together, so long as our two forms appear different in the Maya-dream of God. Then, finally, we shall merge as one in the Cosmic Beloved; our smiles shall be His smile, our unified song of joy vibrating throughout eternity to be broadcast to God-tuned souls!”
Sri Yukteswar gave me light on certain matters which I cannot reveal here. During the two hours that he spent with me in the Bombay hotel room, he answered every question. Several world prophecies uttered by him that June day in 1936 have already come to pass.
“I leave you now, beloved one!” At these words, I felt the Master melting away within my encircling arms.
“My child,” his voice rang out, vibrating into my very soul-firmament, “whenever you enter the door of nirvikalpa samadhi and call on me, I shall come to you in flesh and blood, even as today.”
With this celestial promise, Sri Yukteswar vanished from my sight. A cloud voice repeated in musical thunder: “Tell all! Whosoever knows by nirvikalpa realization that your earth is a dream of God can come to the finer dream-created planet of Hiranyaloka, and there find me resurrected in a body exactly like my earthly one. Yogananda, tell all!”
Gone was the sorrow of parting. The pity and grief for his death, long robber of my peace, now fled in stark shame. Bliss poured forth like a fountain through endless, newly opened soul-pores. Anciently clogged with disuse, they now widened in purity at the driving flood of ecstasy. Subconscious thoughts and feelings of my past incarnations shed their karmic taints, lustrously renewed by Sri Yukteswar’s divine visit.
In this chapter of my autobiography, I have obeyed my guru’s behest and spread the glad tiding, though it confounds once more an incurious generation. Grovelling, man knows well; despair is seldom alien; yet these are perversities, no part of man’s true lot. The day he wills, he is set on the path to freedom. Too long has he hearkened to the dank pessimism of his “dust-thou-art” counselors, heedless of the unconquerable soul.
I was not the only one privileged to behold the Resurrected Guru.
One of Sri Yukteswar’s chelas was an aged woman, affectionately known as Ma (Mother), whose home was close to the Puri hermitage. Master had often stopped to chat with her during his morning walk. On the evening of March 16, 1936, Ma arrived at the ashram and asked to see her guru.
“Why, Master died a week ago!” Swami Sebananda, now in charge of the Puri hermitage, looked at her sadly.
“That’s impossible!” She smiled a little. “Perhaps you are just trying to protect the guru from insistent visitors?”
“No.” Sebananda recounted details of the burial. “Come,” he said, “I will take you to the front garden to Sri Yukteswar’s grave.”
Ma shook her head. “There is no grave for him! This morning at ten o’clock, he passed in his usual walk before my door! I talked to him for several minutes in the bright outdoors.
“‘Come this evening to the ashram,’ he said.
“I am here! Blessings pour on this old gray head! The deathless guru wanted me to understand in what transcendent body he had visited me this morning!”
The astounded Sebananda knelt before her.
“Ma,” he said, “what a weight of grief you lift from my heart! He is risen!”
The Astrological Bangle
Swami Sri Yukteshwar Giri prescribed a bangle that was made of particular weights of copper, silver, and gold. The bangle was said to have powers of both spiritual and physical protection. When made out of the three metals in specific weights, the bracelet emits an astral light. This light counteracted magnetic and electrical radiation. He said that all these protective remedies were also best worn against the skin. When Swami Yogananda questioned him about these remedies, he said that until a person reaches his destination, he is justified in using shortcuts by which he meant the jewels and bracelets. Thus, the bracelet became very popular and also a symbol of the quest for the divine Infinite.
Sri Yukteswar performed many miracles during his life. More of his miracles can be found here: https://www.sriyukteswar.com/category/miracles/
Contemporary Masters
His Guru Shri Lahiri Mahasaya
Shri Sai Baba of Shirdi
His disciples and contemporary masters at his time
Swami Satyananda Giri
Swami Hariharananda Giri
Swami Bhabananda Giri
Motilal Mukhopadhyay
Sri Sailendra Bejoy Dasgupta
Sri Amulya Charan Santra
Holy Sites and Pilgrimages
Sri Yukteswar Samadhi Temple
Sri Yukteswar Giri samadhi mandir (burial place temple) in the garden of the Puri ashram.
Paramahansa Yogananda had his younger brother Sananda build this temple over the burial site of Sri Yukteswar’s body and supervised all the details of the construction through regular correspondence with his brother. Yoganandaji was highly pleased with his brother’s inspired design of the gleaming white marble structure topped with its golden lotus made of polished copper. Construction of the samadhi temple was completed in 1952.
Bibliography
The Holy Science – 1894
Originally written under the title Kaivalya Darsanam, Sri Yukteswar states that he wrote The Holy Science at the request of Mahavatar Babaji. The book compares parallel passages from the Bible and Upanishads in order to show the unity of all religions.
In the introduction, he wrote, “The purpose of this book is to show as clearly as possible that there is an essential unity in all religions; that there is no difference in the truths inculcated by the various faiths; that there is but one method by which the world, both external and internal, has evolved; and that there is but one Goal admitted by all scriptures.”
Kaivalya Darshanam, the Holy Science by Jnanavatar Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri (The original version of Holy Science)
BLESSED LANFRANC: THE PAST LIFE OF SWAMI SRI YUKTESWAR, GURU OF PARAMHANSA YOGANANDA – By Richard Salva
Paramhansa Yogananda said that his guru Sri Yukteswar had been William the Conqueror’s great counselor and ally, Archbishop Lanfranc. In Blessed Lanfranc, Richard Salva highlights scores of fascinating similarities between these two famous incarnations of a great spiritual master. Through historical evidence and personal experiences at Lanfranc’s sites, this book resurrects Sri Yukteswar’s image from one that can be daunting, to another much more kindly to every seeker.
External Links
https://www.hinduscriptures.com/gurus/sri-yukteshwar-giri/29548/
