Vivekananda Forum Meet 19 Dec 2024

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[Place: Balarām Bābu’s residence, Calcutta. Year: 1898.]
Swamiji had been staying during the last two days at Balaram Bābu’s residence at
Baghbazar. He was taking a short stroll on the roof of the house, and the disciple with
four or five others was in attendance. While walking to and fro, Swamiji took up the
story of Guru Govind Singh and with his great eloquence touched upon the various
points in his life—how the revival of the Sikh sect was brought about by his great
renunciation, austerities, fortitude, and life-consecrating labours—how by his initiation
he re-Hinduised Mohammedan converts and took them back into the Sikh community—
and how on the banks of the Narmadā he brought his wonderful life to a close.
Speaking of the great power that used to be infused in those days into the initiates of
Guru Govind, Swamiji recited a popular Dohā (couplet) of the Sikhs:
“सबा लाख पर एक चढ़ाऊं ।
जब गुरुगोविन्द नाम सुनाऊं ॥

The meaning is: “When Guru Govind gives the Name, i.e. the initiation, a single man
becomes strong enough to triumph over a lakh and a quarter of his foes.” Each disciple,
deriving from his inspiration a real spiritual devotion, had his soul filled with such
wonderful heroism! While holding forth thus on the glories of religion, Swamiji’s eyes
dilating with enthusiasm seemed to be emitting fire, and his hearers, dumb-stricken and
looking at his face, kept watching the wonderful sight.
After a while the disciple said: “Sir, it was very remarkable that Guru Govind could unite
both Hindus and Mussulmans within the fold of his religion and lead them both towards
the same end. In Indian history, no other example of this can be found.”
Swamiji: Men can never be united unless there is a bond of common interest. You can
never unite people merely by getting up meetings, societies, and lectures if their
interests be not one and the same. Guru Govind made it understood everywhere that the
men of his age, be they Hindus or Mussulmans, were living under a regime of profound
injustice and oppression. He did not create any common interest, he only pointed it out
to the masses. And so both Hindus and Mussulmans followed him. He was a great
worshipper of Shakti. Yet, in Indian history, such an example is indeed very rare.
Finding then that it was getting late into the night, Swamiji came down with others into
the parlour on the first floor, where the following conversation on the subject of
miracles took place.
Swamiji said, “It is possible to acquire miraculous powers by some little degree of
mental concentration”, and turning to the disciple he asked, “Well, should you like to
learn thought-reading? I can teach that to you in four or five days.”
Disciple: Of what avail will it be to me, sir?

Swamiji: Why, you will be able to know others’ minds.
Disciple: Will that help my attainment of the knowledge of Brahman?
Swamiji: Not a bit.
Disciple: Then I have no need to learn that science. But, sir, I would very much like to
hear about what you have yourself seen of the manifestation of such psychic powers.
Swamiji: Once when travelling in the Himalayas I had to take up my abode for a night in
a village of the hill-people. Hearing the beating of drums in the village some time after
nightfall, I came to know upon inquiring of my host that one of the villagers had been
possessed by a Devatā or good spirit. To meet his importunate wishes and to satisfy
my own curiosity, we went out to see what the matter really was. Reaching the spot, I
found a great concourse of people. A tall man with long, bushy hair was pointed out to
me, and I was told that person had got the Devata on him. I noticed an axe being heated
in fire close by the man; and after a while, I found the red-hot thing being seized and
applied to parts of his body and also to his hair! But wonder of wonders, no part of his
body or hair thus branded with the red-hot axe was found to be burnt, and there was no
expression of any pain in his face! I stood mute with surprise. The headman of the
village, meanwhile, came up to me and said, “Mahārāj, please exorcize this man out of
your mercy.” I felt myself in a nice fix, but moved to do something, I had to go near the
possessed man. Once there, I felt a strong impulse to examine the axe rather closely,
but the instant I touched it, I burnt my fingers, although the thing had been cooled down
to blackness. The smarting made me restless and all my theories about the axe
phenomenon were spirited away from my mind! However, smarting with the burn, I
placed my hand on the head of the man and repeated for a short while the Japa. It was
a matter of surprise to find that the man came round in ten or twelve minutes. Then oh,
the gushing reverence the villagers showed to me! I was taken to be some wonderful
man! But, all the same, I couldn’t make any head or tail of the whole business. So
without a word one way or the other, I returned with my host to his hut. It was about
midnight, and I went to bed. But what with the smarting burn in the hand and the
impenetrable puzzle of the whole affair, I couldn’t have any sleep that night. Thinking of
the burning axe failing to harm living human flesh, it occurred again and again to my
mind, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
Disciple: But, could you later on ever explain the mystery, sir?
Swamiji: No. The event came back to me in passing just now, and so I related it to you.
He then resumed: But Shri Ramakrishna used to disparage these supernatural powers;
his teaching was that one cannot attain to the supreme truth if the mind is diverted to
the manifestation of these powers. The human mind, however, is so weak that, not to
speak of householders, even ninety per cent of the Sādhus happen to be votaries of

these powers. In the West, men are lost in wonderment if they come across such
miracles. It is only because Shri Ramakrishna has mercifully made us understand the
evil of these powers as being hindrances to real spirituality that we are able to take
them at their proper value. Haven’t you noticed how for that reason the children of Shri
Ramakrishna pay no heed to them?
Swami Yogānanda said to Swamiji at this moment, “Well, why don’t you narrate to our
Bāngāl [1] that incident of yours in Madras when you met the famous ghost-tamer?”
i[1] Lit. A man from East Bengal, i.e. the disciple.
At the earnest entreaty of the disciple Swamiji was persuaded to give the following
account of his experience:

Once while I was putting up at Manmatha Bābu’s [1] place, I dreamt one night that my
mother had died. My mind became much distracted. Not to speak of corresponding
with anybody at home, I used to send no letters in those days even to our Math. The
dream being disclosed to Manmatha, he sent a wire to Calcutta to ascertain facts about
the matter. For the dream had made my mind uneasy on the one hand, and on the other,
our Madras friends, with all arrangements ready, were insisting on my departing for
America immediately, and I felt rather unwilling to leave before getting any news of my
mother. So Manmatha who discerned this state of my mind suggested our repairing to
a man living some way off from town, who having acquired mystic powers over spirits
could tell fortunes and read the past and the future of a man’s life. So at Manmatha’s
request and to get rid of my mental suspense, I agreed to go to this man. Covering the
distance partly by railway and partly on foot, we four of us—Manmatha, Alasinga,
myself, and another—managed to reach the place, and what met our eyes there was a
man with a ghoulish, haggard, soot-black appearance, sitting close to a cremation
ground. His attendants used some jargon of South Indian dialect to explain to us that
this was the man with perfect power over the ghosts. At first the man took absolutely
no notice of us; and then, when we were about to retire from the place, he made a
request for us to wait. Our Alasinga was acting as the interpreter, and he explained the
requests to us. Next, the man commenced drawing some figures with a pencil, and
presently I found him getting perfectly still in mental concentration. Then he began to
give out my name, my genealogy, the history of my long line of forefathers and said that
Shri Ramakrishna was keeping close to me all through my wanderings, intimating also
to me good news about my mother. He also foretold that I would have to go very soon
to far-off lands for preaching religion. Getting good news thus about my mother, we all
travelled back to town, and after arrival received by wire from Calcutta the assurance of
mother’s doing well.
i[1] Bābu Manmatha Nāth Bhattacharya, M.A., late Accountant General, Madras.

Turning to Swami Yogānanda, Swamiji remarked, “Everything that the man had foretold
came to be fulfilled to the letter, call it some fortuitous concurrence or anything you
will.”
Swami Yogānanda said in reply, “It was because you would not believe all this before
that this experience was necessary for you.”
Swamiji: Well, I am not a fool to believe anything and everything without direct proof.
And coming into this realm of Mahāmāyā, oh, the many magic mysteries I have come
across alongside this bigger magic conjuration of a universe! Māyā, it is all Māyā!
Goodness! What rubbish we have been talking so long this day! By thinking constantly
of ghosts, men become ghosts themselves, while whoever repeats day and night,
knowingly or unknowingly, “I am the eternal, pure, free, self-illumined Ātman”, verily
becomes the knower of Brahman.

Saying this, Swamiji affectionately turned to the disciple and said, “Don’t allow all that
worthless nonsense to occupy your mind. Always discriminate between the real and the
unreal, and devote yourself heart and soul to the attempt to realise the Ātman. There is
nothing higher than this knowledge of the Ātman; all else is Māyā, mere jugglery. The
Ātman is the one unchangeable Truth. This I have come to understand, and that is why I
try to bring it home to you all. “एकमेिाद्वयं ब्रह्म”, “एकमेिाद्वयं ब्रह्म”—“One
Brahman there is without a second”, “There is nothing manifold in existence” [1].
i[1] Brihadāranyaka, IV. iv. 19
All this conversation continued up to eleven o’clock at night. After that, his meal being

finished, Swamiji retired for rest. The disciple bowed down at his feet to bid him good-
bye. Swamiji asked, “Are you not coming tomorrow?”

Disciple: Yes, sir, I am coming, to be sure. The mind longs so much to meet you at least
once before the day is out.

Swamiji: So good night now, it is getting very late.