Shri Chapter I. Journey to the East the India-Bound Ship
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CONTENTS Part One: Shri Chapter I. Journey to the East The India-bound ship - Passengers of many races - Memories of the days preceding the war - The silent summons to India - Bombay - The search for Shri - A message from the Brahman. II. Shri Farewell to Bombay - Tropical heat - Journey to Mainital - Shri and his disciples - A new life begins. III. The four steps of meditation Jazz and Temple bells - The legend of Lake Nainital - A reassuring dream - Rama, chief disciple of Shri - The silence of the Himalaya - First steps in meditation - Physical discomforts - Regulating the breathing - The power of the mantra - Meditation explained. IV. Vaman Singing a mantra - The road to Almora - Story of Vaman, the Mighty Strider - Heat and thunderstorms - A picture of Krishna. V. Swami Nityanand Almora the mountain city - A letter of admonition from Shri - The swami Nityanand - His modern ambitions - Life in the pilgrim shelter. VI. Diary from the Himalayas Singing hymns to Shiva - The Tamil from Southern India - Story about Gandhi - AUM, the mystic syllable - Simple diet - Preparations for departure - An attack of dysentery - Shri returns. VII. Pilgrimage in Himalaya The pilgrims set out singing - A sacred locality - Statue of Hanuman, the monkey chief - Kaka-bushunda, the world's Methuselah - State rest- houses in the forest - Snake mountain - A visit from a Prince - Report of floods and disaster - Shri decides to turn back - His teachings on the return journey. VIII. Anandapith - The Home of Blessedness Vrindavan, birthplace of Krishna - Flowers and beggars - Shri's house in Nasik - Building a temple to Dattatreya - The Casteless - Krishna Chaitanya. IX. The Majesty of God The tale of Krishna and Nasrada, the great wise man - Mighty mantra about Rama - Reading the Bible with Shri. X. Indian Feast Shri's birthday celebrations - The village postmaster - Watching the monkeys - Divali , the feast of Light - Paying evening calls - Gaiety and good feeling. XI. Shiva's Drum Harvest on the Indian plains - Alan, the young American chemist - The rishi vasistha, guru of kings - Maya, the Handmaid of God - Drums in the Temple of Shiva - Mountain of the goddess Arbuda - News of German Invasion of Czechoslovakia - Kaliyuga, Age of Darkness - The avatar of Kaliyuga. XII. The Month of Purushottama The Indian year - Shri's brother-in-law - Bhagavata and its Tales of God - The song of Victory - Marching Women - Krishna. PART TWO: THE CAMP IN INDIA I. "Shiva Will Call You" Peace in the guru's house - A rude awakening - Behind the barbed wire - Indian prison camps - Mutual suspicions - The apes look on astonished - Prison politics - Petty irritations of prison like - The haven of hospital - Hovering vultures - The song of the peasants. II. Imprisoned - Free - Imprisoned Trying to meditate in prison - Message from Shri - Committees decide fate of prisoners - In a women's camp - Unexpectedly set free - With Shri in Mahabaleshvar - Banquet in Shri's - The Germans enter Paris - Back to prison - The jackals laugh at a mad world. III. The Feast of the Untouchables The latrine cleaners and their guru - The story of Valmiki, the fallen Brahman - Drums in the night - Singing soldiers - I pray for a guru. PART THREE: SADANANDA I. My Friend Sadananda The coming of Sadananda - The path to the forgotten world - First talk with my new guru - The meaning of "The Friend of the lordless" - Questions which should not be asked. II. Teacher and Disciple Teaching in the midst of distractions - Sadananda's story - The golden Avatar - the Professor of Mathematics who taught Sadananda - Prisoners' oaths, and verses from the Bhagavata - Spies and questioning. III. A New Room-mate Sharing a dish-washing room with Sadananda - A new room-mate - Piercing cries in the night - Sadananda's aggressive grace - The clothes and the real man - The breaker of enchantments. IV. The Church Behind the Barbed Wire The imprisoned missionaries - Old Pater Lader - Dr. Fuchs, the Protestant priest - Jesuits with notebooks - Sadananda's lectures - Theological controversies - The guru holds his own. V. The Name of God We travel a thousand miles - The name of God - Mystical power of sound - Importance of the names of God - Meditation on the Logos - Monkeys race after our train. VI. Human Goals The new prison camp - Reading the Bhagavata in a tool-shed - The tale of King Pariskhit - Overthrow of Kali, the Dark one - Meeting with an aged Brahman hermit - Cursed by the Brahman's son - Belated regrets - The holy Shuka - The dying king attains the goal of Life - What is the highest goal? - Love greater than liberation. VII. The Stream of Divine Love Krishna, the first teacher of love - Brahma's song - Narada, the wanderer - Foundation of the world of Maya - The coming of Chaitanya. VIII. The Pigsty A dream in prison - Who was Odysseus? - Singing Sanskrit verses - Tümpelbaum, the unwelcome newcomer - Circe's pigsty - Tricking Circe, the enchantress - Fire in camp - Tümpelbaum's change. IX. The Milk-White Goddess On parole - Singing the Name of God in the woods - Following crowds of children - The temple of the Devi - Durga the jaileress. X. The Holy Night Winter in the Himalaya region - Christmas celebrations - The poetry of Novalis - Meditations on the Nativity - Paralled of the Indian legend - Jesus and Krishna - The wanderings of Chaitanya - The Avatar of the future. XI. The Gate Opens Sadananda falls ill - Engineering a visit to hospital - Lines from the Padma-Purana explained - Why I had come to India - The hidden purpose of the prison camp - Sadananda hovers between life and death - translating the Bhagavata - He comforts the hospital menials - He fasts, then decides to live - World history in the making - The escapists - News from my wife - I dream of release - Sadananda set free - A letter from Shri. XII. Farewell to India Good-bye to prison - I visit Shri in Mahabaleshvar - Alone in Bombay - Gandhi is welcomed by vast crowds - His son sings - Sadanand's visit - I am initiated by Swami Bon - Embarkation for Europe - I fly from London to Sweden - Reunited with my family. Part 1 SHRI Chapter 1 JOURNEY TO THE EAST The India-bound ship - Passengers of many races - Memories of the days preceding the war - The silent summons to India - Bombay - The search for Shri - A message from the Brahman. The ship that took me to India was an ordinary white steamer of the Lloyd Triestino Line. Now it lies somewhere at the bottom of the deep sea. During the trip I never felt the relaxation that I had always experienced before when breathing the salt air of the open sea. In all the dining-rooms and lounges on board there appeared daily notices containing the latest news broadcast. Every plank, every white-enamelled deck railing, and every human body on board vibrated incessantly and rhythmically with the throbbing of the invisible engine, and in the same way every heart quivered secretly in the face of its approaching destiny. People crowded anxiously before the notices which told of changes in Germany's laws regarding the Jews, of new armaments or new speeches by those in power, who threatened war or held out hope for peace. The bombastic Italians who were on their way to the new empire of Abyssinia ordered wide-bellied, raffia-wound bottles of chianti with their meals. They gesticulated and talked excitedly and confidently. When the ship left Massawa they had all disappeared, having remained in Africa. In what rifle-pits among the thickets of the desert mountains are their bones bleaching now? In what prison camp did they succumb? How many of them have survived the war and the turmoil that followed in its wake? The quiet Jewish musician from Hungary, who wanted to escape the terrors threatening his fatherland, and felt secure because of a contract that lay in his wallet, engaging him to play at a club in Penang on the Malay Peninsula - what became of him? My memory lingers among the many people on that big ship, all those whom I dined with daily, whom I brushed up against, spoke to, or only observed. They were divided into four strictly different classes, according to the fares they could afford to pay. Into the ship's hundreds of small cubby-holes they were tucked, each one with some unknown fate, and only the thin riveted walls of steel separated them from the deep sea, at the bottom of which the ship now lies. There was a medical student from the Philippines with his blonde German wife. There were business men and English officers on their way back to their posts in India or Burma, And then there were Indians, students and business men, on their way home from America. A woman surgeon who was returning to her native land after having been in London. Members of a ritual dance-troupe who had been touring America and Europe for two years. The red cast-mark on the foreheads of the women shone strangely as if some secret were hidden there. But in the evenings these women, too, danced jazz and the tango. Tirelessly they wound up the worn-out gramophone. The men played cards half the day in the suffocation smoking-room. Missionaries walked about among the Indians. They were on their way to the East to convert the parole there to Christianity, these Catholic priests in dark gowns, with long greying beards. One, a Frenchman on his way to China, paced the deck silently, to and fro, every day for a whole week, with long strides, his gown flowing behind him. When he finally allowed himself to talk, he overflowed with repressed, passionate utterances. Two nuns kept apart from the other passengers. They were holy sisters from Bayern, from the neighborhood of Passau.