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The Making of a Devotee

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The Making of a Devotee THE MAKING OF A DEVOTEE Swami Vidyatmananda (John Yale) Ramakrishna Order of India "As the different streams, having their sources in different places, all mingle their water in the sea, so O Lord, the different paths which men take through different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee." --Hymn on the Greatness of Shiva CONTENTS ● Introduction ● Chapter One: The Devotee as Historical Incident ● Two: The Devotee as Inquirer after Truth ● Three: The Devotee as Psycho-Physical Being ● Four: The Devotee as Disciple ● Five: The Devotee as Literary Enthusiast ● Six: The Devotee as Friend of Vivekananda ● Seven: The Devotee as Admirer of Sri Ramakrishna ● Eight: The Devotee as Sadhu ● Nine: The Devotee as Passenger to India and More ● Ten: The Devotee as "Manager Maharaj" ● Eleven: The Devotee as Aide to a Holy Man ● Twelve: The Devotee as Witness to Evidences of the Faith ● Epilogue Introduction I have lived during a period when began, and participated in, the early stages of a noteworthy religious development. I had thought of titling this book The Story of a Third-Generation Disciple. That is my situation. Sri Ramakrishna lived from 1836 to 1886. Millions of people now consider him an avatar--an incarnation of God of the same order as Jesus or Sri Krishna or Gotama Buddha--a savior for his age. The influence of Sri Ramakrishna expressed itself through his several disciples. The most famous of these was Swami Vivekananda. Another was Swami Brahmananda. My guru, Swami Prabhavananda, was a disciple of Swami Brahmananda; I may thus consider myself to be a spiritual great-grandson of Sri Ramakrishna. I have met many other spiritual descendants of Sri Ramakrishna and of Sri Ramakrishna's wife, Sri Sarada Devi--disciples of direct disciples of the former and direct disciples of the latter--together with disciples of their disciples, often of western origin. I find thus that I occupy a strategic position in relation to the early manifestation of the Ramakrishna movement. What I saw, what I learned, what I experienced ought not be lost in the trackless wastes of receeding time. Nor the effect of these contacts on one who experienced them. I have hoped that The Makinq of a Devotee, although hardly a typical work of piety, might possess enough edifying value to make its publication worth while. I have had to use a great many "I's" throughout this narrative. But I believe it to be not so much the "I" of a self-important autobiographer which speaks, but that of a bemused observer and entranced witness. It is the "I" of an experiencer caught up in events which seemed so significant that he became convinced that it would be an error not to take the bold step of offering to publish what he had written. In September, 1992, I reviewed the manuscript of The Making of a Devotee. A month or two before, I had asked Swami Gahanananda, the General Secretary of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission, who was visiting European Vedanta centers, what the attitude of the Order would be to a work of autobiography written by one of its sanyasin members. The Swami replied that the work should be reviewed at the Order's Headquarters before publication, and if published should be considered as being the property of the Order. And that the author should remain in the background, the graces experienced by the autobiographer occupying primary importance. And that the book, if considered acceptable, should be published by an official branch of the Order (not a commercial publisher as I had thought perhaps preferable) so as to avoid any idea that the work was brought out clandestinely. I agree perfectly with the stipulations of the General Secretary. But the book I have authored cannot conform to them in entirety. The autobiographer (the Devotee of the title) is very much in the forefront; indeed it is the transformation of the author from a worldly know-it-all to devotee which constitues the theme and substance of the work. There may be problems, hence, in acceptance of The Making of a Devotee for publication. So I have concluded that--barring a miraculous insistence from the Order that the book be published during my lifetime--the proper procedure is to leave the finished manuscript among my effects and let posthumous judgment prevail. My death will guarantee that the proviso of the General Secretary that the autobiographer should occupy a background position will in that case certainly be met. Return to Table of Contents. Chapter One The Devotee as Historical Incident 1. Psychologists like Carl Jung give great importance to dreams as an aid to therapy. He saw dreams as a means of tapping the contents of the unconscious and receiving useful indications from this body of wisdom generally mute. Such indications, properly interpreted, may help an individual understand the cause of his problems and show him how to combat it. In his book Memories, Dreams, Reflections Jung cites numerous examples of this process drawn from his own experience. Aside from psychiatric practice, it seems clear thet everyone engages in this process to some extent. A dream of flying will perhaps alert an individual of a suppressed longing to be free from daily cares. Finding himself in strange places may give a hint that a respite from everyday routines is in order. Dreams in which an individual finds himself caught in frustrating situations will encourage him to seek in his waking hours a more healthy pattern of life. Most of these dreams would seem merely to project a picture--reconstituted--of the concerns of the waking day. Such dreams come and go, generally leaving little lasting impression. But very occasionally a dream will make its appearance which proclaims itself more of a vision than a mere dream. Such dreams are extremely vivid and continue to leave a lasting impression. Somewhere about 194O, enthusiastically committed to a worldly life, but feeling guilty about it, I had such a dream. It was self-certifying as being more than a dream; it seemed to proclaim that it carried a serious message meant especially for me. I took it as a kind of prophesy; and have recolleted it in all its details all these fifty years, as I do today. I was in a room something like a chapel. Seated before me on a stone platform was an angel. Dressed in blue, yes, and with wings! The angel was holding a small closed casque. I sensed that this somehow pertained to me. "Please tell me, what is in the casque," I enquired. The angel smiled and replied, "You will know when you get to heaven." That was all. Rising, casque in hand, the angel disappeared through a door at the back of the room. I waited there, disappointed and yet happy and relieved. For now I knew, by implication, that, far from God as I was at that moment, I should eventually modify my life--be witness to a change of heart--and achieve "salvation". Not if you get to heaven, as I had feared, butwhen you get to heaven. This vision has sustained me all these years. I claim the promise that I shall see the angel again. That winged being must be there to greet me on my departure from this life and keep his promise. What the casque when opened will reveal I do not know, but the fact that it shall be opened in heaven's unblinking light has given me cause to carry on with confidence all these years. 2. I was born in 1913. (I can still remember, when five years old, the sound of factory whistles saluting the end of World War I.) On that hot day of July 29, 1913, my mother had gone to a morning Chautauqua entertainment held in a circus tent in the city park of Lansing, Michigan. They say that, being a large woman, Mother hardly showed that she was pregnant, and anyway her term still had time to go. But during the performance she began to experience labor pains. Alarmed, she started to walk home--a good couple of miles. When proceeding on foot became impossible she flagged down a man driving a horse and wagon, who brought her home. I was born that evening at 23h. 45, a month prematurely. I am told my body was somewhat unfinished; the nails were not fully formed; eyebrows had yet to appear, and there were one or two other imperfections. My father was a dentist. and our life was comfortable. We lived in a big house set on an acre of land, just beyond the city limits. We always had good food, adequate clothing. We spent Christmastime at my grandmother's house in southwestern Michigan with my aunts and uncles and cousins; and we passed the summer at a cottage at Cedarvillle in Michigan's Upper Penninsula near where Lake Huron and Lake Michigan join at the Straits of Mackinaw. My parents were religiously strict, but possibly no stricter than many at that epoch. Both were what we would call today born-again Christians. They tried to inculcate in my sister Elizabeth, five years my junior, and in me the traditional Protestant virtues. Father was what we might think of as a typical New Englander. His character resembled that of his own father, who as a young doctor had come to the midwest from Vermont. Father's apparent coldness concealed what I later was to understand was an ardent nature. He rarely expressed his feelings, but people respected him as, though not easy to know, a good man.
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