Hagiography of a Yogi 169
meeting with an immortal guru rather than witness the passing of a mortal one.
Retrospectively, Yogananda writes:
Apparently I was remaining oblivious to implications in Sri Yukteswar’s
attitude because the Lord wished to spare me the experience of being
forced, helplessly, to witness my guru’s passing. It has always happened in
my life that, at the death of those dearly beloved by me, God has compas-
sionately arranged that I be distant from the scene.^35In a footnote Yogananda indicates that he had likewise been absent for the death
of his mother, eldest brother, eldest sister, father, and several close disciples. Of
course Yogananda’s distance during these times was hardly an accident. Whether
ordained by a divine plan or not, most if not all of these absences— save the first
during his mother’s passing— can be attributed to his single- minded pursuit of
his career as a Yogi.
Yogananda’s narrative of his guru’s passing is characterized by a continuous
tug of war between retrospective prescience and immediate denial and disbelief.
Having returned to Calcutta, he receives an urgent telegram telling him to rush to
Serampore, where Sri Yukteswar has departed. Yet he insists that a divine internal
voice instructs him not to depart that very night, as his prayers for his master’s life
cannot be granted, causing him not to board the train until the following evening.
On the train he has a foreboding vision of a gravely visaged Sri Yukteswar, who
only nods in response to his beseeching “Is it all over?” and silently disappears.^36
Arriving at the station, he still refuses to acknowledge the truth when a stranger
approaches him to inform him of Sri Yukteswar’s passing. The remainder of the
chapter catalogues the subsequent events with an air of utter gloom. No amount
of surety that Sri Yukteswar has departed at last into the bliss of cosmic conscious-
ness is able to slake Yogananda’s grief at the loss of his teacher. His passage back
to America is cancelled due to insufficient space to accommodate the company’s
beloved Ford automobile, and he returns to Puri to mourn.
Sri Yukteswar’s death is thus colored by Yogananda’s denial and subsequent
guilt. In light of their separation during the guru’s final days, Yogananda’s anxiety
regarding Sri Yukteswar’s love and approval becomes all the more urgent. The
final vision of Sri Yukteswar received by him on the train to Serampore betrays
this angst in its focus on the departed man’s stern, perhaps even cold, counte-
nance. The promise of divine union seems irrelevant and so lies forgotten.
Yogananda’s despondency receives its first spark of relief about three months
later, when Krishna suddenly appears to him on a rooftop across from the Bombay
Regent Hotel. Although unable to decipher Krishna’s message, Yogananda cites
this as presaging some uplifting spiritual event. A week later, in the same hotel