Chapter 6
AS A SERVANT

On reaching Calcutta, again, I took recourse to begging alms from those old places. At night instead of retiring on the bank of the Ganges I used to stay in the free lodging houses, known as Dharamshala.

Soon I could engage myself as a servant in a well-to-do family. It was absolutely a menial's job from the point of my Brahminhood. This type of activities could not become for long suitable to my temperament. So, I left that job and came back to the fold of a stray priest.

But this servant's career in a rich man's house gave me a very good scope. As a servant, undoubtedly, I was a man of no importance. Nevertheless, everything in a rich man's quarter is done in a most luxurious way. There was in that well-to-do house a pack of servants and maid-servants. From the point of exerting the physical labour it was not so much a strenuous one; rather the work there was distributed in different angles. Definitely I was happy in order to see that I could get the opportunity to practise my Yogic exercises according to the instructions imparted to me by the Mother of the Universe.

Soon I had control over all the Asanas* . Every feat in this line of Yoga has its special acquisition within the limbs of a body. Gradually I could set up the actual control at ease on each exercise. Ultimately, to remain in a particular mode concerning a particular Yoga for one whole night became a matter at par with the Mother's teaching.

The celestial bliss was gradually gaining its depth within my whole mental region. Life in its external sphere was too drab and all the day long I would be pampering the slavish foothold in order to be a full-fledged servant. The egoistic spirit as to being a Brahmin would boil within my heart. There was no exit for me for the time being. My conscience became subservient to my downtrodden state.

It was no use thinking of any otherwise change in that provisional set up for which I had to stick to the services, however low, that it had been. An illiterate person like me would not fare in any other sphere. But my conscience would start becoming vigorous during the time of the respite at the late hour of the night. What a pathetic state of affair! In the day I had all the feelings of sparing no pains to discharge my duties to the best satisfaction of all in that well-to-do house. And, in the night a series of indifference would lead me to a world where I would envisage the nothingness of the whole day's manual toil.

Really the Mother would mince my calmness at the midnight into Her own deliberations. That is, more training in the path of Yoga became a daily routine. I used to be lost in my senses with a view to establishing any justification of my own for all these divine processes.

So, I had two-fold activities for a good deal of period. If the obverse was linked up for the accumulation of money by being a servant, then, the reverse would focus within me all the qualities of becoming a virtuous man.

Next Chapter: Mysticism