Date Posted:05:30:45 07/04/06 Tue Author: Anon - 10 May 2006 Subject: Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri
The words of Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri, from "The Holy Science".
As I was walking along the bank of the Ganges, I was summoned by
a man and was afterwards honored by an interview with a great
holy person, Babaji, the gurudeva of my own guru, Lahiri
Mahasaya, of Benares. This holy person at the Kumbha Mela was
thus my own paramguruji maharaj, though this was our first
meeting.
During my conversation with Babaji, we spoke of the particular
class of men who now frequent these places of pilgrimage. I
humbly suggested that there were men greater by far in
intelligence than most of those then present, men living in
different parts of the world- Europe and America- professing
different creeds , and ignorant of the real significance of the
Kumbha Mela. They were men fit to hold communion with the
spiritual devotees, so far as intelligence is concerned; yet such
men in foreign lands were, alas, wedded in many cases to rank
materialism. Some of them, though famous for their investigations
in the realms of science and philosophy, do not recognize the
essential unity in religion. The professed creeds serve as nearly
insurmountable barriers that threaten to separate mankind
forever.
My paramguruji maharaj smiled and, honoring me with the title of
Swami, imposed on me the task of this book. I was chosen, I do
not know the reason why, to remove the barriers and to help in
establishing the basic truth in all religions.
