The Cauliflower Robbery, From Autobiography Of A Yogi

Chapter 15 from Paramahansa Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi.

The Cauliflower Robbery.

Master,

A gift for you.

These six huge cauliflowers were planted with my hands.

I watched over their growth with the tender care of a mother nursing her child.

I presented the basket of vegetables with a ceremonial flourish.

Thank you.

Sri Yukteswar's smile was warm with appreciation.

Please keep them in your room.

I shall need them tomorrow for a special dinner.

I had just arrived in Puri to spend my college summer vacation with my guru at his seaside hermitage.

Built by Master and his disciples,

The cheerful little two-storied retreat fronts on the Bay of Bengal.

I awoke early the next morning,

Refreshed by the salty sea breezes and the quiet charm of the ashram.

My guru's melodious voice was calling.

I took a look at my cherished cauliflowers and stowed them neatly under my bed.

Come,

Let us go to the beach.

Master led the way.

Several young disciples and I followed in a scattered group.

Our guru surveyed us in mild criticism.

When our Western brothers walk,

They usually take pride in unison.

Now,

Please march in two rows.

Keep rhythmic step with one another.

Sri Yukteswar watched as we obeyed.

He began to sing,

♪ Boys go to and fro in a pretty little row.

♪ I could not but admire the ease with which Master was able to match the brisk pace of his young students.

Halt,

My guru's eyes sought mine.

Did you remember to lock the back door of the hermitage?

I think so,

Sir.

Sri Yukteswar was silent for a few minutes,

A half-suppressed smile on his lips.

No,

You forgot,

He said finally.

Divine contemplation must not be made an excuse for material carelessness.

You have neglected your duty in safeguarding the ashram.

You must be punished.

I thought he was obscurely joking when he added,

Your six cauliflowers will soon be only five.

We turned around at Master's orders and marched back until we were close to the hermitage.

Rest a while.

Mukunda,

Look across the compound on our left,

Observe the road beyond.

A certain man will arrive there presently.

He will be the means of your chastisement.

I concealed my vexation at these incomprehensible remarks.

A peasant soon appeared on the road.

He was dancing grotesquely and flinging his arms about with meaningless gestures.

Almost paralyzed with curiosity,

I glued my eyes on the hilarious spectacle.

As the man reached a point in the road where he would vanish from our view,

Sri Yukteswar said,

Now he will return.

The peasant at once changed his direction and made for the rear of the ashram.

Crossing a sandy tract,

He entered the building by the back door.

I had left it unlocked,

Even as my guru had said.

The man emerged shortly,

Holding one of my prized cauliflowers.

He now strode along respectably,

Invested with the dignity of possession.

The unfolding farce in which my role appeared to be that of bewildered victim was not so disconcerting that I failed in indignant pursuit of the thief.

I was halfway to the road when master called me back.

He was shaking from head to foot with laughter.

The poor crazy man has been longing for a cauliflower,

He explained between outbursts of mirth.

I thought it would be a good idea if he got one of yours,

So ill-guarded.

I dashed to my room,

Where I found that the thief,

Evidently one with a vegetable fixation,

Had left untouched my gold rings,

Watch,

And money,

All lying openly on the blanket.

He crawled instead under the bed,

Where the basket of cauliflowers,

Completely hidden from casual sight,

Had yield the object of his single-hearted desire.

I asked Sri Yukteswar that evening to explain the incident,

Which had,

I thought,

A few baffling features.

My guru shook his head slowly.

You will understand it someday.

Science will soon discover a number of these hidden laws.

When the wonders of radio burst some years later on an astounded world,

I remembered Rathmaster's prediction.

Age-old concepts of time and space were annihilated.

No person's home so narrow that London or Calcutta could not enter.

The dullest intelligence enlarged before indisputable proof of one aspect of man's omnipresence.

The plot of the cauliflower comedy may be best understood by a radio analogy.

My guru was a perfect human radio.

Thoughts are no more than very subtle vibrations moving in the ether.

Just as a correctly tuned radio picks up a desired musical number out of thousands of other programs from every direction,

So Sri Yukteswar had been sensitively receptive to a certain pertinent thought,

That of the half-witted man who was hankering for a cauliflower,

Out of the countless thoughts of broadcasting human minds in the world.

During the walk toward the beach,

No sooner had Master become aware of the peasant's simple yearning than he was willing to gratify it.

Sri Yukteswar's divine eye had discovered the man dancing down the road before he had become visible to the disciples.

My forgetfulness about locking the ashram door had given Master a convenient excuse to deprive me of one of my valued vegetables.

After thus functioning as a receiving instrument,

Sri Yukteswar then operated through his powerful will as a broadcaster or sending instrument.

In that role,

He had successfully directed the peasant to reverse his steps and go to a certain room for a single cauliflower.

Intuition is sole guidance,

Appearing naturally in man during those instants when his mind is calm.

Nearly everyone has had the experience of an inexplicably correct hunch or has transferred his thoughts accurately to another person.

The human mind,

Freed from the disturbances or static of restlessness,

Is empowered to perform all the functions of complicated radio mechanisms,

Sending as well as receiving thoughts and tuning out undesirable ones.

As the power of a radio broadcasting station is regulated by the amount of electrical current it can utilize,

So the effectiveness of a human radio depends on the degree of willpower possessed by each person.

All thoughts vibrate eternally in the cosmos.

By deep concentration,

A master is able to detect the thoughts of any man living or dead.

Thoughts are universally and not individually rooted.

A truth cannot be created,

But only perceived.

Any erroneous thought of man is a result of an imperfection,

Large or small,

In his discernment.

The goal of yoga science is to calm the mind,

That without distortion it may hear the infallible counsel of the inner voice.

Radio and television have brought the instantaneous sound and sight of remote persons to the firesides of millions.

The first faint scientific intimations that man is an all-pervading spirit.

Though the ego in most barbaric ways conspires to enslave him,

Man is not a body confined to a point in space,

But is essentially the omnipresent soul.

Very strange,

Very wonderful,

Seemingly very improbable phenomenon may yet appear,

Which,

When once established,

Will not astonish us more than we are now astonished at all that science has taught us during the last century.

Charles Robert Richet,

Nobel Laureate in Physiology,

Has declared,

"'It is assumed that the phenomena "'which we now accept without surprise "'do not excite our astonishment "'because they are understood,

"'but this is not the case.

"'If they do not surprise us,

"'it is not because they are understood.

"'It is because they are familiar.

"'For if that which is not understood ought to surprise us,

"'we should be surprised at everything.

"'The fall of a stone thrown into the air,

"'the acorn which becomes an oak,

"'mercury which expands when it is heated,

"'iron attracted by a magnet.

' The science of today is a light matter.

Those amazing truths that our descendants will discover are even now all around us,

Staring us in the eyes,

So to speak,

And yet we do not see them.

But it is not enough to say that we do not see them.

We do not wish to see them.

For as soon as an unexpected and unfamiliar fact appears,

We try to fit it into the framework of the commonplaces of accepted knowledge and are indignant that anyone should dare to experiment further.