The yogi I knew

A face with rosy cheeks, wispy white hair and eyes twinkling through thick glasses looked up at us from his wheelchair. Anahita Sanjana and I had sought out Amal Kiran (born Kekoo D. Sethna on November 25, 1904) at 19, Rue Francois Martin, Pondicherry. Afflicted by polio at an early age, and having suffered several falls, he was confined to a wheelchair, but his mind sparkled with the genius of a poet par excellence, knowing many arts and sciences, with knowledge acquired by deep research and enlightened intuition. When we mentioned that we had recently returned from a school trip to Solang near the source of the river Beas, he quipped teasingly, "Did you come sliding down a glacier?”

Amal has written something like 51 books, of which some are in a light vein, some on political and philosophical thought, one titled Mysticism and Einstein’s Relativity Physics and several on historical research of ancient India. However, his literary accomplishments merely concealed the true yogi that he was. As a young man, he came across a book on Rajayoga by Swami Viveka­nanda where he read about breathing exercises which could enhance one’s energy levels. On further reading, he was intrigued to find that the mind could be stilled and could ultimately pass into a higher state of consciousness, "as a result of which you acquired various powers, not only having inexhaustible energy but becoming larger, becoming smaller, flying about and doing a lot of amazing things.”

He once chanced upon a sanyasi in ochre robes and followed him to his home. "What have you to teach me?” he enquired of the mendicant. The latter showed Amal into his room and said he was a worshipper of many gods and goddesses. To invoke them he would have to dig a big square hole in his room and light a big fire there! Amal mumbled something like, "All right, I’ll see what I can do,” and left.

Next, he sought out a Maharashtrian yogi who taught him an exercise to raise consciousness. Amal followed it seriously and, to his amazement, he had his first out-of-body experience. Now, in the most concrete way he knew he was not merely a body and "this brought a great deal of assurance that, after all, yoga was not bunk, there was genuine substance to it,” he writes.

At a theosophical meeting he met an art critic who recognized him as "a knot of many strings and that there was only one person who could help him, and that was Sri Aurobindo.” At that time, this was only a name, but grace acts in strange ways. One day Amal went to Crawford Market to buy a pair of shoes. When he brought them home and undid the newspaper wrapping, his eyes fell on the heading, "The Ashram of Sri Auro­bindo.” Someone had been to the ashram and written about it. After reading it Amal exclaimed, "I am going there! My mind is made up at last and I have found my goal, or at least the path to my goal.” And ultimately he went to Pondicherry "wearing the same shoes which became the shoes of a real pilgrim.”

He claims that initially he had problems with his westernized intellect and several questions bothered him. He once asked the Mother, "How can there be the One and at the same time the Many?” She replied, "Read Sri Aurobindo more and more and you will find how it is possible.” Another question plaguing him was, "Have I got free will or not?” Mother’s answer was a clipped, "Yes.” He mulled over the question and after 12 years wrote a short essay, "Free will in Sri Aurobindo’s Vision.” On reading it Aurobindo’s comment was, "The article is excellent. In fact it could not be bettered.”

Under the guidance of his gurus, Amal’s spiritual progress went spiraling upward. He had several out-of-body experiences. When they occurred in the ashram he was protected from evil forces by the Mother, but it once happened in Bombay where he had gone to visit his family. He received a terrific blow on the back from beings whose "very look is calamitous.” His wandering spirit rushed back into his physical body, but he became very ill. The doctors found nothing wrong with him physically. It was only when he started reciting from Savitri, an inspirational epic poem by Sri Aurobindo, and reached the description of Mother, (page 14, "Near to earth’s wideness intimate with heaven”), did he begin to feel better. When he came to the line, "For even her gulfs were secrecies of light,” he was completely cured.

In the course of Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo one attains a stage called "psychicization” in the heart center and "spiritualization” in the head center. When he achieved the former, he described it as "sweet and light.” He said one is relieved of the human habits of "depression” and "rebellion” against one’s lot and the divine. In his witty, humorous style he said now he was forever rid of the "sigh” and "kick” of his life when his "psychic” opened!

Another spiritual experience which he personally told me about occurred during a train journey when he was traveling from Madras to Bombay. He saw a vision of the Mother in front of him. Skeptical as he was, he shut his eyes tight and opened them again. She was still there. He repeated this and found her still standing before him. When he shut and opened his eyes a third time, she had disappeared.

On his return to Madras, he told her of his experience. She said she was keeping her promise to him, made 16 years earlier, that when the supramental force came down to earth, she would let him know. And it did, on February 29, 1956, during group meditation in the school playground at Pondicherry.

He once told a sadhak (acolyte) that when he had realized the Oneness of all things, he perceived the Divine even in inanimate objects. He would see furniture and other objects shining and would be moved to bow to them.

When he was in a hospital in Bombay with a heart problem, doctors gave him morphine. Instead of feeling dopey and sleepy, his senses became stimulated. Poetry began to pour out of him. In the presence of doctors he would pretend to be asleep, but when alone he would grab writing materials and pen beautiful poetry which flowed from the divine springs of the Overmind.

My husband and I visited him at the Ashram Nursing Home where he spent the last years of his life. We told him our names and said that we were from Bombay. With his usual twinkling cheerfulness he responded, "Oh, you are Parsis. I am also a Parsi and I am also from Bombay!” We already knew that. He didn’t realize how famous he was.

With the grace of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, he made quantum spiritual strides. Mother had promised that he would achieve spiritual transformation in this life itself. He left his physical body on June 29, 2011 at the age of 106, and we have every reason to believe that his soul attained the bliss of union with the divine.

VEERA DASTOOR

veeradastoor@yahoo.com