The Yogi and the Housewife

In a small jungle of India, the wayfarers were
wont to see sitting in stem and harsh silence a
yogi, with hands crossed upon his breast and his
eyes closed for hours at a time, while he meditated
in deep concentration upon the laws of Nature
within the universe and within himself. The good
peasants of the neighboring village passed him
with bated breath and rarely stopped to look upon
him save with eyes of fear, for the lines of love
were not stamped upon this yogi's face, nor was he
full of that sweet humanity or humility which
the holy ones who dwelt in the jungles were apt
to display in their silent and ardent quest for il-
lumination.

One day, as the yogi took his accustomed seat
'neath his tree of meditation, he was startled out
of his deep trance-like silence by the droppings of
a heron that sat on a branch above him. The
angry yogi flashed a burning glance at the in-
nocently-offending heron, and lo, at that glance,
the heron fell at his feet dead, for the fire in the
glance of the angry yogi had taken the life of the
bird!

The yogi gazed at the havoc he had wrought
on the poor heron, but no pity stirred in his breast
for the life he had taken. Only a great throb of
conscious power rose within him at this sign of accomplished ambition. ''Now/' thought he, ''I am
a real yogi. I may not be able to remove moun-
tains or look at the invisible workings of the uni-
verse. I may not be able to put oflf my body at
will or call from a distance a man or a beast in
a second. I may not be able to materialize objects
for all the world to wonder at. But I can,
with a look of anger, slay a life. So, let all beware
that they anger me not, lest I show them my
power at the cost of their lives." So thought the
yogi and again entered into the concentrated
silence of meditation.

Now, as the day wore on, he rose and sought
the village to ask for the frugal meal that a yogi
is wont to beg from the homes of the pious each
day. He called aloud at the door of a poor Brah-
man and demanded in harsh tones for his fare
from the lady of the house who opened the door
to him. ''One moment, Sir," she said, "And I
will bring to thee such food as I have," and bow-
ing to the yogi she turned and reentered her*
house.

The moments passed and lengthened into the
half of an hour ere the housewife again came to
the yogi, bringing him choice fruits and sweet-
meats, and holding them toward him with sweet
humility and downcast eyes. But the yogi thrust
them away and harshly said, "Ha, 'tis a fine
way you treat a holy beggar keeping him waiting
at your door to suit your will ! Do you know who

I am?" And he cast an angry glance at the
woman who met that glance with calm humility
and wise serenity.

"Oh yes, Sir/' she softly said, **I know who
you are. But I am a woman and not a heron
whom you can kill by an angry glance.''

The jrogi started and looked at her in wonder-
ment, but ere he could question her how she came
to know of the heron, the Brahmani replied:

''I am a yogi, too, good Sir, and the things that
are I see. For me space holds no obstacle and
material environments do not cloud my spiritual
sense. I read the thoughts of men and that which
transpires in the far distance is revealed unto me.
So I saw you in anger slay a heron and I read the
thoughts in your mind at my long delay in serving
you with food, and now again, a moment ago, I
knew the desire to punish me swelled in your
breast. But, good Sir, your power is lost on me
for mine offsets yours. Mine is bom of spiritual
devotion to duty and kin, while you seek psychic
powers for self-aggrandisement. But, pray, par-
don my prattle. Sir, I will now tell you how,
against my desire, I have kept you waiting thus
for these fruits. It is written in the Sacred Books
that a woman's first duty is to her husband and
home. By this devotion she may gain greater
spiritual development than by any other means.
You Brahmans teach these and we who read or
hear the Sh&stras in earnest mu^t follow each
teaching. So it happened that when I left you,
my husband had just returned from a long
journey, hungry and almost overcome with weari-
ness and heat. As my first duty is to him, I cooled
him, served him and fed him. He is head of our
house, the first in my soul and the lord of my
heart. Through his great devotion to Ood, he has
been blessed with wonderful illumination of
Truth. This illuminated Truth he bestows upon
me freely. He feeds me, he clothes me, he keeps
the roof-tree above me by his labors. His love
comforts me, his strength encourages me, his
Truth teaches me and he serves me with his wis-
dom. And in turn I, most blessed among women,
see in him my spiritual guide, my benefactor and
my lover. So, with all devotion and humility I
serve him and my attention to him is ever undi-
vided. It is through this loving devotion to my
good husband, my good Sir, I have attained these
spiritual powers which make the invisible visible
and the unreadable knowable to me."

The yogi marvelled as he listened to her words.
His eyes lost their cold hauteur and the harsh
lines softened about his face.

' ' Thou art indeed a wonderful woman, ' ' he said,
''and thy words make my heart drop its heajjl in
silence because of foolish and harsh vanity. Oh
tell me words of advice that might be of service
to me in this my quest for illumination, for great
is thy wisdom and marvellous thy devotion must
be to have brought about this development of soul
in thee/'

''Nay/' said the housewife, '4t is not meet I
should teach thee, a Brahman, but this will I say
that the same devotion that gave me these spirit-
ual powers show me that thou art an only son of
thy parents and in seeking to develop thy soul,
thou hast left behind thee, in great pain and sor-
row, thy good parents who are pining for thee.
There thou hast fled thy highest duty, and because
of it, the true light has not been vouchsafed to
thee. I urge thee to go yonder across the market
place. There thou wilt find a hunter, a man of low
caste indeed— a pariah— but of great wisdom. Do
thou go to him and ask his advice, and thou shalt
hear that which shall make thee wise and see that
which thou shalt not soon forget.''

''But," said the Brahman, "a hunter! How can
I be in the presence of one who kills living things
for a living. An outcast is he and of unclean
birth."

"But thou didst kill a heron, though a Brah-
man. That wise hunter follows the calling of his
castei. Sir, the caste of a hunter in which he is
bom. But he does not kill, he merely sells flesh
as his forefathers did by buying it from somebody
else. But even a pariah may acquire wisdom if
he desire it, say the sages, wisdom's gate is opened
as wide to the meanest bom as to the twice-born,
even as God is equally approachable to high and
low alike. Even from an illuminated Sudra the
Brahmans have gratefully received lessons of
Truth."

At this the yogi turned and walked toward the
stall where the hunter stood with his back toward
him weighing some flesh that lay in the scales.
The yogi looked at the hunter and stopped stilL
This hunter was an outcast and unclean, a killer
of cattle and bird, a handler and seller of flesh
and he, a Brahman, could not go into his presence,
much less go to him for advice. Tet she, the mar-
vellous woman, had bade him go to him and see
thkt which he would never forget and hear the
words that would make him wise.

As he stood there, some hundred feet from the
hunter's stall, pondering in uncertainty, the
hunter put down his scales, turned and faced him,
came directly toward him and bowed to him low.
"0 holy Sir," he began," I have been awaiting
thee. Yonder good woman sent thee hither to
seek advice from me and thou, in thy perplexity,
canst not make up thy mind to seek wisdom from
one who is unclean and an outcast."

''How knowest thou all this?" faltered the yogi.
' 'But a few minutes since I left the woman yonder.
Here thou dost meet me telling me all that has
passed between us and read the shrinkings of my
heart and the promptings of my mind ! ' '

"0 Sir," answered the hunter, "Illumination
and yogi-powers are mine too."

"What!'' exclaimed the Brahman, "you, an
outcast and a hunter, have spiritual powers? How
came you by so g^reat a blessing in these your low
material surroundings?"

"If thou wilt come with me, holy Sir," humbly
proposed the hunter, "and bless my house by the
dust of thy feet, I will show thee how these powers
came to me."

Wonderingly the yogi followed the hunter into
his home, a mud hut, where, with reverent air, the
hunter led him to a room in which an old man of
peaceful mien and, at his side, a sweet-faced
woman, sat on seats elevated as a throne.

"See," said the hunter, "these are my revered
and beloved parents. These I have worshipped
and loved and served all my life. These have been
my earthly deities and to these I have given the
strength of my concentrated love and homage
from childhood up. And thus they, through my
sacred devotion to them, have been the medium
of my spiritual enlightenment. Toga means joining
the mind to the Holy Spirit, and when the mind
is concentrated in a loving and reverent spirit
upon something it worships as holy, it absorbs and
is filled with the powers of the Holy Spirit, the
energy of tiie Soul, called yoga-powers. Oo thou
back, holy Sir, to thy parents. Fill with love the
void thou hast made in their hearts by leaving
them in their old age. Satisfy them, give them
thy loving and devoted attention, and the gates
of tme understanding shall be opened nnto thee,
and the wisdom and spiritual gifts thou seekest
shall be thine.

"Look thou, Sir, my following the trade of a
hunter is but a part of my devotion to my parents.
While they live I shall do what they have done be-
fore me. And when my material services are no
longer needful to them, when they leave me for an-
other world, tiien I shall break my caste and enter
into the glades of the forest to seek undisturbed
my Ood in silence. But now my duty is here, and
a blessed privilege is mine to serve in reverence
these my parents, and walk in the laws of my
caste uncomplaining. The realization of this and
my adherence to it has alone been the means of
my spiritual powers."

In reverent silence the proud Brahman heard
and understood, and the jungle saw him not again
at his accustomed seat until many years had
passed. When he again came to that jungle, a
kindly light gleamed in his face, and his glance
was soft and full of love, for by the absolute and
holy devotion he had bestowed upon the declining
years of his departed parents, he had learned
that love and duty to those nearest was the
strongest lever to spiritual power and illumina-
tion.