It was my proudest privilege to bring college friends to meet my guru. Many of them would lay aside-at least in the ashram!-their fashionable academic cloak of religious skepticism.
One of my friends, Sasi, spent a number of happy week ends in Serampore. Master became immensely fond of the boy, and lamented that his private life was wild and disorderly.
“Sasi, unless you reform, one year hence you will be dangerously ill.” Sri Yukteswar gazed at my friend with affectionate exasperation. “Mukunda is the witness: don’t say later that I didn’t warn you.”
Sasi laughed. “Master, I will leave it to you to interest a sweet charity of cosmos in my own sad case! My spirit is willing but my will is weak. You are my only savior on earth; I believe in nothing else.”
“At least you should wear a two-carat blue sapphire. It will help you.”
“I can’t afford one. Anyhow, dear guruji, if trouble comes, I fully believe you will protect me.”
“In a year you will bring three sapphires,” Sri Yukteswar replied cryptically. “They will be of no use then.”
Variations on this conversation took place regularly. “I can’t reform!” Sasi would say in comical despair. “And my trust in you, Master, is more precious to me than any stone!”
A year later I was visiting my guru at the Calcutta home of his disciple, Naren Babu. About ten o’clock in the morning, as Sri Yukteswar and I were sitting quietly in the second-floor parlor, I heard the front door open. Master straightened stiffly.
“It is that Sasi,” he remarked gravely. “The year is now up; both his lungs are gone. He has ignored my counsel; tell him I don’t want to see him.”