With an agitated bow, my friend hastily departed. I visited him several times during the next few weeks, and was aghast to find his condition increasingly worse.
“Sasi cannot last through the night.” These words from his physician, and the spectacle of my friend, now reduced almost to a skeleton, sent me posthaste to Serampore. My guru listened coldly to my tearful report.
“Why do you come here to bother me? You have already heard me assure Sasi of his recovery.”
I bowed before him in great awe, and retreated to the door. Sri Yukteswar said no parting word, but sank into silence, his unwinking eyes half-open, their vision fled to another world.
I returned at once to Sasi’s home in Calcutta. With astonishment I found my friend sitting up, drinking milk.
“O Mukunda! What a miracle! Four hours ago I felt Master’s presence in the room; my terrible symptoms immediately disappeared. I feel that through his grace I am entirely well.”
In a few weeks Sasi was stouter and in better health than ever before. [17-1] But his singular reaction to his healing had an ungrateful tinge: he seldom visited Sri Yukteswar again! My friend told me one day that he so deeply regretted his previous mode of life that he was ashamed to face Master.
I could only conclude that Sasi’s illness had had the contrasting effect of stiffening his will and impairing his manners.
The first two years of my course at Scottish Church College were drawing to a close. My classroom attendance had been very spasmodic; what little studying I did was only to keep peace with my family. My two private tutors came regularly to my house; I was regularly absent: I can discern at least this one regularity in my scholastic career!
In India two successful years of college bring an Intermediate Arts diploma; the student may then look forward to another two years and his A.B. degree.