“Master is not here; he was summoned to Calcutta by an urgent note.”
The following day I received a post card from my guru. “I shall leave Calcutta Wednesday morning,” he had written. “You and Dijen meet the nine o’clock train at Serampore station.”
About eight-thirty on Wednesday morning, a telepathic message from Sri Yukteswar flashed insistently to my mind: “I am delayed; don’t meet the nine o’clock train.”
I conveyed the latest instructions to Dijen, who was already dressed for departure.
“You and your intuition!” My friend’s voice was edged in scorn. “I prefer to trust Master’s written word.”
I shrugged my shoulders and seated myself with quiet finality. Muttering angrily, Dijen made for the door and closed it noisily behind him.
As the room was rather dark, I moved nearer to the window overlooking the street. The scant sunlight suddenly increased to an intense brilliancy in which the iron-barred window completely vanished. Against this dazzling background appeared the clearly materialized figure of Sri Yukteswar!
Bewildered to the point of shock, I rose from my chair and knelt before him. With my customary gesture of respectful greeting at my guru’s feet, I touched his shoes. These were a pair familiar to me, of orange-dyed canvas, soled with rope. His ocher swami cloth brushed against me; I distinctly felt not only the texture of his robe, but also the gritty surface of the shoes, and the pressure of his toes within them. Too much astounded to utter a word, I stood up and gazed at him questioningly.
“I was pleased that you got my telepathic message.” Master’s voice was calm, entirely normal. “I have now finished my business in Calcutta, and shall arrive in Serampore by the ten o’clock train.”
As I still stared mutely, Sri Yukteswar went on, “This is not an apparition, but my flesh and blood form. I have been divinely commanded to give you this experience, rare to achieve on earth. Meet me at the station; you and Dijen will see me coming toward you, dressed as I am now. I shall be preceded by a fellow passenger-a little boy carrying a silver jug.”