The grace of the Christlike yogi, Trailanga, was once bestowed on my sajo mama (maternal uncle). One morning Uncle saw the master surrounded by a crowd of devotees at a Benares ghat. He managed to edge his way close to Trailanga, whose feet he touched humbly. Uncle was astonished to find himself instantly freed from a painful chronic disease. [31-7]
The only known living disciple of the great yogi is a woman, Shankari Mai Jiew. Daughter of one of Trailanga’s disciples, she received the swami’s training from her early childhood. She lived for forty years in a series of lonely Himalayan caves near Badrinath, Kedarnath, Amarnath, and Pasupatinath. The brahmacharini (woman ascetic), born in 1826, is now well over the century mark. Not aged in appearance, however, she has retained her black hair, sparkling teeth, and amazing energy. She comes out of her seclusion every few years to attend the periodical melas or religious fairs.
This woman saint often visited Lahiri Mahasaya. She has related that one day, in the Barackpur section near Calcutta, while she was sitting by Lahiri Mahasaya’s side, his great guru Babaji quietly entered the room and held converse with them both.
On one occasion her master Trailanga, forsaking his usual silence, honored Lahiri Mahasaya very pointedly in public. A Benares disciple objected.
“Sir,” he said, “why do you, a swami and a renunciate, show such respect to a householder?”
“My son,” Trailanga replied, “Lahiri Mahasaya is like a divine kitten, remaining wherever the Cosmic Mother has placed him. While dutifully playing the part of a worldly man, he has received that perfect self- realization for which I have renounced even my loincloth!”
[31-1:] One is reminded here of Milton’s line: “He for God only, she for God in him.”
[31-2:] The venerable mother passed on at Benares in 1930.
[31-3:] Staff, symbolizing the spinal cord, carried ritually by certain orders of monks.
[31-4:] He was a muni, a monk who observes mauna, spiritual silence. The Sanskrit root muni is akin to Greek monos, “alone, single,” from which are derived the English words monk, monism, etc.