Paramahansa Yogananda

“ Wright has recorded in his travel diary, under date of May 5, 1936. "Very fascinating are these clusters of thatched mud huts, decorated with one of the names of God on the door; many small, naked children innocently playing about, pausing to stare or run wildly from this big, black, bullockless carriage tearing madly through their village. The women merely peep from the shadows, while the men lazily loll beneath the trees along the roadside, curious beneath their nonchalance. ”

“ We obtain the energy we need for living from the solar energy stored in the plant-food we eat or in the flesh of the animals that eat the plants. The energy we obtain from coal or oil is solar energy trapped by the chlorophyll in plant life millions of years ago. ”

“ From today you shall live by the astral light, your bodily atoms fed from the infinite current.'"
Giri Bala fell into silence. I took Mr. Wright's pencil and pad and translated into English a few items for his information.
The saint resumed the tale, her gentle voice barely audible. "The GHAT was deserted, but my guru cast round us an aura of guarding light, that no stray bathers later disturb us. He initiated me into a KRIYA technique which frees the body from dependence on the gross food of mortals. ”

“ We chuckled together over the improbability of these two cosmic events.
"Giri Bala has never sought an inaccessible solitude for her yoga practices," Lambadar Babu went on. "She has lived her entire life surrounded by her family and friends. ”

“ Our driver guided the car warily among the early peasants and the two-wheeled carts, slowly drawn by yoked, hump-shouldered bullocks, inclined to dispute the road with a honking interloper.
"Sir, we would like to know more of the fasting saint."
"Her name is Giri Bala," I informed my companions. "I first heard about her years ago from a scholarly gentleman, Sthiti Lal Nundy. He often came to the Gurpar Road home to tutor my brother Bishnu."
"'I know Giri Bala well,' Sthiti Babu told me. 'She employs a certain yoga technique which enables her to live without eating. ”

“ Wikipedia:Yogananda Image Gallery (GIRI BALA, This great woman yogi has not taken food or drink since 1880. I am pictured with her, in 1936, at her home in the isolated Bengal village of Biur. Her non-eating state has been rigorously investigated by the Maharaja of Burdwan. She employs a certain yoga technique to recharge her body with cosmic energy from the ether, sun, and air.) ”

“ The road led toward a grove of date palms sheltering a group of mud huts, but before we had reached it, the Ford was momentarily tipped at a dangerous angle, tossed up and dropped down. The narrow trail led around trees and tank, over ridges, into holes and deep ruts. The car became anchored on a clump of bushes, then grounded on a hillock, requiring a lift of earth clods ”

“ They are all well accustomed now to her strange state. Not one of them who would not be stupefied if Giri Bala suddenly decided to eat anything! Sister is naturally retiring, as befits a Hindu widow, but our little circle in Purulia and in Biur all know that she is literally an 'exceptional' woman."
The brother's sincerity was manifest. Our little party thanked him warmly and set out toward Biur. We stopped at a street shop for curry and LUCHIS, attracting a swarm of urchins who gathered round to watch Mr. Wright eating with his fingers in the simple Hindu manner. ”

“ We like to see our food, to smell it, to taste it--the Hindu likes also to touch it!" One does not mind HEARING it, either, if no one else is present at the meal!
{FN46-6} Mr. Wright also took moving pictures of Sri Yukteswar during his last Winter Solstice Festival in Serampore.
{FN46-7} "What we eat is radiation; our food is so much quanta of energy," Dr. ”