As he sat in lotus posture on a backless wooden seat, his disciples
garlanded him in a semicircle. His eyes sparkled and danced with
the joy of the Divine. They were ever half closed, peering through
the inner telescopic orb into a sphere of eternal bliss. He seldom
spoke at length. Occasionally his gaze would focus on a student in
need of help; healing words poured then like an avalanche of light.

"An indescribable peace blossomed within me at the master's glance.
I was permeated with his fragrance, as though from a lotus of
infinity. To be with him, even without exchanging a word for days,
was experience which changed my entire being. If any invisible
barrier rose in the path of my concentration, I would meditate at
the guru's feet. There the most tenuous states came easily within
my grasp. Such perceptions eluded me in the presence of lesser
teachers. The master was a living temple of God whose secret doors
were open to all disciples through devotion.

"Lahiri Mahasaya was no bookish interpreter of the scriptures.
Effortlessly he dipped into the 'divine library.' Foam of words and
spray of thoughts gushed from the fountain of his omniscience. He
had the wondrous clavis which unlocked the profound philosophical
science embedded ages ago in the VEDAS. {FN4-6} If asked to explain
the different planes of consciousness mentioned in the ancient
texts, he would smilingly assent.

"'I will undergo those states, and presently tell you what I
perceive.' He was thus diametrically unlike the teachers who commit
scripture to memory and then give forth unrealized abstractions.

"'Please expound the holy stanzas as the meaning occurs to you.'