Page 6 - All India Magazine Apr-2026

hills. "O Narada," cried the Yogi, "you are going to Vaikuntha
and will see Vishnu. I have been practising terrific austerities
all my life and yet I have not even now attained to Him. Ask
Him at least for me when I shall reach Him." Then Narada met a
Vaishnava, a Bhakta who was singing songs to Hari and danc-
ing to his own singing, and he cried also, "O Narada, you will
see my Lord, Hari. Ask my Lord when I shall reach Him and see
His face." On his way back Narada came first to the Yogi. "I have
asked Vishnu; you will realise Him after six more lives." The Yogi
raised a cry of loud lamentation, "What, so many austerities!
such gigantic endeavours! and my reward is realisation after six
long lives! O how hard to me is the Lord Vishnu." Next Narada
met again the Bhakta and said to him, "I have no good news for
you. You will see the Lord, but only after a lakh of lives." But the
Bhakta leapt up with a great cry of rapture, "Oh, I shall see my
Lord Hari! after a lakh of lives I shall see my Lord Hari! How great
is the grace of the Lord." And he began dancing and singing in a
renewed ecstasy. Then Narada said, "Thou hast attained. Today
thou shalt see the Lord!" Well, you may say, "What an extrava-
gant story and how contrary to human nature!" Not so contrary
as all that and in any case hardly more extravagant than the sto-
ries of Harishchandra and Shivi. Still I do not hold up the Bhakta
as an example, for I myself insist on the realisation in this life
and not after six or a lakh of births more. But the point of these
stories is in the moral and surely when Ramakrishna told it, he
was not ignorant that there was a sunlit path of Yoga! He even
seems to say that it is the quicker way as well as the better!
You are quite mistaken in thinking that the possibility of the
sunlit path is a discovery or original invention of mine. The very
first books on Yoga I read more than thirty years ago spoke
of the dark and sunlit way and emphasised the superiority of
the second over the other. CWSA 29: 469-71

6 All India Magazine, April 2026