Article selections by “An English Admirer” | Notes by H.P.B.
. . . The following translation has been made for us from the Marathi, by a young Parsi, of
THE BRAHMACHARI BAWA’S OWN ACCOUNT OF HIS LIFE.
. . . There, in those solitary and deserted places, for a number of days, months and years, I performed the prescribed acts of devotion (self-improvement). And, as the effect of my ardent desire, concentration, and perserverence to learn by personal experience the state of “Self-existence” (i.e. that state in which the astral man, or kama-rupa is independent in all its actions of the body) I finally succeeded in seeing and knowing practically the omnipotence of the Lord (the divine I, or Spirit, the personal God of every individual.1) The Lord did manifest himself to me in a certain way which it is not lawful to describe—and revealed to me the various ways of bringing out my own “Self-existent” into action. And it is thus, at last, that I was convinced of the reality of the “Ever-existent.” In my case, at least, my only teacher of the one Truth, my Sat-guru was the Lord. . . .
I have passed my time among various exoteric religious bodies and sects to discover what they possessed of truth. After testing them, I was obliged to give them all up with disappointment. I have seen various kinds of men with (various) good and bad qualities. I have discussed the philosophy of religion, i.e. of truth, with lots of ignorant and presumptuous men, and have made them give up their false beliefs. Standing surrounded by thousands of questioners and inquirers, I could satisfactorily answer questions and problems of any nature, upon the instant. When I rise to lecture to the public, whatever is asked of me by any or all of the audience to solve and clear away their doubts, difficulties, and ignorance flows from my mouth as if spontaneously. I possess this marked faculty through the special favour of Dattatraya,2 the universal Lord. . . .
1. By Ishwar and master is not meant the personal God, whom the believers in such God suppose to be the creator of the universe, and outside the universe—Brahmachari Bawa does not recognize such a god in relation to the universe. His god is Brahma, the eternal and universal essence which pervades everything and everywhere and which in man is the divine essence which is his moral guide, is recognized in the instincts of conscience, makes him aspire to immortality and leads him to it. This divine spirit in man is designated Iswar and corresponds to the name Adonai—Lord, of the Kabalists, i.e., the Lord within man.—ED. [H.P.B.]
2. In the popular sense, Dattatraya is the Trinity of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, incarnate in an Avatar—of course as a triple essence. The esoteric, and true meaning is the adept’s own trinity of body, soul, and spirit; the three being all realized by him as real, existent, and potential. By Yoga training, the body becomes pure as a crystal casket, the soul purged of all its grossness, and the spirit which, before the beginning of his course of self-purification and development, was to him but a dream, has now become a reality—the man has become a demi-god.—ED. [H.P.B.]