Holy Descent

As often seen in the descent of divine incarnations, the birth of Master was heralded by a special omen. His mother, Smt. Nabin Kali Devi, used to take a bath in a large pond situated on the family estate in Habibpur in the Nadia district. One day before her bath, she noticed leaves of holy basil stuck to her navel, which had gone unnoticed after the previous day’s bath. She confided this to her husband, Shri Haripada Bhattacharya, who then declared that a special soul was going to enter into her womb.

My close association with Master gave me the privilege of being able to serve him intimately. Thus, I was able to see three nearly equidistant horizontal lines forming the skin-folds on his abdomen. Later I verified that an esoteric Sanskrit scripture called Samudrika Shashtra states that one born with such marks comes from the realm of acharya-koti, which means from the cadre of rare Masters.

It is no coincidence that the village district of Nadia is also the birthplace of two other householder Kriyayoga Masters, the fountainhead of Kriyayoga Shri Lahiri Mahasaya and his youngest disciple, Shri Bhupendranath Sanyal. The Nadia district has been hailed as holy land, especially since the advent of Shri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, who descended in the Gregorian year 1486. Master was often hailed by many disciples as a second Chaitanya due to the similarity of certain traits displayed by them during their lila. Like Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Master was also noted for his unconditional divine love, his bouts of God-intoxicated madness as well as his unflinching devotion to Lord Jagannath of Puri alongside a deep understanding of and scholarly aptitude for scriptures.

In his childhood, a joint family made up of ten siblings older than Master not only nourished him with caring attention from elders, but allowed for the burgeoning of his innate inclination toward the scriptures and his unfolding spirit of renunciation. Master’s childhood training started very early under the tutelage of his father, who cultivated spiritual discipline to supplement the studies, rituals, and scriptural ordinations. The estate gardens, with their dense foliage of mango groves, provided simple natural food including a plenitude of fresh milk drawn from the family’s cows, thus nourishing the divine whisper. Not only did he have the balanced emotional upbringing that recognized his nascent divinity, but his nature-loving spirit was nurtured by the lush, green, village estate. Master often reminisced about his childhood freedom while growing up in the township of Habibpur in rural Bengal. Simple living and high thinking, along with other conscious living principles, formed the bedrock of his later life as a renunciate. His formal renunciate life of over six decades was thus founded upon a childhood replete with high-minded moral discipline and parental coaching.