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“Would you rather have seen him burned to ashes before your eyes?”

Told by Swami Kebalananda in Autobiography of a Yogi.


His disciples were sitting one night around a huge fire which was blazing for a sacred Vedic ceremony. The master suddenly seized a burning log and lightly struck the bare shoulder of a chela who was close to the fire.

“Sir, how cruel!” Lahiri Mahasaya, who was present, made this remonstrance.

“Would you rather have seen him burned to ashes before your eyes, according to the decree of his past karma?”

With these words Babaji placed his healing hand on the chela’s disfigured shoulder. “I have freed you tonight from painful death. The karmic law has been satisfied through your slight suffering by fire.”

nabha“Would you rather have seen him burned to ashes before your eyes?”