Srikanta
them. 'Babaji,' I asked this head disciple with a wink, 'is there any mirror? I am consumed with a longing to see what I look like now.' The Babaji was not dead to all sense of humour. With an air of profound gravity he replied, 'There is one.'
'Then bring it to me.'
I took the mirror and went behind a tree. It was a small mirror with a tin frame, the kind up-country barbers give their customers to hold while they shave them. Though small, it had been kept clean by constant use. I could scarcely restrain my laughter when I saw my transformed appearance. Who would ever imagine that I was the Srikanta who only a few days before had sat listening to the songs of the baiji in the company of princes and their satellites!
An hour later I was taken before the guru for my initiation into the monastic order. He expressed himself highly pleased with my make-up, and said, 'Son, wait for a month or so.'
'So be it,' I said to myself and, taking the dust of his feet, sat down beside him with folded hands, in an attitude of devotion.
In the course of the evening dissertation he gave me,many profound and precious words of advice in spiritual matters. He dwelt in turn on the difficulty of understanding them aright; the deep repugnance one must feel towards the world; the austerities that lead to spiritual realisation; the manifold ways in which the latter-day hypocrites and charlatans desecrate the path of spirituality; its elaborate history; the essentials for fixing the mind on the lotus-feet of God; the wonderful assistance rendered by inhaling the smoke of a certain dried plant.
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