“You may be in charge of the hermitage.” Master was pleased over my enthusiastic arrival. “Your duties will be the reception of guests, and supervision of the work of the other disciples.”
Kumar, a young villager from east Bengal, was accepted a fortnight later for hermitage training. Remarkably intelligent, he quickly won Sri Yukteswar's affection. For some unfathomable reason, Master was very lenient to the new resident.
“Mukunda, let Kumar assume your duties. Employ your own time in sweeping and cooking.” Master issued these instructions after the new boy had been with us for a month.
Exalted to leadership, Kumar exercised a petty household tyranny. In silent mutiny, the other disciples continued to seek me out for daily counsel.
“Mukunda is impossible! You made me supervisor, yet the others go to him and obey him.” Three weeks later Kumar was complaining to our guru. I overheard him from an adjoining room.
“That's why I assigned him to the kitchen and you to the parlor.” Sri Yukteswar's withering tones were new to Kumar. “In this way you have come to realize that a worthy leader has the desire to serve, and not to dominate. You wanted Mukunda's position, but could not maintain it by merit. Return now to your earlier work as cook's assistant.”
After this humbling incident, Master resumed toward Kumar a former attitude of unwonted indulgence. Who can solve the mystery of attraction? In Kumar our guru discovered a charming fount which did not spurt for the fellow disciples. Though the new boy was obviously Sri Yukteswar's favorite, I felt no dismay. Personal idiosyncrasies, possessed even by masters, lend a rich complexity to the pattern of life. My nature is seldom commandeered by a detail; I was seeking from Sri Yukteswar a more inaccessible benefit than an outward praise.
Kumar spoke venomously to me one day without reason; I was deeply hurt.
“Your head is swelling to the bursting point!” I added a warning whose truth I felt intuitively: “Unless you mend your ways, someday you will be asked to leave this ashram.”
Laughing sarcastically, Kumar repeated my remark to our guru, who had just entered the room. Fully expecting to be scolded, I retired meekly to a corner.
“Maybe Mukunda is right.” Master's reply to the boy came with unusual coldness. I escaped without castigation.
A year later, Kumar set out for a visit to his childhood home. He ignored the quiet disapproval of Sri Yukteswar, who never authoritatively controlled his disciples' movements. On the boy's return to Serampore in a few months, a change was unpleasantly apparent. Gone was the stately Kumar with serenely glowing face. Only an undistinguished peasant stood before us, one who had lately acquired a number of evil habits.
Master summoned me and brokenheartedly discussed the fact that the boy was now unsuited to the monastic hermitage life.
“Mukunda, I will leave it to you to instruct Kumar to leave the ashram tomorrow; I can't do it!” Tears stood in Sri Yukteswar's eyes, but he controlled himself quickly. “The boy would never have fallen to these depths had he listened to me and not gone away to mix with undesirable companions. He has rejected my protection; the callous world must be his guru still.”
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