I returned to the temple each Sunday thereafter. Five weeks from the day I first heard him speak—on Sunday, December 23, 1945—I arrived at the temple an hour before the lecture. Though I didn’t know how to meditate, I planned to just sit quietly in the chapel and absorb the atmosphere. As I neared the entrance to the building, I had the impulse to turn around. There stood the Master.
His gaze was ancient, timeless. He stood there silently looking at me for several moments. Years later, I thought perhaps my feelings that day were something akin to what he must have felt upon seeing his guru, Swami Sri Yukteswarji, for the first time. Had he beckoned me, I would have approached him, but I felt it would be sacrilegious to go to him unless he called to me. So I walked on. As I was about to go inside, I couldn’t resist the impulse to look back. When I did, he was gone.
Paramahansaji ended the service that day with two announcements: the first was that if you were free of family obligations, you could come to Mt. Washington—headquarters for the worldwide work of the Self-Realization Fellowship—and serve God; the second was that there would be an eight-hour Christmas meditation the following day at Mt. Washington. Though I had no knowledge that Paramahansaji was a guru with disciples, after the first announcement I felt as if a large door within my consciousness started to open. And, although I wanted to be there, I thought, after hearing the second announcement, that not knowing how to meditate would disqualify me from attending the Christmas meditation.
About nine o’clock the next morning I was overwhelmed with the desire to be at that meditation. I had no idea where Mt. Washington was or how I would get there, and had less than an hour to figure this all out. The thought came, “Call your brother.” I explained my situation; he came right over and I arrived at Mt. Washington with three minutes to spare. Paramahansaji began the meditation with an opening prayer, then gave some general guidelines on how to meditate. I followed his instruction and, by his grace and the grace of God, I got along quite well.
When the meditation ended, he stood at the door of the chapel and blessed each one of us as we left. Standing there, waiting to come before him, I felt like a small child who had lost both of her earthly parents and had now found her real parents in one form. I also felt the tremendous awe and respect you naturally feel for one as great as he. After he blessed me, he said, “I want to see you.” So I waited by the fireplace in the reception hall, and in a short while Daya Mata appeared and I followed her back into the chapel. Paramahansaji was seated on an old-fashioned bench, his eyes alive with eternity. Coming into his presence...it was as if hundreds of thousands of unseen veils were pulled back, one after another. Then a Voice of Silence said to me, “You have always wondered if anyone exists who is beyond human limitation, beyond greed, selfishness, anger”—all those lovely things that beset us all—and, as I said earlier, I had wondered about this. Then the Voice said, “I am Yogananda.” The Voice then qualified that statement by saying, “Yogananda has become Me.”
I was aware that Paramahansaji knew not only what I had just experienced, but also that I knew he knew my thoughts. The first thing he said to me was, “You have come.” “Yes, sir,” I said, and though I didn’t know what I had come to, I knew I had answered truthfully. We talked about what I was doing and when I might be able to move to Mt. Washington. He invited me to the Christmas banquet the following day and then to his birthday party on January 5. I went to live at Mt. Washington four weeks later.
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