Yogi, Bhogi or Rogi ? Dpnt Imitate February 26th, 1976 During the morning walk, Jayapataka Maharaja commented that it seemed easier to preach and make devotees in Bengal than other places in India. Prabhupada agreed, telling us that Bengali culture is much adored all over India. The guru of Mahatma Gandhi had even said, Whatever Bengal does today, other provinces will think tomorrow. He said that many leading figures in recent Indian history were actually Bengalis, then he named a few: Surendranath Bannerji, who started the Congress party in 1887, Vivekananda, Ravindranath Tagore, and Aurobindo Ghosh. Prabhupada said that Aurobindo was actually born in England, but later he turned against the British. At one time Aurobindo seriously practiced yoga. However, later he had some connection with a French woman and became quite fat. Prabhupada said that meant that from a yogi he became a bhogi, or a sense enjoyer. He said that then the next stage is rogi, diseased. So yogi, bhogi, and rogi. That reminded me of something amusing I had been told when I first joined the Sydney temple in 1972. I brought it up to see if Prabhupada would confirm it. A yogi passes stool once a day, a bhogi twice, and a rogi more. Prabhupada stopped and smiled. He raised his eyebrows quizzically. Who told you? Jayapataka laughed. He said that some of the devotees deliberately held their stool until the next day in order to be a yogi, even though it gave them stomach ache. Everyone laughed, Srila Prabhupada as well, but with a little surprise. Accha? As usual, and much to everyones delight, he had a phrase and a story to enlighten us further on the foolishness of imitation. That is called maksi manda kanani. A clerk was making a fair book [good copy] from the rough book. So he went to the toilet room and he was ... like this. At this point he made grabbing motions in the air. So all of a sudden his boss came. What are you doing here? Sir, I am trying to capture one fly. And why? No, I am making the fair copy of the book. But in the original book, there is a fly smashed. So I have to paste one fly. We all laughed heartily as Prabhupada chuckled and added, There are such fools. Maksi manda kanani. There is a fly pasted. So in the fair copy there must be a fly, paste. - From the A Transcendental Diary Vol 1 by HG Hari Sauri dasa = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Posted on: Tue, 30 Dec 2014 17:15:16 +0000