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A LOVER OF LIGHT AMONG LUMINARIES : Dilip Kumar Roy to realize brevity for "reasons of space as well as to avoid needless repetition."12 Yet it abounds in repetitions obviously and the bulk of the book is far from brief. In fact, Roy can never be constrained by the question of space. If botheration about space has 'restrained' Roy's rambling fancy here, one has simply to imagine what the bulk of the book would have been, had he not been thus restrained. His spellings in this work are Americanized as the publishers are Americans.
While reading Pilgrims of the Stars, the reader might be inclined to compare Indira Devi with Mirabai and Dilip Roy, with Sanatan Goswami, her guru. Like Mira and Sanatan, Indira Devi and Dilip Roy endeavoured to live the life devoted to love of Krishna.
Indira Devi's contribution to Pilgrims of the Stars is written in a very simple manner. She has given all the facts of her life in a chronological order. She has adopted third person narrative technique in the delineation of her own life like Swami Ramdas. Her narration informs the reader about her highly prosperous family background, her happy life with her husband, the yogic and miraculous experiences which she had from her very childhood, a sudden opening of her spiritual self, her experiences of samadhi and of Mira's singing of bhajans in the language unknown to Indira Devi during her samadhi. She had to struggle with her ordinary self which cares for worldly pleasures and her real spiritual self which tries to rise high and unite with God. Her meeting with her predestined guru, Dilip Roy, is described. Like Dilip Roy, Indira Devi, who discovered the greatness of her guru, has attempted to bring it out before the public in the PART TWO of the autobiography written by her. She, too, had intense love and reverence for her guru as Dilip Roy had for his guru.
None of the Indo-English critics has ever cared to consider this unique autobiography by Dilip Kumar Roy and Indira Devi, perhaps, thinking of it as a mere handbook of spirituality and not a piece of literature. It is indeed a presentation of a spiritual journey. But this does not reduce its value as a work of literature. Its prose and poetry are powerful expressions of the authors' personalities in romantic sense. Notes: 1. Dilip Kumar Roy and Indira Devi, Pilgrims of the Stars, (1973; rpt. Porthill:
Timeless Books, 1985). p.1. ibid., pp. 1-2. Frederic Spiegelberg, "Foreword," in Roy and Devi, Pilgrims, p. ix.
ibid.,.. X. Roy and Devi, Pilgrims, p. 2.
5.
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