In plain words
“When the teacher asks a question and we give a wrong answer, you too must give a wrong answer.” I had two kinds of trouble there. If I gave the wrong answer, the teacher would beat Me; if I gave the right one, the boys would beat Me. My resolve was to give the right answer even if I was beaten by the boys. No matter how much suffering comes for the sake of Satya, it does not matter. In this way I kept to the path of Satya as I answered. When he brought such a big bundle, where was I to keep it? I had no box of My own. I had no other clothes. I am telling you exactly what happened. I had one old pair of shorts. I tore it and pulled hard, meaning to tie all this money up in it. Being old, it split and tore apart. I was living and studying in someone else's house; here there was no school up to the tenth class. As soon as it tore and the money all fell down, the people of that house came and caught hold of Me and beat Me, saying, “Did you steal all this money?” and they took the money too. And I had said I would come the next day. How was I to go?
This Puṣpagiri is nine miles away. Meaning to keep the word I had given, I set out early in the morning at four o'clock. The moon was shining. I walked the nine miles. Everyone knows this. Even now I am only this tall. At nine years old I was just this tall. In My class, when I sat down and Mahabūb Khān and the others sat on the desk, he would tell Me to sit on the desk. Because I could not be seen. He had to see Me. That was some saṃskāra from past lives. He could not teach his lesson unless he saw Me. I walked all the way. By then all those who had gone in the bus had arrived. I had no money. If I joined them, I would have to pay at the canteen. I would have to pay for the bus. Where would I get it from? So I did not join them. That is Kaḍapa district, where water is very hard to find. Walking and walking, I grew thirsty. There was no water either. At daybreak I got up and went to drink water, but there was no water anywhere. In some places there was water in a pit for washing all the cattle. I went there. There was no one to be seen there. I drank that water. As I was coming back after drinking it, there on a stone were a bundle of beedis and one anna. Some cowherd had left them and gone. I have never liked smoking beedis or cigarettes. So I broke those beedis into pieces, buried them in the sand, took the anna and came away.