Passage 8

Tap any word for its meaning.

In plain words

Virūpākṣa was not there. This Raju was there. Seshama Raju was angry. 'He said he would not come, and then went back at some point and is standing inside: what a mistake! What a wrong!' He was very angry. But Rama Raju did not think so. He thought: Virūpākṣa Himself is Raju, Raju Himself is Virūpākṣa. At once Seshama Raju came out and looked. I was sitting right there, under a tree. He was very suspicious. Then he sent someone else to see whether I could be seen there or not. 'I shall keep watch here, so that he does not come in': so he started tests of so many kinds. Raju was there, and Raju was here too. He was filled with joy. Thinking it would not do to tell Me, he thought that it was only the longing of his own mind that had appeared to him in that way.

From there they brought us straight to Bellary. After we had been there some days, all the municipal officers came, and they were all introduced to Swami (there was no name 'Swami' then: Raju, Raju); and some people mocked, saying that this municipal chairman was giving this small boy so much honour. Before I came away from there, the municipal chairman had a small pair of shorts and a shirt stitched for Me. Even now I am only this tall; then, still more… Back then, that is, fifty years ago, all the young men had a fashion. They would wear a pin on the collar. That was the collar pin. In those days, if you wore a collar pin, people thought it a high position, the sign of someone in a good and lofty station. He could think of nothing else to give Me. Within a single hour he went to the goldsmith, had a gold collar pin made, came back and fastened it to My collar. 'Raja! Whenever You see this pin, You must remember me': holding those hands, he prayed. So we came back. We got off the bus at Uravakonda; the very next day school began. Then I set off for school. Halfway there this collar pin fell down. Then I sang a song. I said that the moment this collar pin was lost, the bond was gone.

On the twentieth of October, going from Hampi to school, Baba's one collar pin slipped and was not to be seen; He has changed; under the bond of the world, why should He go to see holy places? That too is paid off, the bound of Māyā is gone; on that very day He left home.