Junagad – Limbdi

(i) Saints Are Like Children

Next morning the boat reached Veraval port. Alighting, Ramdas entered the city. Veraval is an important trading harbour. He directed his steps straight to the railway station. On the way he was invited by milk vendors who gave him cups of milk which refreshed him. At the station he met a sannyasi in whose company he travelled in the train. Reaching Junagad at ten in the night, Ramdas walked up to the akhada of sannyasis of which Kashigirji was the mahant. Ramdas had the privilege of living for three weeks in this Ashram when he last visited Junagad. Kashigirji received Ramdas with great delight. Next day he met Maganlal at his residence. Maganlal also was over-flowed with joy at the sight of him. It must be remembered that when he was in Junagad on the previous occasion Maganlal and Kantilal were extremely devoted to him and had treated him with love and care.

It was decided that he should stay in a garden belonging to Kashgirji’s ashram at a distance of half a mile from the town. In the garden was a small open thatched hut occupied by two sadhus. He joined them. One of them was a man with a long beard and the other, Atmanand by name, was a clean-shaven sannyasi.

Atmanand was a man of bulky proportions. He was quiet and calm by nature. One of his characteristics was his spontaneous laugh every five or ten minutes, apparently for no reason. He was indifferent alike to the cleanliness of his body or his clothes. He would be found sitting for hours at one place in silence and with vacant looks, the world having seemingly no existence for him.

The other sadhu with the beard was an active old man. He was busy the whole day doing some work or other. He possessed a cheerful and pleasant temperament, except when his only son would come from the city to tease him and pick up a quarrel with him. They used to fight like cocks in a hand-to-hand scuffle. At the bottom of the frequent quarrels, Ramdas could clearly see, there was a strong mutual attachment, for the matter, all strife and violence in the world can be traced to the same source.

Both the sadhus were kind and hospitable to him. The time was winter and hence the cold was severe. They had a fireplace in the middle of the floor of the shed. The sadhus slept around the fire at right angles to one another. By joining them at bedtime, Ramdas formed another angle. Maganlal would come to him in this garden every day and take him home for the midday meal. The bearded old man cooked rotis in the shed for himself and Atmanand. Very often they had to be satisfied with only dry rotis, salt and chillies for dinner. One early morning Atmanand must have felt unusually hungry. He asked the old sadhu if there was any remnant from the rotis of the previous night. In response the old man placed before Atmanand a napkin containing some fragments of rotis which resembled thick pieces of white leather. Rolling up his sleeves Atmanand fell to. Piece after piece of the stiff dry bread found its way into his capacious mouth. He possessed strong teeth with which he munched them. As he went on with the meal, to humour his palate that craved for fine and delicious food, he was uttering at every mouthful of the dry and tasteless stuff:

“Ladoo – ladoo – ladoo; poori – poori – poori; jilabi – jilabi – jilabi; barfi – barfi – barfi.”

The same afternoon, he complained of stomach ache. Evidently, the dry bread had put his digestive apparatus out of order. “I am going to the doctor,” he said and left the garden. He turned up in the evening quite fit and cheerful.

“Maharaj, did you get medicine from the doctor?” inquired the old sadhu.

“I did,” he replied, with a bland smile. “The doctor gave me four pills; I swallowed them all. They were as big as cricket balls, ladoos, you know! The doctor prescribed ladoos as the best remedy. Now I am all right; indeed, wonderful pills!” and he laughed.

Once, Maganlal took Ramdas on a visit to a famous saint of Junagad – Vyasji. He was an old man, aged about seventy, and was lean and short in stature. The remarkable thing about him was that his wrinkled skin had a golden lustre. Ramdas spent an hour in his delectable company, for he found the saint simple and pure like a child. He evinced marked love for Ramdas. He put Ramdas two hackneyed questions:

“How is one to control the restless mind?”

“By constant repetition of God’s Name,” Ramdas replied, “and surrender of all actions to Him.”

“Where does this practice lead to?” was the next question.

“It leads to the vision of God everywhere which means immortality and bliss.”

He was pleased with the answers and fondly embraced Ramdas.

Again, on another occasion, Maganlal escorted him to the distant Muchkund ashram on the way to Girnar Hill in which Ramdas had resided during his previous visit to Junagad. The ashram was now occupied by a sannyasini, popularly known as Mataji.

She was a young lady, dressed in ochre-coloured robes, living alone in the ashram. There was a pure lustre on her calm features. The sound of ‘Shivoham’ was constantly issuing from her lips. She expressed great joy on beholding Ramdas. She lived an austere and holy life. O! Mataji, all glory to thee! After a short stay in the ashram, Ramdas and Maganlal retraced their steps to the city.

Kantilal and his father had their home in Limbdi, a state in Kathiawar. Hearing of his arrival at Junagad, Kantilal came down to take Ramdas to his place. In due course he left Junagad for Limbdi with Kantilal and Maganlal.

(ii) Sugarcandy Mothers

Limbdi is a small state ruled by a Rajput prince who is designated as Thakore Saheb. The ruling prince is Sir Daulat Singh – a broad-minded and generous-hearted man. He is greatly loved by his subjects and has proved himself to be a true guardian of their interests and welfare.

In Limbdi, Ramdas was lodged in Kantilal’s house, situated in a by-lane. Coming to know of his arrival, hundreds of people of Limbdi rushed into Kantilal’s house to see him. All grades of people streamed in. Officers of the state, merchants and doctors paid him daily visits. Then again men and women of middle and poor classes also came in vast numbers. Every caste, creed and sect was represented, of which the brahman and the Jain communities formed the majority. A large part of the population of the state belonged to the latter class. He received the visitors in a spacious carpeted apartment on the second floor of the building, while for the night he retired to a small room on the third floor.

Before the crowded audience, Ramdas poured himself out in the language of love and joy on the charm and power of God’s Name, and on the blessedness of God-realisation. The visitors listened to his discourses with rapt attention. Here he chose to live on milk diet. The news spread, and hundreds of mothers came with lotas full of milk from early morning till afternoon. The quantity of milk they brought was so much that he could well-nigh have bathed in it. He had to take a sip – very often a drop through the finger tip – from every milk pot so as to satisfy the kind donors.

Kantilal’s house thus became a scene of liveliness and bustle all through the day and till late in the night. Kantilal then made this observation:

“Swamiji, you have converted our humble home into a veritable temple.”

Being apprised of his arrival, the Thakore Saheb sent one of his officers to invite Ramdas to his palace. About eleven o’clock in the morning, he was taken in a carriage to his princely residence. Kantilal and Maganlal accompanied him. He was received by the prince in a small, well-furnished room. He sat down in an asan on the carpet, and the others in the room also squatted on the floor. Beside the prince was seated an English lady. Ramdas talked freely, narrating the experiences he had gained in the course of his travels. He spoke with the familiarity of a child when it recounts its doing to the fondly listening mother. Indeed, there was such a mother among the auditors. She was the English lady, Miss Elizabeth Sharpe, to whom he would refer in future as “mother Elizabeth”, and to the Thakore Saheb as “Raja Ram”. Raja Ram was also highly delighted at the frank and simple talks of Ramdas in which he would be so deeply absorbed as to lose all account of time. At half-past twelve, Raja Ram would start glancing at his wrist-watch and exclaim:

“Oh! it is past twelve. I have to be in my state office by one.” Then the meeting would break up, and Ramdas with the young friends would return to Kantilal’s.

For a fortnight he remained in Limbdi, and every day he had to visit the palace where he would spend an hour or two in the society of Raja Ram and mother Elizabeth, both of whom would come to fetch him in their motor-car. He discoursed upon divine love and eternal happiness, presenting instances in his rambles in which how the former had prevailed. They listened and were lost in a state of sweet oblivion. The pure love in the heart of mother Elizabeth induced her one day to take Ramdas to her neat little bungalow, in the midst of a beautiful garden. She called her abode, Shri Krishna Nivas. She was so loving and kind.

In the afternoons, the room in which Ramdas received visitors would be filled by ladies. Of these, two mothers who were very old did not fail to come every day. Inspite of their decrepitude they would climb up the stairs on all fours and directly totter towards him and push into his mouth large pieces of sugarcandy. Hence they went by the name sugarcandy mothers. They would softly rub their palms on his cheeks and gazing on him with a fond smile, say: “O! my beloved.”

One evening, in response to an invitation of the old Rani Saheb – the widowed Rani of the late Thakore Saheb – he visited the zenana or that part of the palace which was reserved for the ladies of the prince’s household. The retired Dewan of Limbdi, a quiet and pious old man, escorted him to the place. The Rani Saheb, of course, observed purdah. She sat behind a perforated screen.

In a small front room, he was made to sit on a raised asan. The ladies behind the screen could see the people in the outer room but not vice versa. A brahman puranik was also there. It appeared that the devout old mother was utilizing her afternoon hours in listening to the readings of scriptures. She desired that Ramdas should speak. He expressed himself in Hindi. He dilated at length on the hollowness of life, if it was not devoted to the attainment of divine knowledge and universal love. His words flowed in a spontaneous current for nearly half an hour. At the close of his talk, there followed a dead silence for about five minutes. Then the voice of the Rani in a clear and measured modulation filtered through the metallic screen:

“Look at his magnificent vairagya! How I wish I were a man instead of a woman, hopelessly caught in a golden cage! If I were a man I could have a life like his – free and blissful.”

The words were addressed to the Dewan Saheb. In her tone there was a marked tinge of anguish. Having taken some milk and fruit kindly proffered by the Rani Saheb, Ramdas took leave of her and returned to his rooms.

(iii) From the Maze of Illusion into the Maze of God!

Ramdas paid a visit to a sannyasi ashram where he was kindly received by the resident sannyasis. At their request he spoke a few words on God-realisation which he always held forth as the only purpose of life.

Again he had an occasion to call on the Jain sadhus in their chief ashram in Limbdi. Jainism is considered as old as the Vedas. Its teachings, in many respects, resembled those of Buddhism. The creed of non-violence is observed by the Jains in an extreme form. The Jain sadhus have a semicircular strip of cloth covering their lips, placed in position by thin ribbons fastened round the nether part of the head. They also carry a soft duster for sweeping the floor before sitting on it, lest they might kill the vermin that may happen to be on it. For similar reasons, they would drink only boiled water and never eat by lamp-light; they finish their evening meal before sunset. Jainism holds absolute purity of life and non-violence as the way, and liberation and peace as the goal.

On spending a delightful half hour with the sadhus in this ashram, Ramdas was next taken to another Jain ashram where nearly two hundred Jain ladies had congregated to listen to a discourse by him. He was simply blest with the sight of the kind mothers. He sat on a raised dais and spoke for about three quarters of an hour at a stretch upon purity, love and peace. He was all through filled with an inexpressible rapture. Two prominent and charitable Jain merchants, Ugarchand Shet and Mohanbhai who had conceived a great love for him, had arranged for the visits to the Jain ashrams, and they also entertained Ramdas in their own residences.

During one of his visits to the palace, Raja Ram took Ramdas to his puja room where he saw a number of framed silver images of incarnations of God and also pictures of saints. Raja Ram was a devotee of Sri Krishna. He was past sixty but possessed a strong, tall and stout physical frame. His life was controlled by strict discipline. He would rise at three o’clock every morning and spend the hours till daybreak in worship and meditation.

Once he pressed Ramdas to accept a present of a costly silk shawl but Ramdas had to decline the offer, reminding him that the shawl was intended for princes and not for fakirs. Ramdas was wearing only one piece of khadi cloth. The time was winter, the cold was bitter, and chill breezes were blowing. He was indifferent to the rigours of the season, but the motherly heart of the English lady ached for him. She persuaded Raja Ram to give him some plain, warm clothing.

In fact, Ramdas was content with the simple cloth he had. However, through Raja Ram’s and the mother’s repeated pressure, he agreed to exchange his khadi cloth for a plain, woollen one. The old khaddar piece was shared between them – the fents being prized as mementos. Still the mother was not satisfied. Next day she wanted Ramdas to be dressed also in a long, woollen gown. In a short time the gown was ready. It was a heavy thing made of thick tweed on which Raja Ram had set a high value. Ramdas put it on once in their presence and executed a caper or two at which they had a merry laugh. That was the first and last occasion he used the gown.

In the small room, on the third floor, Ramdas remained at nights. Kantilal and Maganlal kept him company. Maganlal possessed a keen sense of humour. He could perfectly imitate the mannerisms of the visitors who came to see Ramdas. He would make Ramdas laugh by his mimicry. Once he wittily remarked:

“Swamiji, I have been attentively listening to your teachings but I could not make head or tail of them. It would all seem to me to be only a leap from the Maya-ghotala into the Brahma-ghotala,” i.e. from the maze of illusion into the maze of God.

Of the visitors that came to see Ramdas from outside the Limbdi state, there were two – Dr. Shukla, a brahman and Chunibhai, a Jain. They hailed from Wadhwan, another Indian state. They expressed a desire to have him with them in their state for some days. He accepted the invitation and proceeded to Wadhwan.

He had also a letter and a money order from Kashirambhai of Surat. The latter had met Ramdas during his visit to Junagad. Now he had settled down in Surat. He asked Ramdas to go over to him for a few days on finishing his tours in Kathiawar.