← In the Vision of GodHis autobiography, book two

CHAPTER XXIII

Lalitpur – Rajghad – Chattarpur

(i) Trust in God

Leaving Gohkar Ramdas came to Koteshwar in response to the invitation of Seth Jwaharilal who owned a rock temple of Koteshwar Mahadev. A murti of the God was installed in a large, spacious natural cave, attached to which were built some structures for the accommodation of sadhus and visitors. The place was only about two furlongs from Mahoba. Ramcharandas had spent some months in this temple under the kind fosterage of Jwaharilal. Ramdas remained here for a night and a day and the Seth arranged a dinner for thirty persons in the mandir. It was a most happy occasion.

In the evening he was led in procession through the streets of Mahoba with Ram bhajan. Some friends took him to their houses where he was treated with great love. Lastly he visited the house of Jagannath.

Leaving Mahoba Ramdas arrived at Lalitpur. Triveni Prasad who met him at the station escorted him to his spacious house in the town. Here he remained for four days. Crowds of friends came to see and talk to him. A Ram Lila performance was held in the house. In the evenings Ramdas and Ramcharandas would dance on the front terrace of the house, singing God’s Name.

One day they had a walk to the neighbouring river on the banks of which were large flat rocks called Shitapahad. Here the current of the river was very swift as it had to rush down a sudden incline. Near the banks there was no current, and here Ramdas and Ramcharandas descended for a bath.

“Swamiji, we shall make an attempt to cross the river,” suggested; Ramcharandas, “let us do it hand in hand”.

And he dragged Ramdas with him holding him by the hand. Ramdas submitted to his pull. When they neared the current they found it hard to stand firmly on their legs, being worked on by the furious rush of water. Still they struggled on and on until they felt they were about to be swept away. Ramdas stopped.

“Ramdas is not afraid of the dissolution of the body, Ram,” Ramdas said, “but to go any further means certain death by drowning, and Ram says the time for it has not yet come. Ramdas has yet to continue service of the Lord to whom he has dedicated himself; so also you. Hence let us turn back.”

“No, Swamiji, we shall pass through,” cried the intrepid boy. For him death was of no account. His fearlessness was admirable. But Ramdas would not permit him to proceed further in the current.

“You may return, Swamiji,” he said, “I shall venture forward and reach the other bank.”

Ramdas banned him from the adventure. So both retraced towards the flat rocks where Triveni Prasad and others were keenly watching their movements.

Ramdas’ stay in Lalitpur was during the monsoon. One day, one of the devotees named Karta Krishna, who paid him daily visits invited him, Ramcharandas and Triveni Prasad to his house for the midday meal. For some days it had been raining heavily, and there was an unusual downpour on that morning. The streets were muddy and cold winds were whistling through a drizzle. Tramping along many a circuitous street, they at last reached a dark lane in which the devotee lived.

Karta Krishna, who was a young man, dwelt with his family in the upstair rooms of a line of petty shops, situated on the roadside. A rugged flight of steps led them up to a narrow terrace from which a low door opened in to a small rectangular room. When they entered it, the first thing that struck them was the full blaze of sunlight descending from above, as though a large portion of the roofing was made of glass. But a look upwards revealed the fact that the aged roof had extensive gaps through which rain and sun found easy access into the room. The morning rain had drenched the mud floor, and about an inch of water had collected on it. In a corner of the room, beneath a part of the roof under better repair and against the wall, stood a coir cot on which was lying a lad scarcely six years of age, enveloped in a thick cotton sheet. A small girl was in attendance.

Ramdas proceeded directly towards the cot and sitting at its foot, placed his hand upon the forehead of the boy. It was burning with high fever and the little patient was tossing from side to side in a delirious condition. Cold blasts charged with rain were sweeping over him through the openings in the roof. Besides this garret which was the only living room of the family, they had adjoining to it a five feet square dark hole which they used as kitchen.

Now came out from the kitchen a young woman with a baby of a few months in her arms. She was the wife of Karta Krishna and mother of the sick lad and the child in her arms, the nursing girl being her sister. Naturally, there was deep anguish on the face of the mother, and as she approached Ramdas and fell at his feet, she wept bitterly. The tale of woe could not be more effectively expressed. Ramdas said within himself: “Here it is, O Lord, Thy presence is needed. Thou art the friend of the helpless. Hasten, O Lord, hasten to the rescue!”

Ramdas then assured the mother: “O mother, have trust in God. He may try us, but He never abandons us. Depend upon Him. Give up your sorrow.”

At these encouraging words, which proved as healing balm to her lacerated heart, she lifted herself up and faced Ramdas with a smile.

“O Swamiji,” she cried out, “I place perfect faith in your words. I look upon you as God Himself who has come to us, in our distress, in response to our prayer.”

Karta Krishna was a poor clerk in Government service whose low salary was hardly sufficient to maintain his family decently. He was paying a rental of three rupees per mensem and more than this, for a better set of rooms, he could not afford. The landlord would take no heed of his repeated appeals to carry out repairs to the roof. Doctor? – where are funds to go in for that precious help? God is the Master Doctor of the universe. He demands of us no fees, but child-like faith. We give Him this, which costs us nothing, and He delivers us from all the ills of the world.

The kind mother had prepared some choice dishes for Ramdas. He, Prasad and Ramcharandas partook of them and left the place. Next day Ramdas bade adieu to Lalitpur. The last he heard of the boy was that the fever had left him. How kind and merciful God is!

A sequel to this pathetic story has to be narrated here although chronologically its place is elsewhere.

A year passed. After wandering through many parts of India, Ramdas returned again to Jhansi. Karta Krishna was there at the time when Ramdas was stopping in the Ram mandir. No sooner did the devotee hear of Ramdas’ arrival than he ran down to him and insisted upon his visiting his house since his wife was so eager to see him. The latter went with him.

Ramdas met the mother at the entrance of a neat little cottage. Her small girl baby had grown up and was seen crawling on all fours quite healthy, and her boy was jumping about, strong and active. On the face of the mother was beaming the light of cheer and contentment. She welcomed him with unfeigned joy. The children got upon his lap and played and laughed with him. The house they lived in was more spacious and well protected against inclement weather. But with all this there seemed to be something amiss with Karta Krishna. The world is indeed a curious place and man’s mind is more curious still. Complete satisfaction and freedom is not for him so long as his mind is subject to fits of temper.

Next day, early morning, Karta Krishna met Ramdas at the mandir. Some anxiety appeared to be weighing on his mind.

“Maharaj, I pray to you to get me transferred from here to some other place. I am tired of the present office.”

The way how he appealed to Ramdas showed that he firmly believed that Ramdas was the sole dispenser of all things in the world. Ramdas interrupted and told him in plain language:

“Look here, Ram, Ramdas is only a humble servant of God. All things happen by His will. No doubt the Master dwells in the servant but don’t mistake the servant for the Master. If Lord wills, nothing is impossible. By the way, what is it that ails you?”

Karta Krishna continued: “The fact is my superior officers and co-clerks in the office are harrassing me. They have all conspired to make my life utterly miserable.”

Ramdas, after a short pause, spoke as follows: “Now listen, beloved Ram, bring back to memory your days in Lalitpur a year ago. What was your condition then? It was simply unbearable. God in His mercy delivered you from it. He has brought you here, provided you with a good house and is keeping your children in sound health. Now you speak of your office troubles. Nothing is wrong with the office. People dislike us because our own attitude of mind towards them is not right. Love can never beget hate. On the other hand, distrust and hate breed every kind of evil. Give up fretting. Be reconciled to the lot that God has chosen for you. Be tolerant and patient. Above all, be humble, kind and forgiving towards all in your office – nay, towards all in the world. With a mind whose passions are uncontrolled, wherever you may go, you can never know peace. You will then be only ceaselessly fighting with the world and find no haven of rest and contentment. Look within yourself. Surrender to the will of almighty God. Humble yourself before Him and extend your love and sympathy towards all beings. Take it that God does everything for the best. If you are obedient to your superiors and kind to your co-clerks, they are bound to change their attitude towards you, and then you will find the very office from which you desire to run away a delightful place for work. Kindly come to Ramdas again day after tomorrow and report to him how matters stand with you. But do act as Ramdas has told you.” He left Ramdas.

The other clerks of his office who were also visiting Ramdas informed him that Karta Krishna was a very short-tempered man and would be always picking quarrels with everybody in the office.

As requested, Karta Krishna turned up on the due date. He came with a bright and joyous face.

“How are you getting on?” Ramdas asked.

“I followed your advice, Maharaj,” he replied, “and the result has been marvellous. There is an entire change in my office mates in regard to me. My officers have been kind and good, my colleagues helpful and friendly. Oh! how happy I am! I do not want a transfer.”

“Ram,” Ramdas said, “the change is in you. The whole world is good to us if we are good. If we love the world, we may be sure, in return we shall receive nothing but love from it.”

Now to resume the thread of the narrative, Ramcharandas was unduly attached to the new brass kamandal and was also carrying a good many spare clothes presented by friends, besides a small amount of money. Ramdas had often advised him not to carry money and other superfluities. But his accumulative tendency was so hard to put down. Ramdas had received an invitation from Chhattarpur. He was about to start, when he told Ramcharandas to give up the kamandal and the spare clothes, and then only follow him. He obeyed most reluctantly.

They took seats in the train running to Mahoba, for the way to Chhattarpur lay via Mahoba. In the train, Ramcharandas who, as already stated, possessed some money, started purchasing eatables at every station from the sweetmeat vendors. He fell to continuous eating forgetting Ramnam. Ramdas found sitting opposite to them a sadhu with a famished look.

“How much have you got, Ram?” Ramdas asked turning to Ramcharandas.

He looked frightened at the question, for he could understand what Ramdas’ question meant.

“Here it is,” he said opening a knot in his cloth. The amount was three rupees and odd annas.

“Hand over the amount to the sadhu sitting in front of us,” Ramdas said to Ramcharandas. He immediately obeyed. The money transferred, he was indeed free.

“Now, give some respite to your stomach and brisk work to your tongue by repeating God’s Name!” Ramdas hinted. Till they reached Mahoba the Name rolled on his tongue incessantly.

(ii) Balak Ram’s Rage Against Shiva

Arrangements were made by Bhavani Prasad, father of Ramchandra Gupta of Chhattarpur, to take Ramdas to his place. Ramdas started by motor-bus, and Vaijnath and seven others from Mahoba also accompanied him. At Chhattarpur Ramdas and the party were lodged in the Radhakrishna temple near the city. Bhavani Prasad, an old man, welcomed him with inexpressible delight and attended to all the needs of the guests. Ramdas preferred to live on milk diet.

Bhavani Prasad, a retired Government Officer, and an earnest soul, was struggling keenly for God-realisation. His favourite reading was Bhagavad Gita which he would go through with all faith twice every day, besides the telling of beads all the day. His wife was also a great lover of saints. His elder son Gulab Rai was the secretary to the Maharaja of Chhattarpur.

On the second or third night of his stay in the mandir, Ramdas had an attack of malaria. He used to feel unusual ecstasy when he had high fever. He could not control himself. He would dance wildly taking God’s Name. Bhavani Prasad and Ramcharandas would beg of him not to exert himself in that state and would almost forcibly make him lie down on the cot provided for him. The fever lasted two days.

A devotee from Navagaum, a village fourteen miles from Chhattarpur, came to take Ramdas to his place in order to introduce him to his ailing brother. Ramdas found the sick man in the last stages of consumption. He was reduced to a mere skeleton and his relations, having given up all hope of his recovery, desired to have for him the darshan of Ramdas before he passed away. Ramdas remained in Navagaum for a night, and then returned to Chhattarpur.

Balak Ram, who lived in Chhattarpur for sometime, had left the place and gone into the interior, about twenty-six miles away to occupy a hill-top called Rajghad. An invitation also came from Ramchandra Gupta to go to Cawnpore. On top of it all, a wire was received from Triveni Prasad urgently calling Ramdas again to Lalitpur, just for a day.

About noon, one day, Ramdas suddenly proposed to leave for Rajghad. The sky was dark with clouds and there was a drizzle. Ramdas walked straight out of the temple and proposed to cover the distance on foot. Ramcharandas also got ready, but what of the others? They looked askance at each other and demurred. The prospect was not alluring. The way to Rajghad lay through a dense and extensive jungle. There were no villages for halts. The other friends including Vaijnath shrank from the adventure and expressed their decision to stay behind.

Bhavani Prasad coming to know of Ramdas’ determination sent his son Gulab Rai to persuade him not to start in that weather. Gulab Rai found Ramdas was fixed in his resolve and could not be moved.

“Please wait for five minutes, I will return presently,” he requested and disappeared.

Within five minutes a brand new motor car was standing at the entrance of the temple. God’s ways are wonderful! Ramdas got into the car, and funnily enough all the friends who had hesitated to walk with Ramdas also scrambled in – Vaijnath and all! Gulab Rai requested Ramdas to pay a visit to the owner of the car who was at that time laid up with a severe attack of typhoid fever. Ramdas agreed. The car stopped at the sick man’s door and Ramdas with the party entered the house and found the patient in a state of delirium. Ramdas sat beside his bed and, passing his hands over his head and body, assured him that he would be all right. The people of the house offered Ramdas some milk to drink. He drank a part of it and gave the rest to the patient. Then he left the house and all got into the car again. It started and as it came upon the lonely road outside the city, it flew like wind in spite of the rugged condition of the jungle road.

By three o’ clock the car reached the bottom of the chain of mountains called Rajghad. Alighting, the party made for the place where Balak Ram lived. They had to ascend a flight of rocky steps, over a hundred in number, before they came to a flat projection of the mountain where Balak Ram had made his abode. No sooner did Balak Ram see Ramdas than he fell at his feet, weeping through excessive joy, and embraced him again and again. Balak Ram had been living in a small shed hoisted on four strong posts, about ten feet from the ground similar to the country watch-towers in the corn-fields.

At the edge towards the hill, which extended high above the level of the place, was seen a Shiva-linga which was partly within an excavation on the hill-side. A diffused water spring at the top of the hill was dripping down its edges in tiny streams forming into a pretty thick jet which poured on the head of the linga continuously day and night. At the outer end of the flat ground was a leaning stone-bench all along the edge.

“Last night was a terrible period for me, Swamiji,” Balak Ram recounted. “I was in utter despair. In spite of my herculean efforts God would not give me darshan. I flew, into such a rage against Shiva that I ran wild and madly kicked at the Shiva-linga, struggled hard to uproot it from its seat and throw it down the hill, but I could not move it. It was so firmly fixed in the ground. Next I remembered you. I called you aloud “Ramdas, Ramdas, Ramdas!” – I went on at the highest pitch of my voice for nearly half an hour and stopped through sheer exhaustion. After all, in response to my insistent call, you have come. You are my God.”

“Ramdas is only a servant of God,” Ramdas assured him, “who is dwelling in the hearts of us all, and he goes from place to place in obedience to His command.”

(iii) God’s Act – Miraculous Cure

As the shadows of the evening closed upon the scene, all the friends, except Vaijnath and Ramcharandas, went down the hill to spend the night in the village at the foot of the hills. Balak Ram had a lantern which he lit when darkness set in. The mountain was clothed with a dense jungle of gigantic trees. The beasts of prey came out of their lairs and set forth their hungry roars which could be heard distinctly from all sides.

Before dark the party of four had climbed up to a higher position on the hill. The way to it was eminently slippery and dangerous. Here was a cave-like room, constructed of the bricks, in front of which was a narrow passage, and that was all the space available for their occupation.

“Swamiji, this morning I was so sure of your coming that I had smeared the inside of this cave with cow-dung so that you might occupy it,” said Balak Ram, and added, “I beg, Swamiji, that you stay with me for some days.”

“No, Ram, that cannot be,” replied Ramdas: “you see so many friends have come with Ramdas to take him back, and the motor-car is detained specially for his return journey.”

“You should not go,” he persisted, “let the friends go back. I will have you alone with me. After a few days I shall arrange for a motor-car for you to go.” he appealed, wept and fell at Ramdas’ feet.

Then Ramdas told him that he would stay on certain conditions, and if any one of them was broken, he would go.

“I shall see that your conditions are faithfully fulfilled on my part,” he promised.

“Now the conditions are: So long as Ramdas is with you, he will not leave this elevated place. Second: he will occupy the cave in the nights. Third: he will live merely on water diet. Fourth: he will observe the vow of silence. Do you agree?” Ramdas stipulated.

He gladly accepted the conditions because he believed that by Ramdas’ tapasya, his own uncontrolled mind would attain peace. Till late in the night the talk went on. They had rest for only two or three hours in the morning. Ramdas slept in the cave-room.

Next day all went down to the lower stage where the Shiva-linga was installed. Ramdas remained near the cave. At about eight o’clock the party from the village came up headed by Bhavani Prasad. He brought with him food consisting of purees, curry and milk to suffice all the members of the party. Balak Ram explained to them at Ramdas’ request, the latter’s resolution to stop with him for some days and also about the conditions. So he asked them to leave the hills without Ramdas. The friends remonstrated. They said with one voice that they would not go except with him and also would not take food unless he shared it with them. He could hear their talk and see them from above. They pressed Balak Ram to bring him down. Balak Ram was in a dilemma. He had given word that he would not be a party to the breaking of the vows. The situation was extremely awkward for him. At last he had to yield. He came up and led Ramdas down. Then the party sat for dinner. Balak Ram with his own hands mixed a puree in milk with sugar and offered it to him. He ate – three vows broken – and also broke the last with the remark:

“Ram, all the vows are broken and you are the cause. So Ramdas takes it that he is allowed to depart with the party.”

“No, no Swamiji,” Balak Ram cried out with frightened and grieved tone. “You may observe the vows after they are gone.”

At this stage, Ramcharandas who was dead against Ramdas’ stay with Balak Ram, made a sign to Ramdas not to yield to his persuasion. At this Balak Ram got terribly enraged with Ramcharandas, and with a loud voice said:

“You dare to instigate Swamiji not to stop here! May the curses of Shiva be on your head!”

Ramdas immediately replied: “The curses of Shiva be on Ramdas’ head and not on Ramcharandas’ since Ramdas’ head is smooth, being bald, and therefore can accommodate any number of curses.” Ramdas got up to start while Balak Ram wept and rolled on the ground to prevent him from going.

“Control your anger, Ram,” Ramdas said, “repeat Ram Mantram.”

The party left the hills and returned to the motor-car. They reached Chhattarpur by midday. The motor-car drove directly to the door of its owner who was ill. Ramdas went in to see him. He was sitting on his bed, still weak but entirely free from fever. He shook with emotion on seeing Ramdas. He was offered some milk which he again shared with the patient and was about to leave him, when he called the motor-driver and instructed him to keep the motor-car exclusively at the disposal of Ramdas so long as he remained in Chhattarpur. He also refused to accept any fare from Bhavani Prasad for the journey to Rajghad.

Ramdas requested the friends that had hitherto followed him to return to their place, leaving him and Ramcharandas to proceed to Cawnpore. The same car took them to Harpalpur station where they caught a train for Banda for the darshan of Vishuddhanand.