Aptavani 09

Author(s): Dada Bhagwan
Publisher: Mahavideh Foundation

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Aptavani-9
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Aptavani-9
This is what happened. After 'we' attained Gnan, young girls used to come to 'us' for vidhis (special spiritual blessing from the Gnani Purush by touching His feet) when we lived in Mamani Poda in Vadodara. Hiraba was innocent: she is a good person. But women in the house across from ours instigated her by telling her, 'Oh my goodness! Young girls come to Dada and touch his feet. It looks bad. It is not appropriate, is it? Dada is a good man, but this looks bad. What about Dada's reputation? People made all kinds of innuendos and brainwashed Hiraba in this way. She worried that our reputation would be ruined. She is a good woman but people put salt' in her (they instilled suspicion in her mind). What happens to milk when you put salt in it?
Questioner: It will go bad.
Dadashri: I knew that people had started to add 'salt' in her and that one day she would go 'bad', but I waited. One day when a young lady was doing vidhi, Hiraba deliberately hit the door as she was sweeping the floor. She had never done that before. There was no such practice in our home. She did it to scare the girl away, she did not do it to scare me. The girls became anxious that Hiraba would scold them. So this girl got scared. I immediately understood that there was some kind of mischief behind this act; can one not recognize the mischief behind it? Do you think that I was as naive back then as I am now? So then, I told Hiraba, 'From today onwards you and I have to separate. We cannot afford this. You go and live in Bhadran. I will arrange to send you seven hundred or so rupees every month for your expenses. We should no longer be staying together from now on.' Chandulal and five or six other people were sitting there at the time. Even they got the opportunity to learn from this scene! Hiraba then started to make tea and while doing so, she kept banging the stove. I said to myself 'I will have to tighten the screw before this gets out of control.' So I went into the kitchen and started to throw cans of tea, sugar, oil,
kerosene etc., on the floor. It was as if a 400-volt current had touched it all. I made a mess of everything. The women who had instigated Hiraba came to see what was going on. I asked them, 'Who poisoned this Goddess of a woman?' They responded, 'You are a Gnani, you cannot become angry like this. Well only the anger of the Gnani Purush is worth seeing. I then told them, 'It is your instigation that has created this situation. Why did you feed her all this? What have we done to you?' They responded, 'We did not feed her anything. We simply told her a few things.' I asked them, 'Why did you have to ruin her life?' They replied, *How have we ruined her life?' I told them, Now she has to live alone. Hiraba has to live separate in a new home in Bhadran. I will give her a monthly allowance.' They said, you cannot do that. How can you do that at this age?' I asked them, 'what good is a pot that has a crack in it? It will not hold water anymore; whatever you put in it will drain out. Can you keep a pot with a crack in it?' The neighbors all got worried when they realized that Hiraba would have to go live separately. Yes, there should not be any negative effect on dharma; Atma dharma - in spiritual matters regarding the Soul
That day tea, sugar and everything else were all mixed up. But that act was carried out without any attachment or abhorrence (vitarag-bhaav); or any inner reaction. I told Chandulal and the others sitting there, 'go home and learn.' What was the outcome of this act the next day? The women started telling Hiraba 'Don't do anything to cause problems. Let whoever wants to come and see Dada. You do not get involved in it.' They started to tell her just the opposite because they got worried that they would be blamed if anything were to happen. They knew they had to be very careful. I had created that scene in order to ensure that they would never do what they did again. I have never had to repeat that act either. I had come up with that much remedy. They may still remember the incident. Hiraba too was swept up in the rut She would have never behaved that