Brahmachariji

Author(s): Manu Doshi
Publisher: Manu Doshi

Page 6

indulgence and obstacles' was at his heart and his only aspiration was to stay at the feet of Prabhushri. As such, he once decided to go to Prabhushri at Ahmedabad with the intent of not coming back.
He reached there in the evening. That time Prabhushri was seated on a settee in the long corridor of the sanitarium. Gordhanbhai bowed to him and Prabhushri asked him to take Prasad (token sweet). While he was munching it, he heard the clattering of Prabhushri's baton. As he looked that side, he noticed that Prabhushri was putting on socks. Thereafter Prabhushri tried to put on footwear and then gave it up. Gordhanbhäi made out that it was symbolic for giving up the obstacles and staying at his service. However, after finishing Prasad when he came to Prabhushri, the latter asked him to go home. Thereupon the straightforward Gordhanbhai bowed to him and left without even making a request to keep him at the service. Adopting the motto 'Anäe Dhammo (Obedience constitutes the religion he started walking from Ahmedabad and reached Anand in the morning.
His wife had expired leaving behind two and a half year old son Jasu. In order to take proper care of the infant, Gordhanbhäi was staying with his father in law at Anand. At times Prabhushri used to say that haste on the right path may turn into waste. Moreover, he had clearly specified that compassion is the foremost attribute. As such, Gordhanbhäi was patiently performing the duty of raising the son. His relatives had urged him to remarry, but he had firmly declined to do so, because remarriage would come in the way of serving Prabhushri.
He was thus caught between the sense of duty for the son and the inclination for renouncement as well as detachment. Normally he used to go to Ashram once a week. When the son became five year old, he decided to buy monthly season ticket so as to go to Ashram every evening and come back in the morning. He could take sleep only for a short while, because in Ashram he remained busy with reading or writing till late at night and left the place early in the morning. In order to reduce the required sleep he used to take very little food in the evening. Noticing his mode Prabhushri had once remarked, "This Girdharbhai (At times Prabhushri used to address Gordhanbhäi as Girdharbhäi) regularly comes to the Ashram and spends the time in reading etc. What a difference has that made in his life? ... He has given up everything, life can be fulfilled this way.'
That remark had an impact on one liberation-seeker. He once asked, "Prabhushri, what about the person who wants to give up but cannot put it in practice?" Prabhushri replied, “That happens, because giving up is not easy like cutting the overgrown nail. It is, however, clear that one should not adopt what is not right from the point of view of the enlightened being. Let other things stay; they would disappear on their own at the right time. ...One should try to reduce the attachment, because normally that comes in the way."
Chapter 3: At the Threshold
Gordhanbhai was feeling that going to Ashram in the evening and coming back in the morning was like riding on two horses. The words like 'Get rid of self-indulgence and remove obstacles' were prompting him to give up everything, but the concern for his son was preventing him from doing so. In order to be free from that concern he wrote a long letter to his brother Narsinhbhai. That letter shows his eagerness to give up the worldly life and to stay forever at the service of Prabhushri. It also indicates his thinking for the worldly aspects and is therefore given below except for the initial and ending portions thereof.
The path of worldly beings relates to the worldly order, while that of devotees to the liberation; they are bound to be different. Those, who want to extend the worldly life and those, who want to curtail it, cannot go together. On that very account we remain disinclined towards the true monks. Prabhushri also belonged to a respectable family like ours. By virtue of some previous culture he developed detachment. As such, he abandoned the homely life and became a monk. In the monastic order also he had gained prominence, but he gave it up. By virtue of the wholesome destiny, however, the favorable situations move around him. He does not have any intent to spread his creed or to make pupils. Had he any such inclination, there were many monks and lay followers in Khambhät to stay at his service, he would not have left them. As a matter