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"Why are you stopping?" she asked him. “I will show you,” and took a big axe.
Naturally she felt a great fear pass through her body, but immediately, she thought, “There is not another way but to surrender and die in peace." She dropped her terror, came to herself, and surrendered.
But when the cartdriver was about to hit her, the axe slipped from its handle and fell into a bush behind the cart. The man cursed and went to retrieve the axe from the bush when a cobra reared its head from behind the bush and bit him. He took his hand back with a scream, saw the hissing cobra, and fell to the ground unconscious. Within fifteen minutes, he was dead.
When the woman related this story to Gurudev, she confirmed, “What I have learned has not gone in vain. Miracle is nothing but what you live. You are right, Gurudev. It is our inner radiation coming out. Now I see how it works in the invisible world. We don't notice it, and when it comes to our attention, we call it a miracle, a sign. But now I share your conviction -- it is nothing but life uncovering itself.”
In the Face of Fire
According to custom, to celebrate the end of a rainy season retreat, the members of one family would invite the teacher to their house to give a talk and receive a meal. In 1952, Gurudev and his father were invited to the home of a family who had a cloth factory. They planned to spend one night there before moving on and taking up once again the itinerant life. In the afternoon of that day, a crowd of townspeople gathered outside of the family's house which was a weaving factory to hear Gurudev deliver a talk. A tent had been set up for the occasion to protect everyone from the s.trong sun.
That night the monks slept in a room on the third floor.
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