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would become a blessing for the universe as well.
Flowing in the depth of feeling, Gurudev spoke to Pramoda when she came to Thana with her family to pay her respects to him. He told her of the glimpses and visions he had had.
For the first time Pramoda was able to speak straightly and openly to him from her heart. For the last seven years, she had been experiencing the same deep feeling, but because of reverence for her teacher and commitment to her higher quest, she had kept her distance. She had not uttered anything. She had always sat at the back of the audience to attend his talks. Whenever she had a chance to help Gurudev with various tasks and errands, including putting together the Divine Knowledge Society's monthly magazine, she always served him in a silent selfless way. She was quiet by nature, and from the days of her childhood, she had already cherished the spiritual quest. As a young girl, she had been happier reciting Jain mantras in Sanskrit and teaching herself Jain chants than going out into the social world.
When, according to Indian custom, many proposals came to ask her hand in marriage, she resisted all temptations. Her outstanding beauty, her excellence in English, her musical talents at playing the sitar, her high birth in a wealthy, cultured, and respected Jain family attracted many proposals. But her parents saw how strong and true their daughter's quest was and did not press her to marry. At the same time, out of love for her parents, she was not ready to become a nun, though she longed for the life of renunciation.
Thus it was that when Pramoda met Gurudev, she knew that she had met him not for binding, but for freeing. For eleven years she had been following his path of inner awareness. With his inspiration and exemplary life at the forefront of her mind, she completed her B.A. in Psychology at Jaihind College, and was growing in understanding and attunement to herself and to all life. Now when she received Gurudev's personal vision of their life together, she responded with profound joy and deep understanding of both their karmic con-nection and higher purpose.
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