Santbal A Saint with a Difference

Author(s): T U Mehta
Publisher: Navjivan Prakashan Mandir

Page 36

customary to perform "Karaj feasts" (feasts on death) but the reformist elements strongly condemned this practice. So in spite of strong pressure from near relatives to abide by this custom, Shivlal resisted the same successfully. Maniben, the sister, was married and had gone to settle in the family of her husband, and dear mother who had toiled for the whole life against the heaviest odds was snatched away by nature when she was expected to see the days she longed for. All this had a good psychological impact on the mind of a sensitive person like Shivlal. His introspective thinking was leading him more and more towards the things spiritual, and he was more and more inclined to take Diksha and to enter the Jain order of Saints by totally renouncing the worldly life.
Gaining Spiritual Heights :
His near relatives including his dear maternal uncle sensed this feeling of Shivlal. They were very anxious to see that he got married. One Motilal, one of the near friends of Shivlal called Shivlal to Bombay from Tol where he had gone to perform obsequies of the mother. Reaching Bombay he found that one firm of B. K. & Sons was ready to engage his services on the salary of Rs. 200/- p.m. and six annas share ( a little more than 1/3 of a rupee) in the business obtained through him. He was not bound to give any fixed time in service. The offer was indeed tempting from material point of view. Shivlal's ideas were, however, shaping differently. His fate was taking his future nearer and nearer to the forecast of Imam Saheb. He had to make a choice between a life of plenty but spent for a handful of relatives and friends, and a life of voluntary renunciation of all material comforts by adopting the whole universe as his family. To an ordinary man of the world the choice would surely be difficult. But Shivlal did not find it difficult. He chose the later alternative and rejected the offer of B. K. & Sons. He preferred to become a Jain recluse and in 1927 addressed a letter to Munishri
10.