Shrimad Rajchandra And Mahatma Gandhi

Author(s): Kumarpal Desai
Publisher: Raj Saubhag Satsang Mandal

Page 72

Shrimad Rajchandra's Message
71
to take her to their home. During that period, there was a severe famine in the district affecting a large number of people including children. Many were left starving whilst others had taken refuge in Vantavadar. Instead of showing compassion and sympathy towards these refugees, the villagers would harshly brush them away. Rambaima's compassionate heart could not tolerate this merciless behaviour and had adopted many of the refugee children, she refused to go to her husband's village. She subsequently left her village and went to Vavaniya taking all of her adopted children with her. She found accommodations in the local Ram temple's precinct. She spent her time looking after the children she had brought with her, as well as passing mendicants, and offering prayers to the Almighty in her spare time. The local residents were genuinely impressed by Rambaima’s sense of service and devotion to God. It gave them peace and tranquillity. She became a role model for Devma, Shrimad's mother. Rambaima had once hinted to Devma that she would be blessed with a virtuous son.
Devma would often take young Shrimad along when visiting Rambaima. Though young in age, Shrimad was profoundly impressed and influenced by Rambaima's compassionate nature and the manner in which she tended to the lepers in the village. He asked Rambaima, out of sheer curiosity and inquisitiveness, “Mother, do you not feel nauseous when you touch these lepers?” Compassionate Rambaima responded to the young child's question, saying, "Shrimad! You are still a child, albeit an intelligent and a wise child and thus it would be simple to explain a few things to you. This entire world is false, it is unreal. Hence what appears to our eyes as an object of beauty or ugliness is also false and unreal. There is no pleasure or nausea in my perception of any of them.” Rambaima continued: “Secondly, it is the existence of desires in