Twelve Facets of Reality

Author(s): Chitrabhanu
Publisher: New York Dodd Made & Company

Page 13

Introduction
JUST as a mighty mango tree is hidden within the stone of the mango, even so, O man, divinity itself is hidden within you. Rest not until you uncover it."
These words, spoken more than twenty-five hundred years ago by the twenty-fourth Prophet of Jainism, Bhagwan Mahavir, resounded in the heart of Gurudev Shree Chitrabhanu when he first heard them as a young adult. This seed-thought continued to grow, blossom, and bear fruit throughout his life's experiences. Before he became a monk at the age of twenty he was inspired by two shining examples of the divine in man: his loving and highly principled father, and Mahatma Gandhi, with whom he worked for the freedom of India.
Events in his life accelerated the process of his inner ripening. At four years of age, he lost his mother, and at eleven his younger sister. As a college student, he won a severe bout with rheumatic fever, during which time he glimpsed his soul's longing to live in light and service to all. In his second year of working in Gandhiji's noncooperation movement, he lost his closest and dearest friend. Then he lost his peace. He confronted and unmasked questions which lay smoldering in his conscious