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Family Service
I am glad that you are taking care of my mother and my widowed sister-in-law. It is we, their blood relations, who ought to look after both of them. If we don't we must be blamed for our disregard.
I am the oldest among the living (male) members of the family and I should be held the most responsible for their neglect. There is a Gujarati proverb which derides an irresponsible man. It says," He who has cast off all sense of shame, is 'the monarch of all he surveys'." But by God's grace that proverb is not applicable in my case. I have taken, by God's grace, all possible care and trouble of providing educational facilities for my elder brother's son and younger brothers within the limits of my financial stringency at that time*.
*In his Foreword to Pujya Sri Mota's book, Karmagatha, Pujya Sri Thakkar "BAPA" pays the following tribute to Mota (then Chunilal Bhakta): "I fully remember his engagement in spiritual activity since his earliest career. He used to spend many nights in the local crematorium and remember God (intently). He had never had to begin a married life and was totally free from worries pertaining to wife and children. All the same he has never been shy of his duties of taking paternal care of his nephew (his widowed sister-in-law's son) and his younger brothers. His mother used to call him by his pet name, "Chunio, and I remember very well the attic on the first floor in which I used to be put up (by him)."
The Usual Understanding
To amass riches for the members of the family and provide them the luxury of a smooth comfortable life is the usual meaning attached to the expression, "service of the family. I have never left anything undone for my (deceased) elder brother's son and daughter - of course within the limits of the money I had then. Just now (i.e. after giving up his job for exclusive attention upon sadhana), I am fully prepared (by rejoining service) to give my nephew facilities for further education, if he wants it, I told him so, not once but twice, thrice, four times. You can, if you like, ask him if I have said so or not. But now he is already employed (as the teacher of a pre-primary class) and that is all right. I have never lapsed from my duty to my family, according to my conception of that duty of course. On that account, I know very well that I have not been able to give enough satisfaction to my mother and others. Mother would be glad and happy, if only I could give her a house built from my earnings, heap up a large amount of money for a legacy to the family, sweat myself in arranging marriages for the children, spend lavishly on cast-dinners and customary occasions, and thus observer all the usual cast-rules in a way that raises the prestige of a family in my caste.
Right Attitude for Worldly Dealings
But that is not my way. By God's grace I have not observed a single rule or custom of my caste. That transgression, however, was made, not because of my itch for social reform, but because of my monetary condition.
Even in those early days it was both my principle and unshaken resolve not to incur a debt following any social custom. I was already groaning under a debt (my brother's expensive illness of tuberculosis) and I did not want to add to that load.
I know mother never liked my stand. There have been occasions in my life when what cast-customs and dealings with castemen were required, I never did. My mother felt that the name of the family sank by that disobedience. For all these reasons, mother was highly dissatisfied with me and she complained against me to a number of inmates of the Ashram (Harijan Ashram, now popularly called Gandhi Ashram, where the family stayed). Even to Godadia Maharaj (the saint who wore a thick robe), she would go and spit out her annoyance.
But I had gone far beyond the groove of my mother's grossly material desires long ago. (After completing his six years' strenuous sadhana in Nadiad, Pujya Sri Mota had come to stay in the Harijan Ashram). And have we (sadhaks) not to leave the discussion of the fine distinctions between right and wrong to book-learned pundits of religious texts? After we come within the charmed circle of the Lord, no choice is left to us. We have but to follow his behest, to go where he leads us, to dance as he calls the tune, and all in heart-felt agreement with him. Just as God takes care of everybody, so will he take care of them (Pujya Sri Mota's relatives) I am sure. And yet whenever they think my help necessary, I am ready to fly to them as quick as lightning. Do give them this assurance and write to me whenever they need my presence there. The fact that you are there with them makes me undoubtedly feel at ease about the matter.
The Work Prescribed for You
Remember that you will get lower marks (in the test God has put to you) to the extent that you do anything for them under the consideration that they are my blood-relations (i.e., you should regard it as your service to God for your elevation). Let other take up imposing work in big fields of service. You, at least, have to regard the small work at hand or what may be allotted to you now or in future, as the one prescribed by God himself, in order that you may render devotional service to him.
We shall saved from being caught up in infatuation with any work only after we have gone beyond mental submission to the association of ideas that are attendant upon that work.
That is not all we should mind. Action as such presents before our eyes its real essence and charming play, as well as its mystic significance, only when we perform that action in the spirit of a holy sacrifice and in that of intelligent devotion to God. Action then becomes an open book to us.
If, as we go on doing sadhana, an impetus, an enthusiastic interest is not created, take it for certain that there is some defect in it. For myself I can assert that I have loved sadhana more and more as I proceeded. I at least have felt only joy in sadhana all along and that joy has, as I have experienced, grown to the joy of a higher and higher state.
The World is Joy Incarnate
This world is not a figment of imagination, nor is it a mirage, a meaningless illusion (mithya maya). It is a really beautiful field to ply on, to gambol on. All over the world nothing but joy pervades. "Raso Vai Saha." ("He is rasa," i.e., eternal joy and liveliness.) The Lord himself is at once the Lord of rasa and its embodiment. What is the use, what is the meaning, of that sadhana in which that kind of rasa in not experienced by the sadhak?
The Writer's Own Experience
I can say for myself that, by God's grace, I have quaffed nothing but deep draughts of joy from the circumstances and incidents of my life. But I could do so only when, by doing it with love and reaping the reward of joy.
I would like you, too, to do this work (looking after Pujya Sri Mota's blood-relations) in the above spirit of complete dedication to the work of God. But I know it full well also, that you will not have to do anything much for my dear relations.
Don't Be Led Away
Let the atmosphere of war (satyagraha) in the Sabarmati Gandhi Ashram be. Why should you be swept off your feet and carried away in the hot stream? The fact that such an atmosphere has come over the Ashram is a good thing for us. It is an excellent God-given opportunity for us to create a dispassionate consciousness in us, to refuse to yield to circumstance around us. I appeal to you, therefore, to make a serious attempt to remain detached from your surroundings. We should not let our minds be caught up in that atmosphere, and should not talk about these things to anybody with any interest. We should never take a lively part in such talks even when they are going on in our presence.
The Cause of Our Sorrow
No one can ever make us unhappy. It is a mistake to believe that someone else is the cause of our sorrow. The truth is that it is our nature and temperament that put us out of sorts. It is because of our extroversion that we see something amiss in some other person, assume that he is wrong in doing something, and evaluate him according to our (perverse) judgement of his qualities. "That fellow behaves in a bad manner" - that is how we think of him and others. And when we think like that, the thought creates a passionate temper in us and makes us certain that the beliefs and opinion of others are faulty and our view alone is the right one. It is wrong to our own anger on that account, that we feel aggrieved and think we have been treated unjustly.
The Remedy
Many people
hold the view that they are unhappy, because they do not have a heavy purse.
(My mother thinks likewise) That is not how I look upon the matter. It is
not a man's poverty, but his own mental attitude that is the cause of his
distress. Because of his own mundane leanings and the clashes, and the dissatisfaction
and uneasiness which they create, a man feels deeply hurt. But harldy anybody's
attention is drawn to this psychological fact. Those who, by God's grace,
are rolling in wealth are quite often found to be full of worry and unhappiness.
"Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown." A poor man may also
be unhappy. This shows that the cause of sorrow is the man's attitude.
* If that attitude or outlook were changed, sorrow would fly away from the
man's heart.
*"Vain, very vain, my weary search to find, That happiness which centres
only in the mind." - Goldsmith