Talking about his Sadhana days, he said:" …..I had no sleep at all for six long years. The eyes lost the power of winking….. I had no idea of the passing of the time and was not at all conscious of the body. I stood before a mirror and put a finger into my eyes to see whether the eyelids close, they did not. ……I became alarmed and wept complaining to the Mother. " Mother, is this the result of calling on Thee……..Thou have given this terrible disease to this body? Do reveal thyself to me….” (God is practiced as Mother, in those parts of India)
An intense longing for God drove him. He was not mad but helpless. Anguish in his heart ( because he was separated from God , whom he worshipped as Mother) transcended his power of endurance. Flood of tears would flow from his eyes at the time of worship; his wonderful joy on hearing songs praising the glory of Divine.
To see the Mother became an obsession with him.
He himself described his first vision of Mother;"I felt as if my heart were being squeezed like a wet towel…..I could not bear the separation from Her any longer. Life seemed to be not worth living. Suddenly my glance fell on the sword that was kept in the Mother’s temple, and I determined to put an end to my life. I jumped up like a mad man and seized it, when suddenly the blessed Mother revealed Herself. The building with the different parts, the temple, and everything else vanished from my sight…..….I saw a limitless, infinite, effulgent Ocean of Consciousness. As far as the eye could see, the shining billows were rushing at me from all sides with a terrific noise…”
He collapsed unconscious. Within him was a flow of undiluted bliss, altogether new, and he felt the presence of Divine Mother.
Soon he started seeing Holy Mother, both in meditation and, with eyes open.
His spiritual moods deepened. He would meditate, pray, weep, be sleepless, and have ecstatic moods. He would have burning sensation in the body. He would be indifferent to the outside world and his body. To root out the idea of caste superiority (he being a brahmin, the highest caste) he cleaned, at night, the dirty places, of an untouchable’s house with his long and neglected hair. When he would sit in meditation, birds would perch on his head and shoulder, to peck in his hair for grains of food. Snakes would crawl over his motionless body.
To be continued
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