“I will never allow you to take sannyasa (renunciation). You can do whatever prayers you like to do in your room and nobody will disturb you.” Ma (my mother) instructed me on seeing my inclination towards sannyasa. Newton’s third law is ‘for every action there is equal and opposite reaction.’ I decided I would become a saint without taking sannyasa. I threw my bed out of my room and declared that I would sleep on floor from now onward. She tried hard to convince me to sleep on a low height bed, bed with wheels or any designer bed that fit in my Sankalpa. But I was adamant. This happened almost one and a half decade before. Till date in summers, I slept on cotton durrie and in winters on a cotton gadda (thin mattress).
When I became comfortable with the change in my sleeping habit, I challenged myself by saying goodbye to the slippers. Like saints, I began to live barefoot. Most of the time I did not wear any footwear. These restrictions I followed in my house and only my close relatives knew about it. I lived like a queen in the outer world, but I lived like a saint in the four walls of my house!
When last time I attended Swamiji’s discourse, he looked towards me and said, “Sannyasa lene ki jaroorat kya hai (What is the need to take sannyasa)?
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Thank you for writing this.... Especially Swamiji's saying that at the end....
ReplyDeleteYou are already saint by helping so many people. :)