There was a primary school in the village of my
birth place. From the point of view of formal education, I studied only in that
school. Sanskrit is part and parcel of our family traditions. My father and
brothers were eminent scholars of Sanskrit. Giving discourses on ancient
scriptures and priesthood were our ancestral profession. I thus acquired adequate
knowledge of Sanskrit at home. I have taught Sanskrit to students up to the
standard of Acharya though I do not possess any degree.
The story of studying other languages is
interesting. I started writing English words in jail on a shallow iron pan (tasla)
by using pebbles as pencil. I could lay my hand on an English newspaper
'Leader' in jail and started reading English. I used to consult my colleagues
and in about a year's time, when I was released from jail, I had acquired
fairly good knowledge of English. Every time during my journey to the jail my
vocabulary of English increased due to mutual discussions and gradually I
learnt grammar also. In return, I taught my jail mates Sanskrit and idiomatic
Hindustan. Magazines, journals, dictionaries etc. of other languages have
always remained my basic sources of learning other languages. Gayatri has been
called Goddess of Wisdom. I cannot say anything about others but I myself have
been miraculously benefited by her worship. Even professors of Hindu have received
considerable guidance from my articles in Akhand Jyoti, in which Sanskrit words
have been used predominantly. I have a feeling of inner upliftment and people
are amazed to find that despite my remaining extremely busy in Sadhana etc. so
much knowledge could be acquired. The credit for all this goes to Mahapragya.
(the Supreme Divine Intelligence)
Although I participated in satyagraha, launched by
the Congress, in compliance with the direction from Gurudev, in t beginning I
did not understand its significance. When I was given one sankalp of doing
sadhana for twenty-four years, why was this period split up into two portions
of five and nineteen years? When thousands of persons were engaged in
satyagraha movement, participation or non-participation by one more person
should not have mattered much?
Gurudev had guessed my dilemma at the time of my
meeting with him and his divine voice had given the guideline. "Yug Dharma
has its own importance. It should be considered as the need of times and one should
rush to fulfill it leaving aside all other work, just as water has to be rushed
to the site of fire. In days to come you have to undertake several works of
public contact and you will not get better opportunity than this to establish
contacts with different strata of society. You will also get an opportunity for
rehearsal of the experience gained in previous births and of the lessons learnt
in your early age. They are not important from the point of view of personal
gain but they answer a need of t times.
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