Mr. Wright accompanied
me on the ten-minute drive. Tiny young flowerlike faces atop the
long-stemmed colorful SARIS! At the end of a brief talk in Hindi
{FN44-7} which I was giving outdoors, the skies unloosed a sudden
downpour. Laughing, Mr. Wright and I climbed aboard the car and
sped back to MAGANVADI amidst sheets of driving silver. Such tropical
intensity and splash!
Reentering the guest house I was struck anew by the stark simplicity
and evidences of self-sacrifice which are everywhere present.
The Gandhi vow of non-possession came early in his married life.
Renouncing an extensive legal practice which had been yielding him
an annual income of more than $20,000, the Mahatma dispersed all
his wealth to the poor.
Sri Yukteswar used to poke gentle fun at the commonly inadequate
conceptions of renunciation.
"A beggar cannot renounce wealth," Master would say. "If a man laments:
'My business has failed; my wife has left me; I will renounce all
and enter a monastery,' to what worldly sacrifice is he referring?
He did not renounce wealth and love; they renounced him!"
Saints like Gandhi, on the other hand, have made not only tangible
material sacrifices, but also the more difficult renunciation of
selfish motive and private goal, merging their inmost being in the
stream of humanity as a whole.
The Mahatma's remarkable wife, Kasturabai, did not object when he
failed to set aside any part of his wealth for the use of herself
and their children.
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