Satyagraha Ashram = Pujya Gurudev

The Service of the Saint - Satyagraha Ashram

=Pt.ShriRam Sharma Acharya

During my boyhood I had already been attracted by Bengal and the Himalayas, and dreamed of going there. On the one hand I was drawn to Bengal by the revolutionary spirit of Bande Mataram, while on the other hand the path of spiritual quest led to the Himalayas. Kashi was on the way to both places, and some good Karma had brought me as far as that. In the event I went neither to Bengal nor to the Himalayas; I went to Gandhiji, and found with him both the peace of the Himalayas and the revolutionary spirit of Bengal. Peaceful revolution, revolutionary peace: the two streams united in him in a way that was altogether new.

When I had reached Kashi the air had been full of a speech which Bapu had delivered at the Hindu University there. In it he had said a great deal about non-violence, his main point being that there could be no non-violence without fearlessness. The violence of the mind, shown in violent attitudes and feelings was, he said, worse than open, physical violence. It follows from that that the most important aspect of non-violence is inward non-violence, which is not possible without fearlessness. In the same speech he had referred critically to those Indian Princes who had come to the meeting decked out in all kinds of finery. This had all taken place a month before I arrived, but it was still the talk of the town. I read the speech, and it raised all kinds of problems in my mind. I wrote to Bapu with my questions and received a very good reply, so after some ten or fifteen days I wrote again, raising some further points. 

Then came a postcard. ’Questions about non-violence,’ he wrote, ’cannot be settled by letters; the touch of life is needed. Come and stay with me for a few days in the Ashram, so that we can meet now and again.’ The idea that doubts could be set at rest by living rather than by talking was something that greatly appealed to me. Along with the postcard came a copy of the Ashram rules which attracted me still more. I had never before encountered anything like them in any institution. 

’The object of this Ashram, I read, ’is service of our country in such ways as are consistent with the welfare of the world as a whole. We accept the following vows as needful to attain that object.’ Then followed the eleven vows: truth, non-violence, non-stealing, self-control, bodily labour and so on. This struck me as very surprising indeed. I had read a great deal of history, but I had never heard of vows being regarded as necessary for national freedom. Such matters, I thought, are found in religious texts, in the Yoga Shastra, and for the guidance of devotees; but here is someone who insists that they are necessary for national service too. That was what drew me to Bapu. Here was a man, I felt, who timed at one and the same time at both political freedom and spiritual development. I was delighted. He had said "Come", and I went.

Thanks GOD,Thanks Sadguru,

Shiv Sharma