All these things he explained to me, and he also encouraged me by hinting that in the perfect performance of the last-named rite I showed myself an apt and promising pupil. Thus, after learning many a secret of the path to salvation, I became permanently attached to the Guru Maharaja's train as his third disciple.
In order to evoke in us deep repugnance to the world and to help us in our spiritual exercises, our guru made arrangements for us that were particularly austere. Tea, bread, clarified butter, milk, curds, flattened rice, sugar, and other similarly ascetic dishes were presented for our diet. Besides this, our vigilance was untiring to see that our minds never slipped from the contemplation of the lotus-feet of God. The result of all this was that, as we say, even my dried twigs blossomed: I began to develop a sleek and dignified rotundity quite different from the slimness of my sinful past.
One task we had, to go out begging. Though not the prime duty of sannyasis, it is always a very important duty, because it has an intimate connection with the spiritual dietary. Maharaj never did it himself; we, his disciples, did it for him by turns. In all the other duties of sannyasis I quickly outdistanced the other disciples; but in this alone I failed to shine. I never succeeded in making it natural or pleasant. But there was one advantage: the country was Bihar and not Bengal. I am not comparing the merits of the two. All I want to say is that there the women never advised me, as they would have done in Bengal, to seek the next house, on the ground that their hands were dirty or that they were otherwise engaged; nor did the men demand the reason why, being an able-bodied man, I went about begging.
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