XXV. HEART
SEARCHINGS
The Zulu 'rebellion' was full of new experiences and
gave me much food for thought. The Boer War had not
brought home to me the horrors of war with anything like
the vividness that the 'rebellion' did. This was no war
but a man-hunt, not only in my opinion, but also in that
of many Englishmen with whom I had occasion to talk. To
hear every morning reports of the soldiers' rifles
exploding like crackers in innocent hamlets, and to live
in the midst of them was a trial. But I swallowed the
bitter draught, especially as the work of my Corps
consisted only in nursing the wounded Zulus. I could see
that but for us the Zulus would have been uncared for.
This work, therefore, eased my conscience.
But there was much else to set one thinking. It was a
sparsely populated part of the country. Few and far
between in hills and dales were the scattered Kraals of
the simple and so-called 'uncivilized' Zulus. Marching,
with or without the wounded, through these solemn
solitudes, I often fell into deep thought.
I pondered over brahmacharya and its
implications, and my convictions took deep root. I
discussed it with my co-workers. I had not realized then
how indispensable it was for self-realization. But I
clearly saw that one aspiring to serve humanity with his
whole soul could not do without it. It was borne in upon
me that I should have more and more occasions for service
of the kind I was rendering, and that I should find
myself unequal to my task if I were engaged in the
pleasures of family life and in the propagation and
rearing of children.
In a word, I could not live both after the flesh and
the spirit. On the present occasion, for instance, I
should not have been able to throw myself into the fray,
had my wife been expecting a baby. Without the observance
of brahmacharya service of the family would be
inconsistent with service of the community. With brahmacharya
they would be perfectly consistent.
So thinking, I became somewhat impatient to take a
final vow. The prospect of the vow brought a certain kind
of exultation. Imagination also found free play and
opened out limitless vistas of service.
Whilst I was thus in the midst of strenuous physical
and mental work, a report came to the effect that the
work of suppressing the 'rebellion' was nearly over, and
that we should soon be discharged. A day or two after
this our discharge came and in a few days we got back to
our homes.
After a short while I got a letter from the Governor
specially thanking the Ambulance Corps for its services.
On my arrival at Phoenix I eagerly broached the
subject of Brahmacharya with Chhaganlal,
Maganlal, West and others. They liked the idea and
accepted the necessity of taking the vow, but they also
represented the difficulties of the task. Some of them
set themselves bravely to observe it, and some, I know,
succeeded also.
I too took the plunge the vow to observe brahmacharya
for life. I must confess that I had not then fully
realized the magnitude and immensity of the task I
undertook. The difficulties are even today staring me in
the face. The importance of the vow is being more and
more borne in upon me. Life without brahmacharya
appears to me to be insipid and animal-like. The brute by
nature knows no self-restraint. Man is man because he is
capable of, and only in so far as he exercises,
self-restraint. What formerly appeared to me to be
extravagant praise of brahmacharya in our
religious books seems now, with increasing clearness
every day, to be absolutely proper and founded on
experience.
I saw that brahmacharya, which is so full of
wounderful potency, is by no means an easy affair, and
certainly not a mere matter of the body. It begins with
bodily restraint, but does not end there. The perfection
of it precludes even an impure thought. A true brahmachari
will not even dream of satisfying the fleshly appetite,
and until he is in that condition, he has a great deal of
ground to cover.
For me the observance of even bodily brahmacharya
has been full of difficulties. Today I may say that I
feel myself fairly safe, but I had yet to achieve
complete mastery over thought, which is so essential. Not
that the will or effort is lacking, but it is yet a
problem to me wherefrom undersirable thoughts spring
their insidious invasions. I have no doubt that there is
a key to lock out undersirable thoughts, but every one
has to find it out for himself. Saints and seers have
left their experiences for us, but they have given us no
infallible and universal prescription. For perfection or
freedom from error comes only from grace, and so seekers
after God have left us mantras, such as Ramanama,
hallowed by their own austerities and charged with their
purity. Without an unreserved surrender to His grace,
complete mastery over thought is impossible. This is the
teaching of every great book of religion, and I am
realizing the truth of it every moment of my striving
after that perfect brahmacharya .
But part of the history of that striving and struggle
will be told in chapters to follow. I shall conclude this
chapter with an indication of how I set about the task.
In the first flush of inthusiasm, I found the observance
quite easy. The very first change I made in my mode of
life was to stop sparing the same bed with my wife or
seeking privacy with her.
Thus brahmacharya which I had been observing
willynilly since 1900, was sealed with a vow in the
middle of 1906.
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