[Distaste for Worldly conversation.] Nothing but discourses on God appealed to me at this period. If I heard worldly conversation, I would sit in a corner and weep bitterly. When I went with Mathura Babu to Benares, I was sitting with him in the drawing-room when some friends came in to see him and began to discuss worldly affairs. "So much we have gained, so much we have lost." Hearing this I was in tears and cried aloud: "Mother, why hast Thou brought me here? I was much better off in the Temple. I have come to the Holy City to hear only of lust and gold; but there in the Temple I did not have to listen to such conversation."

I was at this time like a young boy and so Mathura Babu fulfilled all the desires that arose in my mind. My heart and soul, however, were constantly longing to hear about the

[Longing to hear about the Supreme.] [paragraph continues] Supreme Being. I searched for the places where the Holy Scriptures were expounded. There was a Brahmin in the neighborhood who was a great pandit and who had true faith. I used to go to hear him very often. A saint lived near by on the bank of the Ganges and I wished to go with this Brahmin to see him; but a priest who looked upon the world as a dream discouraged me by saying: "The body of a saint is an earthly cage; what good can one obtain by visiting such a cage?" I spoke of this to the Brahmin and he replied: "He who thinks of God, he who repeats His Holy Name and has renounced everything for the sake of the Lord, must not be regarded as an earthly cage. The priest does not know that the form of a devotee is a spiritual form full of Divine intelligence." This Brahmin once asked me why I had thrown away my Brahminical thread. I replied: "When the storm of Divine ecstasy overtook my heart and soul, it blew away all signs of caste and creed. If you once become mad after God, then you will understand me." But after some time this Brahmin himself caught the madness of Divine ecstasy. He would utter nothing but "Om, Om," and sit in silence in his own room. He

would not mix with or speak to anyone. His friends and relatives called in physicians. He told one of them: "You can cure my disease, but do not take my 'Om' from me." Once I went to see him when he was in this state. I asked him what was the matter and he answered: "The tax-collectors have been here and I am wondering what I shall do. They said that they would seize my belongings." I replied: "What will you gain by thinking in this way? Let them sell your belongings. If they put you in jail, they cannot harm you, because you say that you are nothing but (Kha) infinite space." I would often repeat this, his own statement, to him and say: "As you are infinite space, no tax can be drawn out of you."

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