The Way, According to Him

He spoke untiringly on how man can walk on the path of being and becoming, not alone but along with the environment, overcoming the obstacles and beckoning of complexes enjoying life in all its fine charms and flavors but never slipping into the dirty drain of passion’s sewage that runs along the wayside. But for this, he averred, that a Living Ideal—a competent and realized man in flesh and blood—in whom all the human qualities are arranged and adjusted at their best in a normal effortless way, is needed as his guide. Such a person works as a living mirror and cleaner of human nature. With only loving adherence to him can man shape his character and live on the path of existential uplift and enjoyment along with the environment. He spoke on a wide variety of subjects pertaining to being and becoming with particular connotations to everyday life, science, genetics, eugenics, literature, marriage, politics and many other topics till the very end of his earthly sojourn.

One Sri Krishnaprasanna Bhattacharya—a budding scientist with blue-eyed aspirations and a Calcutta University gold medal in Physics under his belt, assisting Nobel Laureate Dr. C. V. Raman in the latter’s researches in light—on his holiday visits to Himaitpur used to be a curious onlooker when Sree Sree Thakur talked with people, albeit with little interest or faith in anything remotely such as spiritualism. On one such visit he was determined to put Sree Sree Thakur to a grueling test with his knowledge of science and shatter the ‘myth’ built around the latter. After starting the discussion with the preliminaries of light, his field of work, he went deeper and deeper. Thakur avoiding carefully the jargon of technical terminology in his own inimitable way, started illustrating on the floor the lines of light with a piece of charcoal. And before long, reins of the discussion slipped uncontrollably out of the young scientist’s grasp as he could do no more than listen to what Sree Sree Thakur had to say. And Sree Sree Thakur said much more than researches on light had progressed till then, throwing light on the possibilities that lay ahead in the field and scope of future research in the subject. Spelt dumb and amazed, as if befooled in trying to befool, Sri Bhattacharya made up his mind and in a single hand-written correspondence to Dr. Raman, released himself from the latter’s research engagement and bound himself with Sree Sree Thakur’s life and carried out alone and in the company of Sri Shyamacharan Mukherjee under the goading guidance of Sree Sree Thakur various research works that did not remain confined to light or physics only. Sree Sree Thakur was not just a visionary but one who could clearly visualize and see the seeds of future. The problems he warned against again and again and cautioned would plague the society are really eating fast into the very roots of civilization. But above all his unfathomable knowledge and inexplicable abilities was his ingenuous and profound love for everyone. After meeting him, communist leader and a close confidant of Late Mujaffar Ahmed, founder of Communist Party of India, Sri Bankim Mukhopadhyay remarked that he had never met a man with such motherly affection. When the then revenue minister of Bihar Sri Krishnaballav Sahay after seeing the activities of Satsang asked Thakur in utter astonishment, “Why don’t you advertise all that you do for others in newspapers?”

Sree Sree Thakur calmly said, “You have your wife, children and others in your family, haven’t you? Why don’t you advertise what you do for them?”

Puzzled, Sri Sahay retorted, “Why should I? Can anyone advertise what he does for his near ones?”

Sree Sree Thakur replied, “That is exactly what my problem is. I can’t advertise what I do for others, because I can’t think anyone as separate from my own existence. I think whatever I’m doing, I’m doing for myself.” Sri Sahay was speechless in amazement and shocked beyond uttering anything. And however unbelievable may this sound, every bit of what Sree Sree Thakur said about himself was truth, unadulterated.

That is why perhaps, to a query from one of the devotees, Sree Sree Borda, Sree Sree Thakur’s eldest son and the then Pradhan Acharya of Satsang, remarked that there may be saints and ascetics with great powers but there can never be one so full of love as He.