[27-10:] My meeting with Keshabananda is described in [chapter 42].
CHAPTER: 28
Kashi, Reborn And Rediscovered
“Please do not go into the water. Let us bathe by dipping our buckets.”
I was addressing the young Ranchi students who were accompanying me on an eight-mile hike to a neighboring hill. The pond before us was inviting, but a distaste for it had arisen in my mind. The group around me followed my example of dipping buckets, but a few lads yielded to the temptation of the cool waters. No sooner had they dived than large water snakes wiggled around them. The boys came out of the pond with comical alacrity.
We enjoyed a picnic lunch after we reached our destination. I sat under a tree, surrounded by a group of students. Finding me in an inspirational mood, they plied me with questions.
“Please tell me, sir,” one youth inquired, “if I shall always stay with you in the path of renunciation.”
“Ah, no,” I replied, “you will be forcibly taken away to your home, and later you will marry.”
Incredulous, he made a vehement protest. “Only if I am dead can I be carried home.” But in a few months, his parents arrived to take him away, in spite of his tearful resistance; some years later, he did marry.