Extremely lonely and awe inspiring time and place. There was no human sound anywhere, nay, not even the sound of a bird. That day we saw neither traders nor pilgrims on the way. By 10 o’clock we crossed that very vast and awe-inspiring Gauri Guha Maidan and as we had to ascend and descend a small ghat in the Mandhatru mountain, we set ourselves to ascend slowly. There, from a distance, a man was coming towards us fast from his tent situated in the mountain valley. Within 5 or 10 minutes, he approached us and it was clear from his appearance that he was a thief. He came straight towards me and quickly caught hold of my rudraksha mala and turned it this way and that way. Then, putting his hand in my pocket, he said something in his language. Without the least fear, indifferently, I said in Hindi, “We are the lamas of Kashi. What do you want? You want my rudraksha mala? If you do, take it.” Saying thus with great seriousness, I held the mala in front of him. But without touching it and with a shame-faced smile, he moved a few steps away.
Holding him by the hand, I asked him lovingly how far Manasa was from that place and other details. He also walked with us for some distance and said in the same loving tone that the Manasarovar was on the other side of the pass and that we could see it in a short time from the top of the pass. After that, he went back from where he came.
From the standpoint of the substratum, even the thief is Brahman alone. He is also of the nature of Bliss. But from the standpoint of name and form, he is an evil creature, capable of giving us sorrow…
Divine qualities like dispassion, non-possessiveness, fearlessness, non-violence, cheerfulness, self-discipline, love, forbearance, withdrawal from the world of objects are very useful indeed to detach ourselves from the unreal. By the grace of the Lord, practising this glorious brahma bhavana continuously and constantly, with the resultant increase of dispassion etc. day by day, what have I to fear or suffer from thieves?