मेरा आजीवन कारावास / माझी जन्मठेप (स्वातंत्र्यवीर सावरकर - काले पानी का ऐतिहासिक संस्मरण)

this wretched condition. I can smell, you think; do you think you have no nose? Why,
then, should I feel the stank more than you?" At this, the hardened one among them came
up to me and said "Sir, we are used to this. I am one who has been, once to the island
across and I know this practice too well. But you do not come over on the other side
where there not much dirt. And I take your place here." My heart melted when I heard
him say this. His generous offer was a wonder to me. I said, "O, my God, even in the
hearts of the most sinful ones, thou mayest thy abode, turning it into a shrine of worship
and prayer. Thou turnest what is dirty and untouchable into the holiest of the holy -the
sacred basil-pot it becomes, when it was no more than a sink of filth and crime.”
I thanked him for the offer and said "I could get a little breeze, a draft of fresh air
from this side and so the doctor had put me here. I could recline near the bars and stretch
myself a little more comfortably than the rest of you The Officer had no idea, perhaps, of
this cask right under my nose. But I consider this even as a concession to me. So you
need not worry. Why should I put you In the midst of dirt by exchanging my place with
yours? I also must Inure myself to this kind of life " the night came and I beheld a file of
them going one after another to that cask. Filth and stank had reached their peak of
nausea and disgust. I shut my eyes and pretended to be fast asleep so that they may have
no compunction on my account. Within me I said, "Alas! This was veritable hell on earth
and I had to pass through it." But reason admonished, "True enough, but It all depends
upon our thanking don’t you know that this place was assigned to you as a favour; then,
why should you grumble? Why would you not reconcile yourself to it? May be, God
desires by putting you here, that you should overcome your pride, your self-conceit, your
separateness from the rest, your sense of superiority. The best of sages, saints, seers and
yogis refrain from the `sadhana' which has come In your way to conquer and burn into
dust the pride of caste, gotra, race, class and character and merge themselves into the
universe and be one with its Creator. Why not use it to the full then? Do you not know
the story of Trilinga Swami? He was arraigned before a Magistrate on the charge of
obscene conduct. In the course of the trial, the Magistrate observed, "These call
themselves Advaitis? Why do they eat food and not cowdung?" The Swami laughed,
answered the call of nature right In front of the Magistrate, and before any one could stop
him, ate his own excreta"
Ramkrishna Paramahansa
The story goes of Ramkrishna Paramahansa which enforces the same moral. He
had exhausted all the sadhanas of experience of unity with the Divine. One sadhana alone
remained, and that was the hardest to practice. In order to practice it he went to Calcutta
and in the vicinity of the town where all the sewers of the town deposit its excreta. He
turned it up and down with his own hands He put five blades of straw into the dirt and
sucked the besmeared blades with his own mouth! You only smell it by the nose whale
the prisoners are seated on the cask to use it as their commode and you try to run away
from the cask because the stink is too much for your nostrils. But whale you seek to run
away from it, how can you escape from the one which you carry on your person wherever