Champaklal Speaks

Lele’s Miracles

Our ashram shifted from Kansia to Patan. We hired two bungalows belonging to a businessman, outside the Fatipal Gate on the way to the famous Kali Temple. Near our ashram, but on the other side, along the road leading to the Saraswati, was a Jain hostel for students in charge of a certain Fulchandbhai, who was interested both in the works of Sri Aurobindo and in our ashram. He had deep respect and affection for Dikshitbhai and helped us as much as he could.

Once Lele visited our place and that of one of his devotees and accepted to dine at both the places. One morning, Fulchandbhai came with the students of his hostel to see Lele and requested him to speak to them. Lele said,”Lakshmi, Champaklal's sister's child, will say something.” Immediately, Lakshmi gave a short but powerful and impressive speech. It reminded me of the speech that Sri Aurobindo had given in Bombay following Lele's instructions. After her speech Lakshmi burst out in tears pleading loudly, “Give me the complete darshan! Show me the face! show me the face!” Lele commanded, “Take her outside.” One of us took her out but she would not keep quiet. Then Lele asked us to divert her attention to something else. She was taken to a garden where she finally calmed down.

Lele said, “She had a vision of Sri Krishna's face, but not of the upper half; that is why she was pleading so much to be shown His whole face.” Then added, “Take great care of this child; see that she is never disappointed or dissatisfied.”

Thereafter Lakshmi began to have many visions and she and Lele grew deeply attached to each other. Lele used to chew pan⁷ and place his half-chewed pan in Lakshmi's mouth. Though she had never before accepted food tasted by anyone else, such being the sanskara of our Brahmin family, yet she happily accepted that pan. I was amazed at this but did not feel Lele had done something unacceptable—he had merely displayed his power. (As far as I know, in the Vallabh cult gurus distribute their half-chewed pans to devotees as prasad. This may not be liked by some, but spiritual masters have used all sorts of physical means for imparting certain experiences or capacities. And that outward form seems to have hardened into a tradition in that cult so that now even the juice of chewed pans is spewed out on devotees! Lele at least could impart real experiences.)

Lele used to ask people to look into Lakshmi's eyes and that produced various experiences in some of them. Lakshmi's eyes were like Lele's, luminous blue, like in some cats!

I remember an incident that occurred when Lele came to our ashram in Patan. It was the day of an eclipse and at the time of the eclipse he made us sit in meditation. I had no experience during this meditation and I cried a lot because of that.

There were two pequliar characteristics of Lele that I observed in those days: he could not tolerate the slightest bad odour and so always kept with him a scented handkerchief; and he added a lot of ghee [clarified butter] to his tea.

After he left Patan, Lele wrote to me that I should take Lakshmi and go to him in Ahmedabad where he was staying. He had arranged with the famous industrialist Ambalal Sarabhai to keep Lakshmi in his house for study along with his children. But my father did not consent. I don't remember whether I went there alone or with Lakshmi. Lele was there with Pandit Lalan, a shatavadhani.⁸ I saw how much respect Pandit Lalan had for Lele.

I had great affection for my niece Lakshmi and she was so attached to me that she insisted I take her along wherever I went. Lakshmi had a younger sister who also was quite attached to me. Once she fell seriously ill when I had gone out, but she went on calling for me. As soon as I was back, I took her head in my lap. She kept staring fixedly at me and then left her body. I asked everybody not to weep, but when some tears spontaneously welled up in my eyes everyone started weeping.

Before he left our ashram in Patan Lele instructed us to dissolve it. He asked Dikshitbhai to leave without telling anyone where he was going and Punamchandbhai to proceed to Bombay where Lele would arrange for his stay. To me, he gave two alternatives: go out of our neighbourhood and help anyone in need, or take up work as a blacksmith in a nearby factory. I knew that my mother, being quite orthodox, would not be happy to see me, a son of the well-known Purani family, working among people who were poor, sick, blind, lame etc. So I took up the work of manufacturing brass nut- crackers in the factory.

There was a temple in the compound where the factory was located. The priest who lived in it had renounced all his earthly possessions. There was a narrow lane which was a short-cut to the factory but it was rarely used because it was strewn with rubbish and very dirty. One day I went by this way and was suddenly stung by a scorpion and could not suppress a scream. On reaching the factory I told some people about the incident and they insisted I relate it to that priest as he had an antidote to scorpion poison. When we reached there I found that it was none other than the Sanskrit pundit whose classes I had avoided! You can imagine how amazed I must have been. He was surrounded by devotees and enquired what had happened, but he did not believe I had really been stung by a scorpion. “You have still not given up insulting your teacher!” he exclaimed. This annoyed me and immediately I took those who had brought me to him, to the spot where I had been bitten.

We searched a little and, finally, did find the scorpion. I was satisfied that I could prove to them all that I had not lied.