Tales of Prison Life

Mental Agony

I have already described my mental state on the first day of solitary confinement. During the initial period, I had to keep myself occupied without the help of books or any other external aids. Later on, Mr. Emerson gave permission for me to get articles of clothing and reading material from home. I borrowed a pen, some ink and wrote a letter on Prison stationery to my respected maternal uncle, the well-known editor of Sanjibani, requesting him to send my dhoti-kurta and the Gita and the Upanishads amongst books. It took a few days for the books to arrive. There was ample opportunity in the interim period to build a deep appreciation of the effects of solitary confinement on the human mind. I observed the rapid degeneration of the mind, regardless of its inherent stability or strength, when subjected to these conditions, and the ensuing loss of sanity. I was also able to realize that these very conditions also created a rare opening in oneself to achieve a union with God and receive His Infinite Compassion.

I was habituated to hour-long meditations, once each in the mornings and evenings, prior to my imprisonment. I attempted to increase the period of meditation in the absence of any other activity in Prison. But to master the restless human mind, that is pulled so constantly and so easily in a hundred different directions, and to hold it in a meditative, controlled and focused state for long, especially without previous practice, was no easy task. I could manage to concentrate for an hour and a half or sometimes for two hours at a stretch but eventually the mind would rebel and the body would experience numbness. Initially I remained preoccupied with a multitude of thoughts. Later on, the thoughts arising in a void of human interaction seemed so futile and purposeless that the mind gradually ceased to entertain them. This led to a condition in which hundreds of indistinct thoughts seemed to circle the mind as they were denied entry to it. A few that were able to gain access, swiftly sank without a trace in the utter silence of a thoughtless mind. This state of uncertainty and helplessness caused intense mental agony.

I looked outside in the hope that nature and its beauty may soothe the nerves and provide some respite to the distressed brain. But the solitary tree, the tiny blue slice of visible sky and the joyless prison-scenes were not able to provide any lasting relief. I then directed my attention to the prison-wall but the blank, lifeless surface only served to reinforce the hopelessness of the situation and the mind felt even more acutely the agony of being bound in fetters. I tried to meditate but could not; instead the intense but failed attempt worsened matters as the mind felt yet more exhausted, useless, and miserable. I looked around for distractions; at last the movement of large black ants around a hole caught my attention and I followed their activities and movements for quite a long while. A line of tiny red ants also entered the scene. Soon a fight broke out between the black and the red ants; the black ants began to bite and kill the red ones. I felt a great sympathy for the red ants at their predicament. So I attempted to save them by driving away the black ants. This gave me something to do as well as think about. In this manner, the ants helped me pass some time for the next few days. However, I still lacked the means to fill the long vacant hours. I tried to reason and argue with myself and even forced myself to reflect; but with every passing day the mind grew more and more rebellious and its cry for succour became desperate. It felt pinned-down and crushed under the unbearable weight of Time but was powerless to break free even for a moment, as in a nightmare where a person feels himself being strangulated by an enemy but is not able to move his limbs in defence. I was amazed at this condition!

God's Play with Mind

It is true indeed that I was not the type to remain idle or without activity for long. But it is equally true that I have spent long hours in solitary musings. Hence, it was difficult to reconcile myself to such a weakened state of the mind where just a few days of solitude could cause such a level of agitation. The fact that voluntary solitude and solitary confinement are two completly different experiences struck me as a plausible explanation for my reaction. After all it was one thing to enjoy solitude at home; but it was quite another matter to be held forcibly in solitary confinement in a prison. At home, one is free to seek the company of men and indulge in conversation with friends, absorb sounds emanating from the street or observe the multifarious scenes of life around oneself to stimulate the mind and thus feel at ease. In prison, one is bound by severe constraints and is even deprived of outside human contact. There is a saying that he who can bear solitude must either be a god or a brute; it is beyond the capability of mere mortals to be thus. Although I was not fully convinced about the veracity of this saying earlier, the present experience made me realize the essential truth in it. I discovered that even experienced yogic aspirants may be found wanting in this aspect. This reminded me of the dreadful fate that befell the Italian regicide, Bresci. His pitiless judges had condemned him to seven years of solitary imprisonment instead of passing the death-sentence. Bresci lost his sanity even before a year had passed. But the very fact that he endured for that long a period was a matter of consideration in itself! My own swift capitulation seemed inexplicable in this context. The essential reality of the matter dawned on me later that God was merely toying with my mind to educate and enlighten it in the guise of this play.

Lessons from God

Firstly I was provided an insight into the mental process that impels a prisoner towards insanity on being subjected to solitary confinement. This made me realize the inhuman cruelty inherent in this manner of punishment. In this manner, God not only turned me into a staunch critic of the European prison-system but as if entrusted me with a mission to educate my countrymen and the world in general, so that they too would turn against such barbarous practices and favour the creation of a humane and sympathetic prison system.

I recall that some time after my return to India from England, about fifteen years ago, I had started contributing articles to Induprakash, a daily paper published from Bombay. These articles contained a strong rebuttal of the 'prayer-and-petition' policies of the Congress. The late Mahadeo Govind Ranade was wary of their impact on the youth of the day. When I met him, he tried to dissuade me from writing such articles and instead asked me to take up the issue of prison reforms as a worker in the Congress. I was both astonished and dissatisfied at this unexpected contrivance and refused the offer he had made. I neither knew at the time that this would prove to be a clairvoyant indication to the distant future nor did I have a clue that one day God would Himself keep me in a prison for a year to give me direct experience of the inherent cruelty and futility of the Prison-system and enlighten me on the urgent need for reforming it. Of course, there was no immediate possibility of reforms in the prevalent political dispensation. But I took an inner resolution to create public awareness so that whenever India is possessed once again of the right to self-determination, it discards the present Prison system as a hellish legacy of a foreign civilization.

Secondly, God wanted to reveal to my mind its shortcoming, as a first step towards self-rectification. An aspirant to the yogic state should be able to maintain equanimity irrespective of whether he is in the company of men or faced with solitude. And indeed, it was only a matter of days before my weakness in this regard was replaced by an imperturbable mental poise and one felt confident of staying unaffected even if subjected to ten continuous years of solitary confinement. The Mangalamaya (All-Good) Lord had yet again made apparent evil a passage to a greater good.

God's third lesson to me was that personal effort in sadhana would not yield results but rather an absolute faith and complete self-surrender would be the means to attain perfection in yoga. The Supreme Grace would grant of itself whatever power, realisation or joy it deems fit and to assimilate and utilise these for God's work should be the sole aim of my yogic endeavours.

As the thick darkness of Ignorance dissipated, I was able to perceive the reflection of the Mangalmaya Lord's amazing and infinite goodness in all World-events and also that every event or action, from the apparently most significant to the most trivial, eventually led to Mangala, in one way or the other. In fact, the Lord often achieves a multitude of results from a single act. We may, in our ignorance, perceive life as a play of blind forces, consider Nature and her methods as wasteful, even question God's omniscience, and find fault with the Supreme Intelligence. The reality though is very different from human perception. The Divine Power cannot and does not work blindly; any wastage of consciousness or force is not only inconceivable but rather the Supreme economy inherent in the manner God achieves a richness of results is beyond human comprehension.

Spiritual Realization

This state of suffering, induced by mental inactivity, lasted for a brief period. One afternoon, I was barraged by an endless stream of thoughts. Suddenly the thoughts became incoherent as if the mind had lost its control over them. I realized only after the balance had been restored that even though the mental control had ceased, the intellect itself had remained unaffected as a detached, silent witness to the extraordinary experience. However at the time of this event, I was so terrified of losing my mental balance that I did not pay any attention to the phenomenon but called upon God with intensity and prayed fervently for Him to protect me from such a fate. Immediately, a great peace descended upon my mind and heart. A cooling sensation spread over my entire body. The restless mind became relaxed and joyful. I experienced a state of indescribable bliss. I felt as if I was lying on the lap of the World-Mother just as a child does, with a sense of complete security and utter ease. From that very moment, my suffering in prison evaporated. Such was the power that God had poured into my inner being in that one moment that subsequent hardships in prison like restlessness or mental unease caused by lack of activity in solitary confinement or physical suffering or illness or despair in the process of yoga sadhana, were met with an imperturbable poise. The intelligence was able to derive strength and joy from the sorrow itself and annul the suffering of the mind. Therefore hardships seemed as if drops of water on a lily. Due to this change, my need for books had decreased considerably by the time I actually received them. In fact I could have managed even without them.

I had no intention of providing a historical record of my inner life during imprisonment through these writings. Yet I could not help but mention this particular event as an explanation for my blissful state during the long period of solitary confinement that followed. It was with this very purpose that God had arranged for the gradual process leading up to insanity in solitary confinement, to be enacted like a drama in my mind but with the intelligence itself remaining a silent, detached witness. This experience strengthened my mind, created empathy for all victims of human cruelty and helped me realise the extraordinary power and efficacy of sincere prayers.

During the period of my solitary confinement, Dr. Daly and the Assistant Superintendent would visit me in my cell almost daily for a chat. I had been a recipient of their special favour and sympathy from the very beginning for reasons I could never fathom. I hardly spoke during such visits except to answer their questions. In conversations too, I remained for the most part, a silent listener or contributed at best, a few words. Yet they continued their daily visits. One day, Daly Sahib spoke to me, "I have taken the Assistant Superintendent's help to obtain permission from the senior Saheb for you to take a walk in front of the decree in the mornings and evenings. I do not like that you remain confined in a small cell all through the day, as it is harmful for both body and mind." Thus began my daily stroll in the open space before the decree. The duration of my evening walks varied from ten to twenty minutes whereas in the mornings, it was about an hour. Sometimes I would stay out for as long as two hours since there was no restriction on the time. I found these walks quite pleasant. The boundaries of my transient kingdom were marked by the jail factory on one side and the cowshed on the other. Whilst walking back and forth between these two boundaries, I would recite mantras from the Upanishads - mantras that were at once solemn, deeply-moving, eternal and potent. Or I would try to experience the presence of Narayana (God) in all that existed around me. I would silently repeat the mantra - Sarvam khalvidam Brahma (All this is the Brahman)- and seek to realize its essence in all objects, animate or inanimate. In this manner, I would attain a state where the perception of reality was no longer defined by the prison and its commonplace objects. The high enclosure, the iron bars, the blank surface of the wall, the tree with its green leaves shining in the sunlight - all seemed to come alive as if animated by a universal consciousness. A vibration of pure love seemed to radiate from them towards me. All of creation seemed to be just Nature's elaborate play, whilst a vast, pure, detached spirit, rapt in a serene delight, looked out from within. Sometimes one could as if see the Lord standing under the tree, playing upon his Flute of Delight and drawing out my very soul with His sweetness. I was accompanied by a constant sense of being in the Divine embrace or on the lap of the Divine Mother. These experiences overwhelmed my body and mind. A pure and wide peace reigned everywhere; it was an indescribable state. The hard crust of my exterior personality was removed, thus enabling a free outflow of love for all creatures from within. Other Sattwic elements such as charity, kindness and Ahimsa began to now dominate the Rajasic bent of my nature. As the Sattwic aspects gained more prominence in the personality, the sense of delight intensified and the peace too deepened. The anxiety over the case had dissipated in the beginning itself. Now an unshakeable faith grew in me that God being Mangalamaya, has brought me to this prison for my own mangala and therefore my acquittal and the quashing of charges were foregone conclusions. This faith made me immune to hardships and all suffering in Prison ceased hereafter.

Cosmic Consciousness

Uttarpara Speech >>