A compilation of articles remembering Gopal Dass Gupta
Like most Hindu spiritual aspirants of his time Gopal Dass had turned to Sri Aurobindo through Essays on the Gita, & diligently practiced this ideal offered by Sri Aurobindo in his Uttarpāra Speech: "...not only to understand intellectually but to realise what... He demands of those who aspire to do His work, to be free from repulsion & desire, to do work for Him without demand for fruit, to renounce self-will & become a passive & faithful instrument in His hands, to have an equal heart for high & low, friend & opponent, success & failure, yet not to do His work negligently." Prior to settling in the Ashram Gopal Dass had been a conscientious principled teacher in Government institutions, habituated to obey their principles & policies. Jayantilal Parekh appointed him stock-keeper of the reams of paper purchased for printing the 30-volume SABCL & keeping a register of customers who had paid in advance & sending them volumes ready for dispatch. Then the Research & Publication (R&P) wing of Jayantilal's Archives charged him with compiling a glossary-cum-index of proper names in SABCL & in its own Archives & Research Journal (A&R). When Gopal Dass's backbreaking fifteen years of labour was crowned by Research & Publication's refusal to publish it, it was Harikant Patel, the Managing Trustee of the Ashram, who saw to it that a decent number of Gopal Dass's 368-page Glossary & Index ended up on SABDA's lap. Then Gopal Dass, conscientious soul that he was, without care for his ailing 76-years old body, went on to add half-a-dozen more draining years of & produced a 30-page Corrigenda-cum-Addenda, as ‘Supplement to the Glossary’, which Harikant got published in 1996 - just two years before Gopal Dass's body gave up.
By Sunjoy Bhatt
Gopal Dass ji joined us either at the end of 1969 or in the beginning of 1970. The work of publishing the Collected Works of Sri Aurobindo as part of the commemoration of his Birth Centenary in 1972 was then on hand in the Ashram Press. The presence of Gopal Dassji to help us in this important project was a godsend. We could not have found a better person.
Gopal Dass ji was given the responsibility for maintaining the subscribers' list, keeping a record of and close watch on when and which volumes were dispatched. He had also to maintain the accounts and the stock list as well. This laborious task continued for years till the publication work was completed and the last subscriber was provided with his complete set. All this painstaking work he handled with singular patience and devotion all by himself, something that could not have been done without a fully trained and orderly mind capable of taking the fullest responsibility for the smallest detail. The ledgers and records that he kept in this connection were valued so much that we had preserved all of them till the other day.
Victory in any battle is usually attributed to the General and he is showered with all the laurels. But without the secret, dependable strength of the trained and vigilant soldier, would victory have been possible? Similarly, when a great work is undertaken or something lasting is to be built, it is the silent, steadfast men behind the scenes who keep up the tempo and progress and lend joy and satisfaction to a worthy task accomplished.
Whatever work was either entrusted to him or he voluntarily took upon himself, Gopal Dass ji proved himself to be best suited to it, be it in the matter of the responsibility it entailed, meticulousness of detail or the care and completeness of execution. Behind his outward personality as a self-effacing and trustworthy worker was his perfect moral rectitude, backed by a deep religious faith nurtured through a life full of difficult circumstances. True humility was one of Gopal Dassji's divine virtues; he never overestimated his abilities. But when entrusted with a task, however challenging, he would accept it without the least hesitation in all sincerity.
All serious students of Aurobindonian literature are today greatly beholden to Gopal Dass ji for the monumental work he did by compiling his Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo's Works and subsequently its Supplement. It is not known how he happened to take upon himself this stupendous task. While reading Sri Aurobindo, he might have wondered about the significance and background of some of the proper names that he came across. It may have prompted him to suggest to some colleague the need for preparing a glossary and the latter may have casually remarked, "Why don't you take it up? Whatever the original cause, he worked on it doggedly for fifteen long years. Researching on the entries, making the index-cards, checking and rechecking them. Gopal Dassji went carefully through all the thirty volumes of Sri Aurobindo's Collected Works and also the eighteen volumes of Sri Aurobindo Archives and Research journal. He had to hunt for and refer to national biographies, encyclopedias and reference books covering various subjects, philosophical, religious, literary and others. In all this laborious and time-taking task, his academic training, discipline and teaching experience must have been greatly helpful. Finally he neatly typed the entire manuscript which was published in 1989.
Undoubtedly here was a silent, dedicated, divine worker whom few can really emulate. Indeed every time we remember him we should bow our heads in gratitude to him.
By Jayantilal Parekh
Source: Mother India,August 1999 Issues
An extract from an article by Usha R. Gupta (daughter of Gopal Dass Gupta):
On the evening of 2 August he gave me the guideline for the rest of my life: "All of you must live in love and harmony." Later looking into his papers that I had carried with me to Gwalior, I came across a poignant substantiation of this very guideline. It is a poem which Father must have written in the last months of his life..
यम सेना की विमल ध्वजा अब जरा दृष्टि में आती है। करती हुई युद्ध रोगों से देह हारती जाती है। सुहृद सनेही हुए दूर बहु, याद पुरानी आती है। पुनर्मिलन की आशा भी अब धूमिल होती जाती है। विमुख हुए परिजन की वाणी कडवे वचन सुनाती है। उनकी यह निष्ठुर कृतघ्नता कितनी बार रुलाती है। जीवन के अंतिम वर्षों में विष के घूँट पिलाती है। माँगें वर सुख शांति किन्तु आत्मा यही मनाती है। जगतपिता की न्यायशीलता अपना नियम निभाती है। उससे क्या वे बच पावेंगे चिंता यही सताती है। बुद्धि विशुद्ध मिले हम सबको, जो सन्मार्ग दिखाती है। निज कर्तव्य-निरत रहने की, उत्तम नीति सिखाती है। घृणा क्रोध विद्वेष दूर कर, प्रीति-रीति दरशाती है। प्रभु दयालु हैं यह समझकर, धीरज बहुत बँधाती है। घट-घट वासी सदा सजग हैं, बारंबार बताती है। हृद्गत प्रेरकभाव जानते, निर्भर निडर बनाती है। करुणानिधि की कृपाकहानी, नव उत्साह जगाती है। परम शरणागति होगी निश्चय, यह विश्वास जमाती है।
A free rendering of the poem above in English:
The white banner of Yama's hosts I now begin to glimpse; Battling increasing illnesses, the body's losses multiply. Too remote the loved and friendly, memories keep surging in; And hopes of reunion are now a swift receding mist. The harshness of the near-at-hand pours poison in my ears, This cruelty of ingratitude so often forces tears. In the dying days of life, alas, this hemlock is my lot? Yea, joy and peace the ego sought, but this my soul had wished. But karmic justice of the Lord its supremacy maintains, Will that ingrate survive it? anxiety now harasses me! May all receive the wisdom pure, the righteous path which shows; Of losing self in duty sheer the nature which ingrains. Hate, anger, ill-will abjuring the law of love imparts; Revealing Him as All-merciful faith absolute imbues. The All-pervading ever vigilant alone in focus keeping The psychic engenders in me a fearless strong dependence. The infinite saga of Eternal Grace new enthusiasm wakes, A certainty of supreme surrender the assurance affirms.
On 5 June 1993, Gopal Dass Gupta gave this note to Dr. Dutta who was treating him for severe pneumonial tuberculosis.
"Somehow I have grown a strong inner feeling that my soul has decided to quit this body. But still, it ultimately depends on the Divine whose Will is Supreme. I seek to unite my will with the Divine Will',1 but do not succeed. My wish not to live longer keeps lingering secretly and urges me to pray for it to the Mother. My earnest appeal to all of you, accordingly, is not to try to make this body live for a few more weeks or even months by taking recourse to the so many available means, including medical and others. (I may be given only ordinary medicines, harmless palliatives to relieve acute suffering and something to keep up bodily strength as far as possible ) If, however, it (my being able to live longer) comes about in a natural way by Divine Grace, it is a different matter."
Gopal Dass had decided to make that day the first in his withdrawal from a body too worn-out for his karmayoga2 but the Grace turned it into the first step of his steepest ascent of the Mountain on whose peak the World Mother awaits her hero Warriors.
Dr Dutta politely refused to give up and returned the note. I don't know when or how it ended up in my copy of Prayers and Meditations, between the pages of the Mother's meditation written on 30 March 1917: "Thou hast willed that for me the future should be uncertain and that I should go forward with confidence without even knowing where the road would lead.. that I should put the care of my destiny utterly in Thy hands, and abdicate altogether all personal preoccupation…”
('What an unassuming man" - remarked Dr Dutta several times after Gopal Dass had passed away.)
I had informed Gopal Dass's brother and daughter, against his express wishes, of his deteriorating condition. Their reactions were understandable yet embarrassing and I had to force him to add a note to my lengthy reply. He was pained, he wrote, to learn that they had contacted Dr. Dutta directly; any action they undertook- even one conceded by Dr. Dutta-was an inappropriate interference in the Ashram's arrange-ments; he had surrendered himself to Sri Aurobindo and the Mother and, unlike in ordinary society, everything done in the Ashram had a spiritual, not a material basis-they ought to remember this; he belonged entirely to the Ashram and was subject to its decisions; if they had any responsibility at all it was to pray to the Divine for his well-being; and finally, they had no idea how sincerely Dr. Dutta was treating him or of the expense the Ashram was incurring.
Not until 29 July 1998 did I hear Dr Dutta admit how right his patient's "strong inner feeling" had been. He was telling Gopal Dass's son-in-law that in 1993 his body had not responded to proven treatments and the success of the 'rather risky drug' that was then tried was "nothing short of Divine Grace". That same evening, aware of Gopal Dass's condition, Dr. Dutta immediately acted on his request to "stop all medicines" by writing it down on the case-sheet hung on his cot. Later, Gopal Dass, who had not seen the doctor grant his request, gave me his watch and the torch that he used at night since the day he had been chided by a night-nurse for disturbing her sleep. He kept forgetting where he had put them, he said, and his eyesight and strength to walk on his own were failing. Next afternoon, when his son-in-law went to bid him goodbye, he was gasping. Oxygen cylinder, suction pump and medication pulled back this "crisis' into a "who knows?" situation. But he never opened his eyes again. "It is involuntary.”, he mollified his daughter on the night of the 31st. And after an affectionate conversation he told his colleague Peter: "When I come out of this disease, I will join you at work." That night I too had my last chat with him during which, in response to my habitual quip “koi kisikä nahin"3 he gave me an indelible gift - a full-hearted smile. A few days later, in my dream, a palpable aura of bliss enveloped him.
During the last year, several times a week. as soon as I came in with his breakfast he would exclaim, "I pass such strange nights! The places I visit, the things that happen!” "Like when you shifted here from Colombani House, you must be preparing your next home”, I'd jest. Since 15 July, when he was admitted to the Nursing Home, I had felt he would depart on 4 or 5 August; it was the 3rd, a fortnight before his 86th birthday. Parasnath, one of his colleagues who spent the evening in vigil over his body, was struck by the concentrated peace surrounding it and said. "He must have unified his being around the psychic". As he would have himself put it, Her Grace had carried him up that steep ascent.
***
At the time he was born his father was chanting from a scripture, this led to his being named "Gopal'. But, in keeping with the yugaic change, our balgopal hated milk and never overcame his disgust for cream. He would toddle off to a neighbour's to share his tea. His father once forced a cup of milk down the frightened child's throat - out it all came into the stunned man's lap! Nor was he fond of speech. When he was four, he once cantered off after something without his grandmother working nearby realising it. A kindly policeman who finally took charge of him decided, after vain efforts to make him talk, that he was dumb and lugged him around in search of his parents. Suddenly the boy began pointing to his mouth without uttering a word. Getting him something to eat, the poor man continued his search until he encountered the harried grandmother. Love of tea, economy of speech and a dogged determination to do his own will became Gopal Dass's life-long characteristics.
His achievements began with a serious education acquired largely on his own (chatting on street corners, more extra-curricular than prescribed reading, dating, cinema etc were not yet indispensable limbs of education; classical music did interest him and he attended, even helped organise, concerts). He obtained a government job when merit, not socialist India's psychosis, was the criterion. From his income as a teacher and extra work (tuitions, running a college canteen, selling kerosene) he paid off his father's debts and supported the entire family. With his knowledge of homeopathy he cured his infant daughter of asthma and relieved his favourite brother of an illness, that would have entailed expensive allopathic treatment, with just one dose on the basis of a single symptom. But the skin and respiratory ailments he had inherited brought long periods of suffering.
His responsibilities and religious-mindedness kept him undisturbed by the shortsighted political and social movements of the day. However, in a propagandist opera with the chorus chal-chal re navjavan..: Keep advancing young man..., he played Gandhi marching in the background. The spirit of that song and admiration for Gandhi's work never left him but when, in the mid-nineties, he read Godse's courtroom speech given in 1948, his mind was clear enough to accept the cause underlying Godse's action.
Due to his degree in physical training he was among the first batch of teachers trained as instructors for the newly formed National Cadet Corps. He stunned the Army sergeant, who was ridiculing the nervous trainees lined up for shooting practice, by hitting the bull's eye at his first attempt. But, in the classroom he committed the crime of pointing out errors in the British major's lecture. The arrogant Brit, who had openly vowed to hang Gupta, failed him but was overruled by higher authorities, Later, when the N.C.C. opened its Air Wing, Gopal Dass was sent for training at an Air Force station still under British officers, This time he kept his mouth shut in the classroom and, unlike many fellow trainees, he stayed in the co-pilot's seat without vomiting when the instructor put the machine into loops. At these camps, he picked up a life-long insistence on being well-dressed but resisted such "gentlemanly musts" as alcohol and meat (In later years, if the laundry failed to iron his Prosperity-given cloth cap in the right way, I was sent on the mission to get it redone, then there was the right way to wear it with a mirror as judge - my sharp asides about inspections and parade grounds failed to draw blood).
Long back, as an admirer of Tilak's Gita Rahasya, he had been introduced by his college professor to Sri Aurobindo's Essays on the Gita. This contact ultimately led him to the small community in Charthaval, under the guidance of Swami Abhayadev. Later he joined Dr. Indra Sen at Jwalapur. He made several visits to Pondicherry and found help and guidance from Amrita and Ravindra. Finally in 1969, the Mother granted him permission to settle in the Ashram. It did not take him long to find his niche in the Ashram's inscrutable organisation as Jayantilal's assistant at the Press and the Archives. He moved into a room in Colombani House, whose ground floor was used by the Press and the Publication Department as a paper godown. In the mid-seventies Gopal Dass was given a casual task that over fifteen years grew into the Glossary and Index of Proper Names in Sri Aurobindo's Works. Right up to the time it came out of the press, he faced obstacles that 99% of the Ashramites would have decided were insurmountable problems : in procuring reliable information from printed sources, suspicions and fads of some of the senior Ashramites whom he approached for help, and summarising and typing the results of his research, all the while, the project kept undergoing transformations every time its managers' notions of its scope, nature and purpose changed. He kept an unquestioning attitude, until the day he realised his labour was destined to remain imprisoned in a couple of typed copies, bound by hand and interred in a couple of dungeons. And since it would have been unadvertised, only those with enough intelligence to guess its existence and enough persistence to dig it out would benefit!
After much inner turmoil, he approached Hankant-bhai who decided to publish it in spite of opposition by SABDA and the Ashram Press. Then came the unexpected but crucial contribution of David Hopkins, an American who had recently joined the Press. Realising the value of the book, he gave it all his time in type-setting and even improving the text. To Gopal Dass he was divinely missioned, for soon after finishing this work David left the Ashram.
Meanwhile, worsening bronchitis and glaucoma, atrophying auditory nerves and chronic constipation, added to the usual ravages of age. Also, a premonition had clung to him for decades - he would die around 1996. So in the mid-eighties, this deliberate and meticulous man initiated me into the order in which he had kept his office and personal papers and what I was to do with them; thereafter followed regular memory tests. In December 1992, he put Rs. 500 in my bank account for the last rites and to send his personal papers to his relatives. But after the Grace laughed away this "intuition", he gave up all thoughts of death and taught himself to accept all circumstances with equality. It made him discern the Mother's hand preventing accidents and dissolving difficulties.
Gopal Dass had always found most social customs motivated affairs and avoided them. He could never accept the smallest help from anyone - he would rather exterminate that need. Not knowing this, his Ashram friends were nonplussed when he refused their gifts or services. Maybe this was his way to practise the Isha's ..ma gridha kasya swiddhanam (do not covet others' possessions)? But to sacrifice for others was his inviolable duty. Once when he was sick, his favourite brother rushed down from Haridwar. The moment he entered the room, Gopal Dass sprang out of his bed, set up the easy chair - which he himself never used - and brought a glass of water. When he was forced to eat at home, he placed his tiny dining table where it made the server's work easiest - though he sat facing the shoe rack. He would do any work in his room, even menial, by himself rather than ask the servant or me to do it on the plea that his body must work as long as it could
He seems to have made only two close friends here. B D Pandey, who settled here in the mid-fifties, is a scholar of English, Urdu and Hindi: the two were regular companions in the Dining Room. Gopal Dass's Archives colleague Ganapatibhai Pattegar, gifted with a phenomenal memory and enthusiasm, became his mainstay in proof-reading the Glossary and its Supplement. After Gopal Dass stopped going to the Dining Room and the office, these two visited him regularly. Pandey ji, a trusting bachelor who zealously guards his seclusion, even ran errands for him. And every Sunday morning at eight Ganapati bhai, his "ideal in punctuality, humility, cheerfulness and selfless service", arrived reciting some shloka or the other. As soon as he stepped in the room Gopal Dass would ask: "What is the news?" Often both would chorus an Urdu couplet they delighted in: Subah hoti hai, shām hoti hai, umra yonhin tamām hoti hai Morning comes, evening comes; life thus comes to an end. Always the crucial headline.
Gopal Dass had wanted to continue to practise homeopathy here but found no opportunity to ask the Mother's sanction. For his own ailments he stuck to Ashram homeopaths. But during sudden illnesses and injuries that age inflicts, he was forced to turn to allopaths for - say what you will - they alone are authorised to use the Nursing Home facilities. So when his bronchitis threatened to turn into tuberculosis and constant nursing became indispensable, his homeopath was obliged to abandon him. Gopal Dass accepted it without carping. Dr. Dutta's decisions became Mother's and even the most innocent non-allopathic tonic became taboo.
Gopal Dass was a born ascetic (fellow trainees at the N.C C camps toasted him as lal langotiwala4). His morning and evening routine included a long cold bath (even in fever), exercises, study of scriptures, prayers and concentration. He had noted all he found useful in the writings of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother in two diaries and made indices for easy reference - until the last week of his life he meditated daily on the day's entry. Regular work was as indispensable - hung prominently in his room was Mother's "Let us work as we pray, for indeed work is the body's best prayer to the Divine".5 When he stopped Archives work, he took up the blessings packet work from Krishna-di.
Bouts of giddiness and ear-block, bestowed by long courses of antibiotics in 1992-94, became increasingly more acute, and by 1996 it became difficult to go out unchaperoned. He permitted the servant to accompany him, only so that she and I may not be hanged by the Ashram authorities. That December I was away for a fortnight, the first time my friends peeped in, they were forbidden to come again and when he urgently needed a doctor he waited until his afternoon servant came.
Doggedly he would totter to the Samadhi, the doctor's or barber's; a few times I held him by one hand and pushed an empty wheel-chair by the other, for sitting in a wheel-chair was humiliating. "Who knows, Mother may give back my former strength and balance?” Finally, in keeping with India's socialist philosophy, his body went on frequent strikes, dozing off while he was reading or eating, but he fought on. By sheer will-power, he got rid of the ungentlemanly dribble at the mouth and the body's habit of dropping into namaz (a few times he even toppled over) while he read the newspaper sitting on his cot. From 26 April 1998, his walks were confined to the passage outside his room and finally to the room itself. In the last few months he did lie down during the day, for my sake.
Thousands of times I argued: “Your body has served you better than any slave; can't you give it some concession now? Is asceticism our ideal?" The rare times he chose to reply, he shot back "And how long have you indulged your body and vital, which ought to have been instruments of your sadhana? Haven't they now enslaved you to animal instincts? Is that our ideal?” One evening in September 1997, the misdemeanours of my vital-physical broke the camel's back. After a sleepless night, he wrote me a note "I cannot help telling you how uneasy, almost guilty I feel letting you use my place the way you did last evening. There is a limit to everything. After all it is I who am responsible to the Mother.... You know my nature and also realise my position and so I am sure you would now act wisely. It is better to avoid an exchange of thoughts with me on the matter. What is needed is your unexcited attention and dispassionate thought followed by sustained action.”*
He never spoke about the long years of his own sadhana, but his mastery over kama, krodha, lobha, moha, mada, matsarya: desire, anger, greed, infatuation, pride, jealousy, was obvious. He wished to see me achieve the same. To suit my nature he chose this precept from the Panchatantra for me: ahara nidra bhaya maithunancha, sâmanyametat pashubhir naranam; dharmo hi tesham adhiko vishesho, dharmena hinah pashubhih samanah: Food, sleep, fear and sex are common to animal and man. It is only dharma6 which distinguishes one from the other.
Gopal Dass insisted on eating only the food from the Dining Room and tea from the Dispensary at fixed hours and quantities and avoided discussing them. I could not always provide his evening meals on time, but he taught himself to accept that; this is not easy, for due to a natural shrinking of their stomachs the old cannot eat much at a time and get unbearably hungry between mealtimes. How many of them are humiliated daily because their attendants do not understand this! Sometimes the servant who was to replace me failed to come, but however late his dinner became he never lost his calm. Only twice and only because the reason for my delay was a TV film, he mildly asked "Have we come here to watch these films?" There was no third time on that score.
His practical sense, founded on a vast experience of life, made his judgement of characters surprisingly accurate and his advice heaven-sent. Often when I was depressed by personal or social problems he recited from a Ramachantamanas couplet: Hani labh jivan maran yash apayash vidhi hath7. A habit of mine he strongly objected to was criticising "Even noticing defects or shortcomings brings them imperceptibly into oneself. Neither must you degrade yourself, that is as harmful as denouncing others. Therefore," he would conclude with his favourite Rigvedic advice, "let us hear and see only the good”8. From this psychic attitude sprang his forbearance, unfailing optimism and good humour.
Whatever he did, his concentration was total. In the street he never noticed what did not concern him. I could always enter and leave his room without his knowledge - whether he was sitting on his meditation mat with eyes closed conversing aloud with his Ishta, or working at his table, or doing something else. When not occupied with any work, he recited some scriptural quote or other from memory. No wonder he never understood how sadhaks can feel bored, lonely or neglected and need tonics like socialising, gossip, light reading, TV - to mention only the milder ones.9
Gopal Dass's unpretentious humility and courteousness led Dr Dutta to label him "unassuming”. But to be truly unpretentious one needs what Sri Aurobindo calls common sense "looking at things as they are without inflation or deflation"10. Gopal Dass knew well the various hierarchies prevalent here, but concerned himself with only one - spiritual knowledge and self-mastery.11 Pretensions engendered by position, knowledge, money etc or their lack neither fooled nor troubled him. And his relationship with me, I took too long to realise, he had based on an undemanding, uncondescending love - only in the last two months of his life, did he point out our relative places in spiritual knowledge and self-mastery.
We first met in 1973 when I was shifted to the general stores in the Ashram Press. Work brought us together since he kept the Publication Department's accounts and stocks of paper. Our acquaintance deepened over the years due to his love and knowledge of Ramcharitamanas and the Gita until the crisis in his health brought us into each other's lives. Around 1992, with his body not responding fully to homeopathy, with no Ashramite to support him. his self-control and confidence weakened and the unexpected gnawed away his planned future. He never tired of repeating his gratitude to Sumantra and Dr Dutta, whose intervention helped him get a good room in Tripura House where, he was told, a young resident was in charge of its dozen elderly inmates. But this arrangement turned out to be only on paper. In this predicament he asked me to take charge of his physical needs, so demoralised was he that in the next couple of years he often pleaded: "Give me full instructions on how, when and what to do " Alas, in the storm and darkness created by "the Powers and Appearances that still rule the earth-Nature”12 the oak and the lion imagine they need the help of reeds and mice! Unwittingly, he invited a great problem - my unregenerate nature. But even after he began "to see things as they are" (koi kisikä nahin!) he did not back out. He worked on me so silently that only now do I realise the service he rendered me.
Barring similarity in our physical features, the backgrounds, natures, habits, interests, views, manners were worlds apart - a highly disciplined nature pitted against an impulsive, disorganised one. Like his education his speech was literal and straight-forward, meant for serious practical life. Clever talk spiced with rhetoric, metaphors, exaggerations, innuendos, irony, satire etc. left him dry. Not that he was humourless. One of his most memorable jokes was: keshava keshun yass kari, jass ripu hi na kari; chandramukhi mrigalochani baba kahi kahi jayi. (Lord, these hairs have done to me what no enemy could have done, doe-eyed beauties pass by greeting me with "Hi, Grandpa') No, desisting from clever jokes was a yogic decision - the most innocent exaggeration in a most casual conversation may invite dangerous consequences. What then did his imagination feed on? Inspiring images, descriptions, precepts and advices that he had memorised from Ramacharitamanas, Gita, Upanishads and the Mother and Sri Aurobindo. Endlessly he chewed on them, derived endless peace and strength and joy. He had too a keen interest in collecting facts in literature, science, history, politics, sports, etc. But unfamiliar subjects (how do you explain the computer to one who has only seen a couple of neat boxes and a keyboard, much less cd-rom, internet, cyberspace?) and his tendency to take the printed word at face value often misled him. This triggered off arguments between us that were bound to remain inconclusive.
It was not at all easy for us to steer through the inevitable misunderstandings, frictions and flare-ups that arose. As Bhartrihar says, seva dharmo parama gahano yoginam api agamyah.13 Inmates of Tripura House and adjacent houses were involuntary auditors of my thousand blow-ups. Yet inexplicably, not even the worst of them created a real fissure between us; my declarations, while stomping out of his room, that I will not step into his room again, never lasted longer than an hour. One of the Tripura House inmates, Sumitra-ben, was often a concerned spectator and always she laughed away my rantings with "Cool down. You two cannot survive without each other. Don't you see that your relationship is rooted in past lives?" She knew very well his attachment to me - she had borne its fiery brunt the day I, being sick, had to send a replacement; she knew that his room rather than mine was my "'home". Yet our empathy failed to prevent these skirmishes, during which surfaced the blind stubbornness of our inherited prejudices, the equally stubborn ignorance of our egoistic thoughts and habits, our subconscient or suppressed emotions, our blind spots, etc. But, being fully attentive, fully trained to receive this "rain of God's bounty”.' Gopal Dass benefited more than I did.
Sri Krishna brushed aside Shishupala's insults and taunts until they touched one hundred; then off flew Shishupala's head. Even so, his disciple and namesake gave me a very long rope - until, in the middle of 1998, after a long violent monologue I had begun to cool off. Like Sri Krishna, he too cut off the arrogant head with the love of the sthitaprajna. It was his strongest and longest admonishment. I give only a gist.
"The real question is not who is right in the present issue but whether you are aware, when succumbing to such outbursts, to whom you are talking. No one has ever dared treat me the way you have done. Sometimes you have abused me in front of servants. Do you realise that I will die soon and that the opportunity the Grace gave us to learn from each other will soon end? At first I could not bear your taunts and insults and wept at my helplessness. But I taught myself to remain calm and offer all you were saying and doing to the Divine. But have you learned anything? You are conscious of your defects and weaknesses and often speak to me about them and are contrite, but have you mastered them yet? Do you know how hard I have worked to correct the shortcomings and defects in my nature? For decades I have plucked out detail after detail of my nature, identifying, analysing, purifying, offering them up for change, regularly, relentlessly. And you? Your resolutions, enthusiasms, efforts never last. You will weep when you recall all this. You will repent you wasted this rarest of opportunities".
And it was that last and most loving upadesha with which Gopal Dass concluded when I started applying ghee and sandalwood powder to his body in the cremation ground. A stream of joy invaded me, tangible and unmistakable, it was the backward glance of one who has reached the Mountain peak, the Mother's arms of Bliss. And as I lighted the flame on his chest, helping him abandon the vasansi jirnani, my heart echoed, vibrating my entire body with his recitation of the crux of the Gita "Mām anusmara yudhya ca… Mām anusmara yudhya ca… Mām anusmara yudhya ca… Mām anusmara yudhya ca…”14
By Sunjoy BhattWith unstinting editorial help fromGanapati-bhai and Bob Zwicker
1. "Sincerity exacts the unification and harmonisation of the whole being in all its parts and movements around the central Divine Will." - Words of The Mother > Sincerity
2. वासांसि जीर्णानि यथा विहाय नवानि गृह्णाति नरोऽपराणि । तथा शरीराणि विहाय जीर्णा- न्यन्यानि संयाति नवानि देही ॥ २२ ॥ - Gita 2.22
Just as a man casting away his worn-out garbs, puts on new ones, so too the embodied Spirit casting away old and worn-out bodies, goes over to other new ones.
3. Literally, 'Nobody is for anybody' Cf.
Men live like stars that see each other in heaven, But one knows not the pleasure and the grief The others feel: he lonely rapture has, Or bears his incommunicable pain. - Sri Aurobindo, Love and Death, Collected Poems
4. One wearing a red loincloth - customarily worn by renunciates
5. Collected Works of The Mother, Vol. 14 Page 321
6. Here dharma would be "to lift all the movements of the being to the level of the highest consciousness and realisation already attained " Collected Works of The Mother, Vol. 14 Page 67
7. Sunahu Bharat bhāvi prabal, bilakha kahyo muninath,hâni läbh jivan maran yash apayash vidhi häth
Hear O Bharat, Destiny is all-powerful, said the sage full of emotion, harm, gain, life, death, fame, ill-fame are all in its hands
8. Bhadram karnebhih shrunuyama deva, bhadram pashvema akshibhih vajaträh May we hear with our ears what is pure, may we see with our eyes what is holy Rigveda, 1 89 8
9. "One who fears monotony and wants something new would not be able to do yoga or at least this yoga which needs an inexhaustible perseverance and patience" - SABCL Vol. 23 Page 630
10. "Common sense is not logic (which is the least common-sense like thing in the world), it is simply looking at things as they are without inflation or deflation - not imagining wild imaginations - or for that matter despairing 'I know not why' despairs" - Nirodbaran's Correspondence with Sri Aurobindo. 1983, pp 156-57
11. The central mantra of his life was this couplet from Râmacharitamānas Jahi ja ruche so karo, moko to Râmako nama kalapataru, kali kalvana pharo Let each do what he will, for me the Lord's Name is the wish-yielding Tree, which brings forth the surest well-being in the Kali Yuga
12. SABCL Vol. 25 Page 2 Cf. "what we most suffer from in our outer life and its reactions upon our inner life is the imperfection of our relations with the world, our ignorance of others, our disharmony with the whole of things, our inability to equate our demand on the world with the world's demand on us "- SABCL 19 974
13. Maunänmuka, pravachanapatuh vartulo jalpako va,dhristah pärshwe vasati cha, sada duratash cha apragalbhah Kshäntya bhirur yadi na sahate präyasho näbhijätah,seva dharmo paramagahano yoginamapi agamyah If he is silent he is dumb, if eloquent is flattering, argumentative, garrulous even, if he sits near is rude, if keeps a distance is immature, if he endures insult is a coward, if does not is of low birth, the path of service is supremely difficult even for the yogi - Bharthari, Nitishataka, no 58, (Cf. SABCL Vol. 8 Page 185)
14. The context needs at least two shlokas of Bhagvat Gita, chapter eight
यं यं वापि स्मरन्भावं त्यजत्यन्ते कलेवरम् । तं तमेवैति कौन्तेय सदा तद्भावभावित: ॥ ६ ॥
Whatever form of being one remembers while leaving his body at the end of his life, to that very being, O Kaunteya (son of Kunti, here Arjuna), does he go, his consciousness being always full-of-that
तस्मात्सर्वेषु कालेषु मामनुस्मर युध्य च । मय्यर्पितमनोबुद्धिर्मामेवैष्यस्यसंशय: ॥ ७ ॥
Therefore at all times remember Me and fight, with thy mind and understanding given up to Me, to Me verily shalt thou come beyond any doubt
Source: Mother India,October & November 1999 Issues
In 1985, shortly after I started working in the Archives, one day Gopal Dass ji asked me my name. My response in Hindi "Is sevak ko Ganapatt kahte hain" [This servitor is called Ganapati] must have surprised and pleased him. Surprised because such a statement is not common; pleased because he found in me a kindred soul. That was the beginning of a close association which lasted till he closed his earthly chapter on 3 August 1998.
Gopal Dass ji, as a sincere and serious sadhak, had surrendered all of himself and all he had to the Mother. All circumstances, situations and events, pleasant or unpleasant, he calmly accepted as the Divine's Will. In keeping with the ideal of a sadhak, he had very few possessions and kept his personal needs to the barest minimum. His only source of funds was his meagre pension. Considering it as the Mother's, he religiously offered practically the entire sum to the Ashram every time he received it from the Government Treasury. Expenditure on any perceived need, particularly where it personally concerned himself, he deemed a misuse of the Mother's money. On his birthday he distributed sweets to friends, if only to keep up the prevailing practice in the Ashram, but in order to minimise misuse of the Mother's money, the sweets would be tiny pedas of the same standard size year after year. For his personal needs he received only whatever was given by "Prosperity" and that too only to the extent of his needs, anything in excess was dutifully returned to the Ashram. He used very carefully everything he accepted and to the fullest extent. For example, if any of his clothing got damaged or torn, he got it mended and re-mended until Albert-da refused to do it any longer. Then it was used for wiping washed utensils or the floor until the servant refused to use it any more!
Once "Prosperity" distributed table-mats made from the Mother's collection of handmade papers. Regardless of all persuasion or arguments by his friends, Gopal Dass ji could not bring himself to use something sanctified by the Mother's touch. Instead he used as table-mats pieces of old newspapers, carefully cut to size and kept in a neat pile.
His commitment to Sri Aurobindo's yoga was whole-hearted and total. Once I entered his room singing a line from a Hindi bhajan: Tere janam maran mit jaye re, tu Hari ka nam sumar pyare [O dear, take thou the name of Lord Hari, thy cycle of births and deaths will cease.] He objected, saying that ending life-cycles is not the aim of Sri Aurobindo's yoga. Years before he chose to make Pondicherry his spiritual sanctuary, during one of his periodical retreats, he had taken mantra diksha from Swami Shivananda of Rishikesh. He knew that on the spiritual path, it is not considered good to mix the influences of more than one guru. Even the Mother has said this. So, though he maintained a sense of loyalty to his diksha guru by carefully preserving the slip of paper on which he had written the diksha mantra in his own hand, his acceptance of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother was absolute. In the Ashram itself there have been great examples of spiritual luminaries like Kapal Shastriar changing their allegiance from one guru to another without any kind of conflict.
Gopal Dass ji's spirit of self-reliance, self-containment and self-contentment are best highlighted in the fact of his not allowing his wife to wash his clothes, a service traditionally considered part of wifely duty in India. He never sought any favour or service from anybody, never visited anybody's house, even when he was ill, he found it very difficult to accept a cup of tea or the day's newspaper sent or brought by friends. Perhaps he believed that they would have to be suitably repaid in this life itself, failing which he was bound to be reborn if only to repay this debt. While he was in Colomban House, he dutifully went about his work and visits to the Samadhi and the Dining Room on his bicycle. Even his ageing body, failing eyesight and impaired hearing did not deter him from the increasingly chaotic traffic of Pondicherry. One night on his way to the Dining Room, he was knocked down by a cycle-rickshaw and, giving up his dinner, he had to go to the Nursing Home for immediate medical assistance. Soon it became difficult to continue cycling; but then walking everywhere was also time-consuming and far from easy. At this time, two fortunate developments took place. One, he was relieved of his work of keeping stationery stocks for the Publication Department, thanks to a tiff he had with Jaleshwar ji for no fault of his own. (It might be mentioned that he quietly listened to all of Jaleshwar ji's long and harsh harangue, unmoved and without the least trace of resentment. Thereafter for several months the two were not on talking terms. Finally, realising that he was in the wrong, Jaleshwar ji himself resumed cordial relations.)
The other fortunate development was that Gopal Dass ji was allotted a room in Tripura House which had been specially constructed for aged sadhaks and located much nearer the Ashram. Even after shifting to his new abode, he dismissed the requests of his friends and insisted on cycling everywhere on the plea that it was easier to keep his balance on it than while walking. Only after the doctor advised him against it did he stop using his cycle.
His spirit of independence suffered a setback when failing health forced him to depend on an escort even on his brief daily visit to the Samadhi. Workaholic that he was, he kept collecting information for and preparing the manuscript of the Supplement to his famous Glossary and Index and making ‘Blessings Packets’. He even thought of taking up the massive labour of revising the many bundles of index cards that he had earlier prepared to make them accord with the new 35-volume set of Complete Works being brought out to commemorate Sri Aurobindo's 125th birth anniversary. Only after he had realised the magnitude of the work involved did he give it up.
But the greatest psychological blow came when he had to give up that brief daily outing. He just could not reconcile himself to it. Gopal Dass ji had truly transcended all desire, but once he became dependent on others, a very strong desire arose in him to shed his mortal coil. He constantly prayed to the Mother for his ultimate release.
For some unknown reason, he had decided that he would not live beyond his eighty-fourth birthday, without realising that Lord Yama does not oblige either by accepting anybody's invitation or by prior appointment. That birthday, 17 September 1996, was something special: he decided he would personally meet his erstwhile colleagues at the Archives Office. He was brought in a wheel-chair and from the foot of the staircase carried up the stairs in a chair. Once among his friends he insisted on putting his birthday pedas into the mouth of everyone present with his own hands!
An ordained ascetic is supposed to be reborn following the performance of the viraja homa, taking on a new name and severing himself in all respects from his earlier life. Gopal Dass ji was no less in the strong sense of detachment that he had attained. But his unilateral decision to stop all correspondence with his relatives was only the dictate of his head; his heart refused to fall in line. The relatives fortunately found in his conscience-keeper, Sunjoy, a convenient intermediary. Whenever a missive from any of them arrived, the inner fondness of family-ties surfaced and he read and reread the epistle and at times even prodded Sunjoy to answer them.
This strong inner bond with his family (particularly his daughter) was readily apparent during his last days. The happiness and satisfaction that he derived from the presence of his daughter near him during his last ten days were indeed writ large on his face. He suffered pain, but always with a smile. Whoever visited him was met with a smile of benediction.
The long-awaited moment of release came finally on 3 August 1998.
Om Shantih, Shantih, Shantih!
Source: Mother India,September 1999 Issue
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