Salutations to Ganesh !
Oh Ram, the son of Kausalya,
The glory of the line of Raghus,
Oh the compassionate one!
Bestow your favour on this humble child.
You favoured Tratika.
Ahalya was a stone slab,
You restored her life.
You restored her to life.
You fulfilled Shabari’s wish
To serve the sweet berries to you.
You renounced the throne
And went to forest
To bless your devotees.
You infused strength
Into the monkeys of the forest.
Stone slabs imprinted with your name
Would float on the roaring seas.
You made Bibhishan
The lord of Lanka.
All those who surrendered themselves
To you, You warded off
Their dangers and helped them
In their difficulties
And bestowed on them
Happiness eternal.
Now where this Dasaganu,
Who is a bereaved babe,
Will go? You are his mother.
You are his guru.
You are like a ship in the ocean of life.
You are the wishe yielding tree
To your devotees.
There was a poor Brahmin
By name Bandu Tatya.
He resided in a village in Taluq Mehekar.
He was a householder,
And though poor, was righteous
And generous at heart.
Many guest used to visit him often
And Bandu Tatya used to offer
Hospitality to one and all.
To him guest were gods.
All his money used to get spent up
And at times he had to borrow
From a money-lender
In order to feast his guests.
The borrowing increased
And he was heavily indebted.
He sold everything he had.
And yet could not get his debts cleared.
All his utensils were mortgaged
Or were sold and the creditors
Could not be satisfied.
They used to send men to him
To collect their dues.
His wife and children
Hated him and used harsh words.
None would give Bandu Tatya
Anything on loannot even
A measureful of flour for his evening meal.
Bandu Tatya thought of ending his life.
But how would he get
An effective dose of opium?
He had no money.
If he would throw himself
Into a well, someone would pull him up,
And they will scoff at him
And jeer at him.
He will have no place
To hide himself.
At last he thought of
Going to the Himalayas.
He had a last glance
At his home.
He put on a lion cloth
And covered himself with ashes
So that none should identify him.
A man with self respect
Can’t bear hateful glances of others.
Bandu Tatya prayed silently,
"Oh Chakrapani, why did you
Deal with me so?
You can make a paupera prince
The puranas say so,
But did they lie?
Or else how should I
Who have complete faith in you,
Suffer like this?
I shall now kill myself in Haradwar
And you would be responsible for my death."
So saying, he went to the railway station
To purchase a ticket for Haradwar
One Brahmin met him at the station
And advised him to have darshan of Maharaj,
"The darshan of a holy man
Is always beneficial.
Do not take any
Hasty step" When the Brahmin said so,
Bandu Tatya was confounded.
He did not know
Who the Brahmin was and
Why should he spoil his plan?
But any way he went to Shegaon
And as he stood before Maharaj,
Maharaj smiled and said,
"Bandu Tatya, why do you want to
Give up this body in the Himalayas?
Don’t you know, it is a sin
To kill oneself. Men should
Never give up hope. One should
Always try again and again
to succeed in life.
Even if you kill yourself,
You may be born again
To settle your accounts
And may suffer more
In the next birth.
So, abandon this idea
Of throwing yourself in the Ganga
At Haradwar,
Go home, and do not waste time here.
Could your recognize
The one, who met you at the station?
When you will reach home,
Go to your orchard.
There is one image of mhasoba
In your orchard
And to its east there is one
Acacia tree. After midnight,
You dig at the root of the acacia tree.
Do this yourself.
If you dig three feet deep,
You will get the hidden treasure.
You pay off your creditors.
Do not abandon your wife and children
And do not become a fake sadhu."
When Bandu Tatya heard this,
he rubbed off the ashes
And wore his dhoti
And returned home to Kharda.
At the dead of night
He went to the image of mhasoba
And thence to the acasia tree,
And there he dug up three feet deep.
He struck a copper pot
Covered with a circular disc.
The pot contained coins of pure gold
Four hundred in number !
Bandu Tatya was overjoyed
And he danced and sang
The praise of Gajanan Maharaj.
He settled his debts
And the orchard,
Which was mortgaged, was redeemed.
With the grace of Maharaj,
Bandu Tatya was settled again,
It was a miracle,
As if a dying man
Getting nectar or a man
Sinking in the sea, of being pulled up
Into a salvaging ship.
Bandu Tatya came back to Shegaon
And gave large sums in donation
And sat at the feet of Maharaj.
Maharaj said upto him,
"Why do you bow before me?
Bow, before him who has given you gold !
Now, be careful hereafter
And do not be extrabagant.
Men will befriend you
When you are rich,
But will forsake you,
When you are penniless.
Be devoted to God.
He alone is your saviour
In adversity."
After hearing the advice,
Bandu Tatya returned home,
He was happy ever afterwords.
Once there was a somavati parva
When the amavasya falls on Mondey,
It is called somavati parva.
It is laid dowm in the puranas
That a bath in the Narmada
On such a day is blessed.
So the devotees from Shegaon
Desired to go to the holy river.
Martand Patil, Bankatlal,
Maruti Chandrabhan and Bajaranglal
All decided to visit Omkareshwar.
Bankatlal said, "Let us take
Maharaj with us." All the four
Came to the math and
Entreated Maharaj to accompany them.
They said, "You are our mother.
"Mother alone has right to place us
At the feet of Omkareshwar.
Unless you come and place us in the lap of Narmada,
We won’t budge from here.
Does not a mother fulfils
The wish of a child,
Howsoever, strange it be?"
Maharaj said unto them,
"I shall bathe in the Narmada
Right here in this math.
Better you go to Omkareshwar
And have a holy bath there.
It is a holy place
Where the great king
Mandhata ruled and
Gained glory
Which reached the farthest
Corners of the earth.
It is a place
Where the great Shankaracharya
Was initiated by his guru
The ParamhansaGovindapada
To enlighten the world.
So go quick but
Do not ask me to come.
The Somavati Parva
Has no significance for me."
When the four devotees
Heard this, they touched Maharaj feet
And insisted on his coming,
"We shall return soon," said they,
Maharaj said, "You are hypocrites,
The water of the Narmada is also
In the well of this math.
If we go there,
The Narmada will be offended.
Listen, I am telling you
What is beneficial to you."
But Maruti and Chandrabhan said
That they won’t go unless with Maharaj.
Maharaj said, "Do not blame me
If any untoward incident takes place.
So, at last they took Maharaj
With them and left the math for Omkareshwar.
All the ghats of the Narmada
Were full of men and women
Who had assembled there for the parva.
They were motely crowds.
Some were bathing,
Some were Chanting stotras,
some were hastening to the temple
With flowers in their hands.
There were groups of singers
Singing bhajans.
The temple was overcrowded
For the ritual-bath of the deity.
Maharaj sat in a lotus posture
On the bank of the great river.
The four devotees went to the temple
And returned after darshan.
They wanted to return now.
The roads were full
And the bullocks of their cart
Were naughty and would drag
The cart away from the road.
The cart-driver did not tell them this
And had contracted to take them
Back to the railway station.
But they thought it unsafe
To go by road.
The four devotees, therefore,
Asked Maharaj if journey by a boat would be safer.
Maharaj said, "Do as you like. I shall sit."
So they hired a boat,
Maharaj sat in the boat
And they proceeded to Khedighat.
The boat dashed against a submerged rock
And water began to gush into the boat
Through a hole. The boatman
Jumped into the river. But Maharaj
Was in his usual mood
Singing his usual song
"Gana Gana Ganat Botey"
Martand, Bajarang and Maruti
Were all terribly afraid,
And so was Bankatlal.
There hearts beat fast,
They solicited Maharaj to save them,
"We did not listen to you
And forcibly brought you here,
That is why we are in great danger.
The very Narmada
Is bent upon drowing us.
Oh, our revered guru,
We shall implicity obey you
Hereafter. But save us.
Shall we not see our
Near and dear ones in Shegaon?"
While they were saying so,
The boat was half filled with water
and drifted a furlong away.
People on the banks
were shouting at them.
They thought them
To have been almost drowned.
The water was very deep there
And the current was strong.
At that moment, Maharaj
Smiled and said,
"Be not afraid. Mother Narmada
Won’t harm you, you are
Safe on her lap." So saying,
Maharaj recited a stotra.
The four devotees sat in the boat
With folded hands.
"Narmade mangale devi
Reve ashubhanashini
Mantu kshama sari yancha
Dayalu hovoni mani."
(Oh Narmade, the auspiciout goddess,
Reve, the destroyer of ills. Forgive them
If they have offended you. Be kind to them.)
While Maharaj recited the above stotra.
Water in the boat oozed out,
The hole was plugged by the
Narmada herself. The boat
Rose to its original level.
The Narmada was physically visible to them.
She wore a fisherman’s dress
Which clung around her,
Her hair was curly.
The boat touched the bank
And everyone was surprised
To see the large hole
At the bottom of the boat.
The devotees prayed to her
And offered her a dry sari,
But she refused to take,
And said she was the daughter
Of a fisherman by name Omkara
"We are accustomed
To wear wet clothes. Please do no worry," said she,
"I am always in water,
Water is my another form."
She bowed before Maharaj
And disappeared
Even as the lighting
Disappears in the dark clouds.
The four devotees were now all joy.
They knew that the Narmada
Had come there to have darshan
Of Maharaj.
Oh the glory of Maharaj!
Bankat asked Maharaj,
Who the woman was
He prayed that Maharaj
Would reveal her true nature.
Maharaj replied, "did not you hear
What she said? The fisherman Omkar
Is none else than Omkareshwar.
Did not she say that water was
Her another form? Why do you
Disbelieve her? She always helps
Those who are in danger.
Come on. Sing her praise
"Oh Narmada, glory be to you,
Oh mother, protect us always!"
Bankatlal and others
Touched Maharaj’s feet
When he revealed to them
The glory of the Narmada.
They returned to Shegaon and
Told this miracle to one and all.
Once, one Sadashiv Rangnath Wanwale
Came with someone to see Maharaj,
Sadashiv alias Tatya
Was a disciple of Madhaonath
Who had a large following in Malwa.
When Sadashiv came,
Maharaj was taking his meal.
Seeing Sadashiv, Maharaj
Remembered his guru Madhaonath.
Maharaj bade his disciples
To usher Sadashiv
To him. He said unto them,
Had they come a bit earlier,
They would have met their guru
Who had been there a moment before.
Madhaonath went away
Without taking the betel leaves
Maharaj embraced Wanwale
Even as he would embrace
The children of his brother.
Maharaj honoured Wanwale
As was usual with him
And bade Wanwale
Visit his guru Madhaonath,
And give him the betel leaves
with the message
"We dined together, but you left
Without taking the betal leaves
They were left over there;
I have brought the same to you, Nath."
Wanwale listened to what
Maharaj said, and taking the
Two betel leaves,
Went to his guru, Madhaonath,
Asked Madhaonath, whether
He had been to Shegaon.
Madhaonath said,
"What is heard is true.
Gajanan Maharaj remembered me,
And I had been there.
We usually meet like this.
We both have different bodies,
But one chaitanya
Reverberates in both the places.
You may not understand this right now,
Wait.
It is good that you brought
The betel leaves for me."
So saying Madhaonath,
Took the betel leaves
And pounded them in a mortar with a pestle
And eating a little of it
Gave a little Prasad to Wanwale.
Jnyaneshwar has narrated
The modes of meetings of saints.
Read Changadeva Pasashti.
All the doubts will dispersed
The Yogis can see each other
From a distance, can talk
And meet other.
Tukaram was in Dehu,
Shaikh Mohammed was in Shrigonde.
While the pandal caught fire
In Dehu, Shaikh Mohammed
Quenched the fire from Shrigonde.
Mahipati has recorded
Theis indcident in Bhakti Vijay.
The son of Patil
Fell into a well.
Maharaj Manik Prabhu
Went to Hali invisibly
And saved the drowning child.
Only a real saint
Can do this.
Hypocrites can’t do,
They only talk.
Yoga is a science supreme,
It should be revived
For national upliftment.
Here ends the 14th chapter
Of Gajanan Vijay,
May the reading benefit the devotees !
END OF CHAPTER FOURTEEN