In the Samvat year 1876 on the thirteenth day of the dark half of the month of Paush. Shreeji Maharaj was seated on a wooden bedstead laid on the platform under the neem tree in front of the temple of Shree Vasudev Narayan in the Durbar of Dada Khachar in Gadhada. He had put on all white garments. Garlands of white and yellow flowers adorned His neck. Two bunches of white flowers were studded over His ears. A tassel of yellow flowers was hanging from His turban, and another tassel of red flowers of arnica was studded over His turban. He was playing with a ball of white flowers in His right hand. Thus He was seated in full glory and elegance for the pleasure of His devotees. Saints and devotees from various places had gathered before Him in an assembly.
Then Shreeji Maharaj said. “If one who has renounced the world and adopted the-life of a renunciate is attracted towards the unreal things of this world and not towards God, then he can be compared with a pauper standing beside a millionaire. A pauper does not possess a garment worth the name to cover his body. He picks up leftovers of food from heaps of garbage. He considers himself a wretch. Rich people also consider him to be a wretch and say that he must have committed some sins and therefore he does not get enough to eat and to clothe himself.
In the same manner if a person becomes a renunciate and yet collects and hoards rich clothes and things of luxury, if he hankers after such worthless things. if he does not possess moral integrity, knowledge, non-attachment and devotion, then he is considered a sinner like that pauper by the great single minded saints. The saints think that he is not attracted towards those four virtues, because he is a sinner, and that he is attracted towards things other than God. One who is a renunciate should treat dirt and gold with an
equal eye. He should never consider one thing to be good and another to be bad. The true renunciate is he who has love only towards God.”
