Our locality was predominantly Muslim, but there were quite a few
Hindu families too, living amicably with their Muslim neighbours. There was a very old mosque
in our locality where my father would take me for evening prayers. There was a very old mosque
in our locality where my father would take me for evening prayers. I had not the faintest idea of
the meaning of the Arabic prayers chanted, but I was totally convinced that they reached God.
When my father came out of the mosque after the prayers, people of different religions would be
sitting outside, waiting for him. Many of them offered bowls of water to my father who would
dip his fingertips in them and say a prayer. This water was then carried home for invalids. I also
remember people visiting our home to offer thanks after being cured. My father always smiled
and asked them to thank Allah, the benevolent and merciful.
The high priest of Rameswaram temple, Pakshi Lakshmana Sastry, was a very close friend of my
father’s. One of the most vivid memories of my early childhood is of the two men, each in his
traditional attire, discussing spiritual matters. My father could convey complex spiritual concepts in very simple, down-to-earth Tamil. He
once told me, “In his own time, in his own place, in what he really is, and in the stage he has
reached—good or bad—every human being is a specific element within the whole of the
manifest divine Being.
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Bhai /bhen b part bhi daleeee
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