Life before Gnan:
Param Pujya Dadashri was born on November 7,
1908 in the town of Tarsadi, Gujarat, India. As a child,
he exhibited special qualities. His thinking was mature and wise
beyond his age. His unique traits were partly due to his own
personality and partly due to his mother's noble nurturing.
Childhood:
Zaverba, his
virtuous mother, had instilled in her little 'gallo' values of
non-violence, empathy and nobility in his early childhood. One day
after school he got into a fight and beat up a boy, she taught him
the lesson of 'be beaten, but do not beat
anyone!' As she nursed his wounds, she told him,
'Just think how much that poor boy must be suffering from his
wounds, and how hurt his mother would feel!'
Once when he complained about the bed bugs biting him, she told
him, 'My dear, they bite me too but these poor bugs don't come with
containers to carry away extra food with them. They eat their share
and go away'.
From
one of his maths assignment, he discovered God. "Our maths
exercise was to find the lowest common number in all the give
numbers (Lowest Common Multiple). It was from this exercise that I
immediately discovered God. These (living beings) are all
'numbers'! God is also indivisible and is present in them
all. He exists as the common indivisible factor. God is in every
living being, whether visible or invisible."
His kanthi (sacred thread wore around neck)
broke when he was twelve years old. Refusing to go with his mother
to their current guru for a new one, he told her, "Guru
means someone who gives you the light. I do not want to
wear the kanthi of someone who cannot directly give me the
light."
He
had an obliging nature; he always put others before
himself and he was ever ready to help. Instead of playing with his
friends, he would go to a nearby ashram and give service to the
ascetics who lived there. Pleased with his service, one ascetic
said to him, "Son, God will take you to Moksha (final
liberation)!" Immediately, Ambalal exclaimed, "If God is going
to give me moksha, then I don't want it, because that would make
him my superior. If God gives me liberation, then he can also take
it back! Liberation means there is no one above or beneath
you." He was thirteen at the time.
