Ramdas used to wear a wooden belt which his Master had given him. He wore it twenty-four hours a day. Devadas Maharaj wanted him to wear it all the time so that he could not enjoy comfort, even while he was resting. Pushkar was under the impression that his Master was hiding money inside the wooden belt; therefore, quite a few times he had tried to steal money from his Master by removing the belt while he was resting or sleeping. But each time he had approached his Master to steal the belt, he saw that his Master was actually wide awake.

Finally Pushkar poisoned his Master so that he could get the belt. When Ramdas drank the poison, he suffered terribly, and he asked his disciples to cut and remove the wooden belt. When the disciples removed the wooden belt, they saw that there was nothing inside it. When Pushkar saw that there was no money inside the belt, he confessed that he felt sorry, not for the Master’s suffering, but for his own stupidity.

The disciples wanted to throw Pushkar out of the ashram or kill him. But Ramdas said, “Don’t throw him out. Don’t kill him. God will punish him in His own Way. God wants me to show forgiveness; therefore, I forgive him. We must surrender to God’s Will. But God Himself will not forgive him.”

Commentary:

Man’s temptation-power wants to destroy the world. God’s Compassion-Power does not permit temptation-power to destroy the world. God’s Compassion-Power knows perfectly well that if temptation-power does not succeed in tempting others, it will eventually destroy itself instead of destroying others. God never wants anything or anybody to be destroyed. What He wants is illumination. When illumination takes place, the night of human ignorance becomes the light of divine knowledge. And what is divine knowledge? Divine knowledge is to know God as the Supreme Seeker and as the Beloved Supreme.

Sri Chinmoy