26 IN THE VISION OF GOD
Anandrao was one. The news had been conveyed to them
by the servant who was bringing for Eamdas his morning
milk and fruit. They assumed that a thief must have
decamped with all the missing articles from the room.
They iaquired of him how it had all happened.
Ramdas only replied: "The Lord Ram provides through
one form and takes away through another."
This brief and enigmatic explanation clid not, of course,
satisfy them. So he had to give out a detailed account of
the incident of the previous night. All listened to the story
with breathless interest. One of them suggested that the
rogue should be hunted down and captured.
"For what fault of his?" asked Ramdas. "He has taken
only his own things. There is no law on earth," added he,
"that can punish him for it. He is not a rogue. He is the
Lord Himself."
An irrepressible smile lit up the faces of all who heard
him. They seemed to have understood him and quietly
dispersed. Before noon the same day, Anandrao, all kind-
ness and love as he was, furnished the roojn afresh, so
that it looked again as if nothing had been removed from
it. A few days later, the new waterpot had to be
substituted by another, the second one having gone into
the possession of an itinerant sannyasini who was "badly in
need of one.
Anandrao sought to replace the pair of spectacles but
Eamdas declined saying:
"The Lord has deprived Eamdas of the spectacles
because he may not need them in future. His will be
done,11
Ever since then Ramdas has been doing without specta-
cles, as his sight has been completely restored.
One evening, while Ramdas was reading the treatise
on raja yoga by Swami Yivekananda, a desire arose in
his heart to practise praiiayama. No sooner did this
thought flit across his mind than a young raja yogi