162 IN THE VISION OF GOD
"Wretched fool that I ani! I allowed sleep to deprive me
of bhajan. Look, he is still awake. What a control he has
on sleep!" referring to Eamdas. *i understand now, it was
the food that I ate in the evening that is responsible for this
lapse. Oh! I ton losing precious time!'"
Yerily, God is for him who is seized with such a burning
thirst for Truth.
Eam-navami celebrations usually continue for nine days.
The first day came, and thousands of pilgrims from various
parts of India streamed into Chitrakut for parikrama or
walking round the Kamianath hill—on which Sri Ram-
chandra and Sita performed tapas—which was considered
by the devotees to possess high spiritual merit. So thick
crowds of pilgrims tramped round the sacred hill.
In the course of his walks on this path Ram das had
noted the Pilikoti ashram to which were related Swami
Nirbhayanaml and Iris wife, the saintly pair he met in
Jhansi. He found the ashram decorated with festoons, flags
and shami anas, and hundreds of sannyasis who were attracted
from several places of India assembled within its precincts.
The motto of the ashram was to serve with food any
sannyasi who happened to visit it. The head of the ashram
was Swami ^khandanand, a famous sannyasi of the United
Provinces. His disciple Swami Satchidanand, a Sanskrit
scholar, was the manager of the institution. The ashram
had also attached to it a small free Sanskrit pathashala
for boys.
Swami $"irbhayanand, his wife and a brother of hiri,
Swami Ramanand, who was at the time in the ashram,
were also disciples of Swami Akhandanand who had a large
following both aiaong the sannyasis and the householders.
He and his sannyasi disciples in their itinerant life, in
certain seasons, lived for some period in Jhansi. They had
heard of Batndas from Eamkinkar but had no occasion to
see him.
Nirbhayanand had asked Eamdas, when starting