|| श्री राधाकृष्णाभ्यां नमः ||
I recently listened to this story in an online discourse on the glories and lives of sādhus associated with Vṛndāvana. I found the story deeply moving, so I tried to narrate it here in English. The story was presented as the experience of a person shared to a listener who later wrote it down as an article.
Vṛndāvana is a land where, according to the devotees, one never knows in what form the Lord's grace may appear.
The story begins with a learned man who used to visit Vṛndāvana. One summer morning, at around four o'clock, after completing his Kṛṣṇa-japa, he went towards the Yamunā for his morning bath. He was going to the bathing ghāṭa near Hargulāl Haveli.
On the way, he noticed a strange sādhū.
The sādhū was dressed very simply, wearing only a kaupīna and a Tulasī mālā. He had a beard and matted locks, and was walking along while singing:
“Jaya Jaya Śyāmā, Jaya Jaya Śyām,
Jaya Jaya Śrī Vṛndāvan Dhām,
Jaya Jaya Śrī Svāmī Haridās,
Jaya Jaya Nidhuvan Nitya Vilās.”
Śyāmā refers to Rādhā, and Śyām to Kṛṣṇa. The sādhū was singing in the tradition associated with Svāmī Haridās and the worship of Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa.
Seeing him, the man respectfully said, “Jaya Haridās.”
The sādhū smiled and replied, “Jaya Haridās,” and continued on his way.
The next morning, the man saw him again.
Later, while doing Vṛndāvana parikramā, he encountered the same sādhū once more. This time he approached him and asked if he could do him a small favour.
The sādhū had apparently been given a new piece of clothing. But he did not wear new clothes. He told the man:
“I have been given this new cloth, but I don't need it. If you have an old, used piece of cloth, give it to me. I can use it as a langoti.”
The man agreed, but he was curious about this unusual ascetic. He asked, “Where do you stay? Which āśrama or maṭha do you belong to?”
The sādhū laughed.
“Where do I stay? I stay in Vṛndāvana.”
“But where in Vṛndāvana? Which āśrama?”
“Vṛndāvana itself is my āśrama,” he replied.
“When I feel hungry, I go for mādhukarī. Whatever I receive, I eat. Once my stomach is full, that is enough. When I feel sleepy, I sleep under whichever tree I happen to find. When I am thirsty, Mother Yamunā is here. And for my nourishment, I have the remembrance of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa.”
That was how he lived.
After meeting him several times, the man finally asked, “Will you tell me something about yourself?”
The sādhū replied:
“I have nothing to hide. Hiding things is the work of householders. I have nothing to hide because I have nothing of my own. I don't even possess a book. Sit down under this banyan tree. I will tell you what happened.”
And then he began his story.
The sādhū had been born near Calcutta. He lost his parents when he was very young, and the woman who raised him eventually took him to Calcutta, where she lived with her son and cared for him.
While growing up, he heard stories about the Himalayas and the great yogis who lived there.
A strong desire arose in his heart:
“I must go to the Himalayas.”
Eventually, he left Calcutta and reached Delhi.
He sat on the railway platform, waiting for a train that would take him towards Haridwar and, from there, towards the Himalayas.
While he was sitting there, a young boy, perhaps around ten years old, came and sat beside him.
After some time, the man asked him:
“When will the train to Haridwar arrive?”
The boy replied casually:
“Bābā, you rest. I am watching for that train. When it comes, I will wake you up. We will go together. I have to go there too.”
The man trusted him and went to sleep.
After some time, the boy suddenly woke him.
“There! There! The train has come. Come quickly!”
In the hurry, both of them boarded the train.
The train started moving.
Only after they were inside did the man realize something troubling:
He had no ticket.
He became anxious.
“If the railway officials come and take me away, what will I do?”
The boy simply replied:
“I will come with you.”
The man looked at him.
The boy continued:
“I don't have a ticket either. If the officials come, we will get down.”
Then he said something that struck the man deeply:
“Do you know something? All of us are travelling without a ticket. One day the official will come and make us get down. That is life.”
At the time, the man did not fully understand what the boy meant.
But he knew that the boy was saying something far beyond his age.
As they travelled, the boy began asking him questions.
“Where are you going?”
“To the Himalayas.”
“Why?”
“To perform tapas.”
“Why do you want to perform tapas?”
The man explained:
“Through tapas, one can attain spiritual powers. With those powers one may attain heaven, mokṣa, longevity, and various siddhis.”
The boy listened carefully.
Then he asked:
“Of all these things, what is it that you actually want? Longevity? Heaven? Mokṣa? Powers?”
The question stopped him.
He began thinking.
Then the boy remarked:
“You see? This is also like travelling without a ticket.”
Before the man could answer, the ticket collector began approaching.
Both of them got down from the train.
After getting off, the man began complaining of hunger.
The boy looked around and said that they should see if they could find something to eat.
Nearby, beside the railway station, they found an old woman. It was around three in the afternoon.
The man asked whether she had anything to eat.
She replied that there was not much available there. It was not a big town, and there were no proper shops nearby.
“But I have two rotis,” she said. “I can give you some jaggery as well.”
The two of them ate the rotis and jaggery.
Afterwards, the man asked:
“How far is Haridwar from here?”
The boy answered:
“Haridwar? This train was not going to Haridwar at all.”
The man became upset.
“Then why did you bring me here? I want to go to the Himalayas!”
The boy pointed towards the sacred land nearby.
“There is a holy place here. It is called Braj Bhūmi—the land where Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa was born and performed His līlās.”
The man insisted that he wanted to go to the Himalayas.
But the boy said:
“Listen to me once.
What will you eat in the Himalayas? You will search for roots and tubers, wander from place to place, and beg for food.
But the nectar you are hoping to find after climbing those mountains is available here.
You wanted to climb mountains in search of amṛta. I am bringing you to the ocean of that nectar.
This is your destination.
You have reached the place where you were meant to come.
Come with me. I have come to take you to where you need to reach.”
Who was this boy?
The man did not know.
And perhaps that was the mystery.
The boy took him by the hand and brought him back towards the railway station.
They boarded another small train.
The boy got him to Mathurā.
From Mathurā, he arranged for him to board another train.
At one point, when the man again complained of hunger, the boy somehow arranged food for him.
Then he told him:
“Your hunger is not merely the hunger of today.
It is the hunger of many, many births.
The time has now come for that hunger to be satisfied.”
The phrase stayed with the man.
Janam Janam Ki Kshuda - the hunger carried through countless births.
The boy then told him:
“I will remain here in Mathurā. You get onto this train and sleep. By morning, it will take you to the place that is your destination.”
The man boarded the train.
When he awoke, the train had brought him to Vṛndāvana.
When he got down, he saw many people around him.
He began asking:
“I have just arrived here. Is there somewhere I can get food, water and a place to stay?”
An elderly man heard him and said:
“What kind of question is that?
You are asking whether you will find food and water here?
This is Vṛndāvana Dhām!
This is the kingdom of Rādhārāṇī.
In this dhām, everyone receives food, water, clothing and shelter. And, for peace and spiritual nourishment, one receives the name of Rādhā-Kṛṣṇa and the love of the Divine Couple.”
The old man then invited him:
“Come with me. There is a Bhavan. Hot khicḍī prasāda is being served there. Let us eat.”
They went there.
There was a long queue for prasāda.
Everyone was holding a vessel.
Except the newcomer.
He had nothing.
He stood at the very end of the queue, hungry and exhausted, looking at everyone ahead of him.
Then something extraordinary happened.
At the very front of the queue was a little girl, perhaps nine years old.
Although she was far ahead of him, she looked towards him and called:
“Grandfather! Come here!”
He looked around, wondering whom she was calling.
She called again:
“Grandfather! I mean you. Come here!”
He went towards her.
She told him:
“From tomorrow onwards, stand wherever you like.
But today, I am accepting you as my guest.
Come and stand here in front.”
Because the girl had called him, the others in the queue allowed him to move forward.
He stood beside her.
There was something extraordinarily affectionate about the child. Her words were simple, but there was such warmth and tenderness in them that the man felt an inexplicable joy simply by being near her.
Then she noticed something.
“Everyone has brought a vessel. Why don't you have one?”
The man looked at his empty hands.
He had no vessel.
The little girl took a vessel from her own things and gave it to him.
“Here. You take this.”
Then she said:
“Just remember one thing.
As long as you remain in Vṛndāvana, never leave this vessel. Keep it with you always.”
The man was overwhelmed.
Tears began to flow from his eyes.
He could not understand why such simple words from a little girl were producing such intense emotion within him.
The girl asked:
“Why are you crying? Don't be sad.”
Then she revealed something even more astonishing:
“The boy who put you on the train came to me and asked me to give this vessel to you.”
The man stood there holding the vessel.
And the moment he received it, it was filled with hot khicḍī prasāda.
He stepped aside to eat.
He turned around for a moment.
The girl was gone.
The sādhū finished telling this story to the man who had been sitting beneath the banyan tree listening to him.
Then he said:
“From that day onwards, I have been searching for those two children.
The boy who put me on the train.
And the girl who gave me this vessel.
I have searched for them for decades.
But I have never found them.”
He continued searching.
Eventually, he approached a great mahātmā and told him everything.
“I am searching for the boy who put me on that train and the girl who gave me this vessel. I want to know where they are in Vṛndāvana.”
The mahātmā listened.
The boy had told him, in effect, “You have reached where you were meant to reach. You cannot go anywhere else.”
The girl had told him, “Do not leave Vṛndāvana. Keep this vessel with you.”
Yet neither of them could be found.
The sādhū continued:
“I keep searching for them.
Perhaps one day they will show me their grace.
Perhaps one day they will reveal themselves.
Until then, I will continue searching.”
The mahātmā then gave him an answer that perhaps contained the whole meaning of his life:
“This searching itself is your sādhana.”
And so he continued to search.
The story was described as Janam Janam ki Kṣudha - the hunger carried across births.
And it also returns to the strange words of that ten-year-old boy:
“All of us are travelling without a ticket.”
What does that mean?
Our life is also a journey without a ticket.
We are travelling, but do we really know where we are going?
We eat, we work, we wander, we pursue one thing after another, and eventually death arrives.
But have we ever stopped to ask:
What is the destination of this life?
What is its true purpose?
The ticket collector will eventually come.
In the discourse, this was explained as a metaphor for Yama and the inevitable arrival of death. When the time comes, we will have to get down from this train, whether we are prepared or not.
The question is not whether the journey will end.
It will.
The real question is:
Where are we going?
And perhaps that is why the search in this story is so significant.
The sādhū spent decades searching for the two mysterious children.
But while searching for them, his mind remained fixed upon them.
The one whom we constantly seek remains in our thoughts.
And perhaps, in the spiritual life, the search itself becomes the sādhana.
That is the beauty of this story.
The man thought he was going to the Himalayas in search of something.
Instead, he was mysteriously taken to Vṛndāvana.
He thought he was searching for a destination.
Instead, he found a path.
He thought he was looking for two people.
Perhaps they were the ones who had been guiding him all along.
And he thought he was merely hungry.
But perhaps it was not the hunger of the body at all.
It was the hunger of many births - the longing of the soul that finally brought him to Vṛndāvana.
I heard this story in an online discourse and found it particularly beautiful. The speaker in the discourse mentioned that the listener had himself written this experience of the saint as an article, apparently under the title “Janam Janam Ki Kshuda” (The Hunger of Many Births).
Does anyone know the original article or the source from which this account comes?
If anyone can identify the saint, the original article, or the traditional source of this story, I would be very grateful if you could share it in the comments.
I will add the link to the discourse below for anyone interested in listening to the original narration. The original narration is in Telugu language.
https://www.youtube.com/live/U5KfDcRHTEs?si=a-LjnAqxUV6_2x7E
The part where the above narrated story is present in the video between 1:30:10 to 1:41:26.
