Who is a Sadhu ? The one who practices austerity harnessing himself to the mission of service to
the people or the one who just boasts tobe a Godman claiming remedies for all evils and ills on earth hypocritically claiming capability to play readily available miracles solving whatever problems could be there.A sage leading the life of an ascetic adherently pursuing service to mankind in action and with prayers is certainly the one who honestly earns love, regard and obviously an obeisance from the people as against those who are nothing but just the lusty chaps exploiting the sentiments of innocent persons for their own ill designed motives. When exposed, they turnout to be the rascals of first order –ruffians,mafias,even the killers. Only the other day a friend of mine narrated to me an instance of how a so called sadhu was blatantly instrumental in killing the wife of a colleague of his. The sadhu is currently a kattha vachak (story teller) on religion with his disciples in tens of thousands spread over not only in India but throughout the world. He acquired more of fame when he was able to coin an attractive marketing angle amongst his disciples – ‘I don’t need any money as dakshina (presents) but better you offer me atleast one of your vices or whatever bad habit(s) you suffer from.This I will accept as dakshina and as my aashirvaad (blessing) you will get rid of the problem. Such a marketing worked well sumptuously increasing the number of his followers who easily took it as something unique and selfless on the part of the sadhu.Hundreds and thousand started thronging to seek his blessings.My friend’s colleague and his wife, who was a chronic patient of diabetes with several other implied complications, approached the saint as his disciples requesting some remedy. The saint was kind enough to say ‘don’t worry, this moment onwards your problem is my problem.and you take it that you are now no more a patient of diabetes’. The couple’s query whether she should continue with her regular drugs was emphatically met with ‘no, not at all’. The advice followed meticulously, the ailment compounded most alarmingly.When contacted again first over phone and then personally, the sadhu stuck to his earlier advice which the couple followed faithfully. The lady died.The poor chap (victim’s husband) grew half mad.Asked as to why he didn’t question the godman’s audacity to play such a havoc with somebody’s life, his answer was ‘nobody has the courage to do so unless he is prepared for the worst –thrashing, beating, manhandling and even loss of life in the hands of goons hired by him’. This very godman once turned up several hours late on the venue of the congregation of his disciples who assembled there in a very large number to get blessed by him and obviously to listen to his godly discourse.The reason of the delay was that the organizers failed to pay him in advance the fee for his deliverance of sermons.The godman gave his darshan to the devotees only after the organizers apologized and paid him the agreed advance.The worse part of the drama was yet to happen.The godman wanted organizers to convery necessary message to the devotees that delay occurred as the Baba was in Samadhi mudra (deep meditational posture) and it was so high in degree that coming out of it was just not possible easily. Message conveyed to the gathering, they accepted it well as something so great on his part but there was some murmuring too on the part of some who started whispering their doubts.Before it could further spread, the poor lot so doing were pounced upon by the goons and beaten mercilessly with the warning that if they still continued any murmur on the subject, nothing but death is to be their penalty.Little voices silenced, everything was normal and the godman was in his form giving discourse on the topic of the day –greed, lust and vengeance.Elaborating his points, the Baba told ‘one should not feel greedy as the greed and lust are the causes of all trouble in the world and that if someone is harsh to the other one, this should not be allowed to be a reason for retaliation’.Such stories are innumerable and as said Shakespeare through his ‘Hamlet’ that ‘the world is without joints’, it appears it is really so, rather it continues tobe so worse confounded. None is yet ‘born to set it right’.