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the news of his wife's death. The words he uttered hearing the news are worth noting. He said, "Good riddance!" His disciples interpreted these words to mean non-attachment. But if you will give a little thought, it would be clear this is not non-attachment. Because the very idea of getting rid of wife shows she was still being seen as a botheration even after twenty years.
The arithmetic is quite clear. The wife left behind twenty years ago must have been following like a shadow. She must have been haunting him all the time -- weighing upon him. Even after twenty years he had not been able to free himself from her thought. His mind must have been debating all along whether what he did was right or wrong. The words, "Good riddance" at the instance of wife's death say nothing about the wife, they speak for the husband. Although this man did run away from his wife, but could not leave her.
And Ganeshvarni was a holy man. So beware, holy men can also live in great delusion. He was indeed a man of impeccable character -- unerring, virtuous, upright. And yet something went wrong, he took the very problem with him when he left for the Himalayas.
There is yet another thing in this regard that needs to be understood as well. The fact that at the death of his wife the first thing which occurred to him was "good riddance" shows that knowingly or unknowingly, the desire for her death must have been lurking somewhere in the unconscious. This requires to take a deeper look at it.
At some level he must have wished that she be dead, finished forever; but this shows violence. Every word that we utter doesn't just come from out of the blue, without a reason. Every word comes from our innermost parts. And in such moments when the news of wife's death has just arrived, you don't react through the everyday normal attentive state. After an hour or so you become aware of it and then you begin to rationalize what you said, you patch it up. But that would all be a falsehood.
In that very moment Ganeshvarni was given the news, he missed. In an instant he forgot about the whole facade of holiness he had created all around him for the past twenty years.
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