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some vested interests in clinging to your slavery.
I was a teacher in the university, and for almost twenty days I was out of the town, moving around the country. That much leave is not possible; although within ten days of every month, I was completing the course with the students. I asked them, "Have you any complaint?"
They said, "We are grateful to see the fact that for a small course, two years are wasted... not more than six months are needed." But the vice-chancellor became disturbed, because again and again he found that I was not in the university.
I had my own device: there were beautiful trees, but strangely, all the trees had died. There was only one tree which was still green and with shade, so I used to park my car under that tree. It had become known that nobody should park his car there. Once or twice, people had tried, and I had called my students to remove the car... wherever it goes, let it go, but this place is reserved. So whenever I was going out of the town, I used to send my car with my chauffeur, and the vice-chancellor, seeing my car under the tree from his window, was satisfied that I was there.
One day he was taking a round of the whole university, and he found my class was empty. He asked the students, "He is supposed to be here, and his car is parked exactly under the tree. And I have been always suspicious: I have been reading his discourses -- sometimes in Calcutta, sometimes in Amritsar, sometimes in Madras -- and I have always been puzzled; his car is there."
I used to drive my car, and I had told my chauffeur, "Lock the car and enjoy yourself for one or two hours in the garden, and then take the car back home."
He said, "Well, what is the point?"
I said, "You don't be worried about it; it is not your problem."
So when I came back from Madras one day, the vice-chancellor called me and asked, "It seems you are a master of yourself. You never ask for leave, you never even inform me."
I said, "Just give me a piece of paper," and I resigned.
He said, "What are you doing?"
I said, "That is my answer. Are my students, in any way, suffering by my absence? Have
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