After our first round of discussion with him by immediate family on the ensuing days, we then sought help from the family elders. A team of three elderly from our extended family, very respected individuals in the society, whom my brother also has great regard for, failed miserably after hours of chat with him. That was a watershed event for us on which we entrusted a lot of hope.
Our major question to him was on what he was lacking at home and whether we could do anything so that he will be happier and stay back home. He said he is not unhappy and that there is nothing we could do for him at that moment except let him make an immediate entry into the spiritual world. Thought of letting him leave, sent shivers down each one of our spines. He said clearly that it is not because he is unhappy with his present life that he chooses to take on Sannyasa. The reason, he said is that he sees a higher purpose in leading a spiritual only life.
We asked him what he was going to achieve through this way of life that he wish to choose. He said that “you, me and everything is God” and that “he wants to see real God”. He went onto say that “sort of life he was leading at the time did not make sense to him anymore”. Sort of life he was leading was that, he has been working as a reporter for the Indian Express Calicut, writing reports and being our family.
One of our family friend who knew him from childhood sat with him for about seven hours continuously arguing with him and pleading with him. In the end, he looked pale and could not withstand it anymore. I was also feeling sad on a different note that he has to argue each and everyone of us all alone and that there is no one on his side. But I could not even imagine supporting his point of view. Not only because he will leave me if I do, but also since I saw no point in the new avatar he is talking about, truly. I always tried my best to look at it from his point of view but I could find none of his goals such as ‘seeing God’ making any sense to me. If it was about doing service to humanity, he could as well stay with us and do as he liked as there was no need to abandon his way of life.
Finally when all our efforts to persuade him failed one by one, I had him taken to Coimbatore where my fathers nephews were residing in a last-ditch effort to stop him. One of the nephew whom all of us treated with great respect, had talked to him for hours together the night we arrived there. His discussion was at a different level where he took the subject of spirituality head on and used the same knowledge my brother acquired by then on spirituality. Often it seemed like my nephew was winning in the arguments but whatever he said, my brother would fall back to the position that “I have to go” which was a phrase I was too familiar by then and one I dreaded to hear.
He used to e-mail me regularly and looked after the household chores whenever our mother needed his help. He was supported by the salary he received from the express. Mother gets a pension and I sent him money whenever he expressed any further need. Money can not be the reason. Not at all!
When we failed to pursue him back to the material world, we also asked him about leading a spiritual life while still living in the home and our society. To this request, he answered that his planned life requires complete dedication and it can’t be led without turning off the present way of life.
