myself into the fray, had my wife been expecting a baby. Without the observance of brahmacharya, service of the family would be inconsistent with service of the community. With brahmacharya they would be perfectly consistent.
So thinking, I became somewhat impatient to take a final vow. The prospect of the vow brought a certain kind of exultation. Imagination also found free play and opened out limitless vistas of service.
Whilst I was thus in the midst of strenuous physical and mental work, a report came to the effect that the work of suppressing the “rebellion” was nearly over, and that we should soon be discharged. A day or two after this our discharge came and in a few days we got back to our homes.
After a short while I got a letter from the Governor specially thanking the Ambulance Corps for its services.
On my arrival at Phoenix I eagerly broached the subject of brahmacharya with Chhaganlal, Maganlal, West and others. They liked the idea and accepted the necessity of taking the vow, but they also represented the difficulties of the task. Some of them set themselves bravely to observe it, and some, I know, succeeded also.
I too took the plunge—the vow to observe brahmacharya for life. I must confess that I had not then fully realized the magnitude and immensity of the task I undertook. The difficulties are even today staring me in the face. The importance of the vow is being more and more borne in upon me. Life without brahmacharya appears to me to be insipid and animal-like. The brute by nature knows no self-restraint. Man is man because he is capable of, and only in so far as he exercises, self-restraint. What formerly appeared to me to be extravagant praise of brahmacharya in our religious books seems now, with increasing clearness every day, to be absolutely proper and founded on experience.