Page 38 - My Father-Final Book

His Own Spiritual Life
The circumstance of my father’s birth and education have been described earlier (cf:His Childhood). At the end of his education, he was brought to his native village due to severe illness. Soon after that he was married to Sumati. We have also seen how a Sanyasi Yogi touched him when he had gone to the beach to commit suicide. Since that event, he had started some kind of spiritual practice on his own. It was intense for sure, but all the details of this practice are not available, partly due to the avoidance of popularity by my father. But, we know that he read the Gurucharitra Scripture several times, he kept strict celibacy for a long time, he developed some spiritual powers and he was also very kindhearted to the suffering community. Initially he was a devotee of Shree Vishnu and Shree Dattatreya. But, on meeting Krishnanatha Mahraj, he became devotee of Shirdi Sai Baba. We shall now describe my father's meeting with Krishnanatha Maharaj.
My father was around 33 years old then. He had one daughter, who was my eldest sister. He was a school teacher, but he also did private tutoring in order to supplement his income. He used to live in a small and very old apartment in Pune. I was very lucky to be able to visit this place during one of my visits to India from the USA. I took pictures and video. The place may be demolished by now. Here he lived in a small place where kitchen, dining area and bathroom totaled probably 10 foot by 10 foot. There was a small living area separated from this room. And, there was one room upstairs at the roof accessible by an extremely narrow and delicate staircase. My father used to do some kind of spiritual practice in this rooftop room. At this time, he used to tutor one girl named Kusum, the only daughter of Mr. Paradeshi, a lawyer. The family included
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