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I
About two miles from Vrindavan, he saw a man contentedly smoking a pipe (Chillum) by the wayside. The Swami, weary, felt that a smoke would do him good; so he asked the man to allow him to have a pull or two at the pipe. The smoker shrank back and said diffidently, "It would defile you, sir. I am a Bhangi [a sweeper]". The Swami, conditioned by caste-con¬sciousness, shrank back too, and went his way, After going a short distance, the thought struck him, "What! I have taken the sannyasi's vow and have given up all ideas of caste, family prestige and so forth: yet I fell back into caste ideas when the man told me that he was a sweeper! And I could not smoke the pipe which he had touched! That was due to ages of habit." The thought made him so restless that he turned back and found the man still seated there. Sitting down beside him, he said, "Brother, do prepare me a Chillum of tobacco." But the man humbly expostulated, "Sir, you are a holy man: I am an outcaste!" But the Swami would not listen to his objections and insisted on having a smoke from that pipe. (LSV)
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