An easygoing life is the bane of spiritual aspirants. Ordeals, trials, and tribulations help them to grow. It is easy to navigate a ship in a calm sea, but he is the real captain who can save his craft in a storm. Durga Charan’s faithfulness to his ideal was tested through marriage and then through money. As a doctor he had a good reputation, but, in spite of it, he remained unattached. Lust and greed, and name and fame are the greatest obstacles to God-realization. He was confronted with these obstacles at every step of his life, but his efforts to overcome them only made him stronger.
When a wild lion is encaged, he roars and tries his utmost to break out of the cage. Similarly, Durga Charan desperately tried to sever the bonds of maya. His heart continuously cried for freedom. Once he met a holy man who told him, “However strong might be your faith, and intense be your love for God, unless you are initiated by a guru and practise sadhana according to his instructions, you cannot have the vision of God.”
The lives of the mystics prove that when intense longing for God dawns in a soul, God responds and makes everything favourable for the devotee. One morning Durga Charan was seated on the bank of the Ganges when his family guru unexpectedly arrived there on a boat. When he was asked the reason for his coming to Calcutta, the guru replied, “I have come at the special command of the Divine Mother to initiate you.” However, the initiation only created in Durga Charan more hunger for God. He was carried away by divine intoxication and often lost outward consciousness. Once, while he was meditating on the bank of the Ganges, the flood tide rose and swept him into the river. It was several moments before full consciousness returned to him and he was able to swim ashore.
Eventually Durga Charan’s young wife, Sharatkamini, came to Calcutta to serve her husband and father-in-law. Though Dindayal was greatly troubled about his son, his sympathies were more with his daughter-in-law, who, it seemed to him, was rejected by her husband. Sharatkamini, however, was not disturbed; she knew that her husband was not an ordinary man. His mind always dwelt in God, and no power of maya could tempt or bind him. One day Durga Charan said to his wife: “Love on the physical plane never lasts. Blessed is he who can love God heart and soul. Even a little attachment to the body endures for several births, so be not attached to this cage of flesh and bones. Take refuge in the Divine Mother and think of Her alone. Thus your life here and hereafter will be ennobled.”
Sharatkamini herself was like a nun — very pure, dedicated, self-effacing, and unselfish. She did not try to possess her husband for her own self-interest; she was simply his co-pilgrim. She was happy to serve her husband and father-in-law and, later, the many devotees that came to their house. Her life shows that when a person comes in close contact with a god-intoxicated soul, that person’s mind rises above the physical plane. (Source: They Lived with God)