The great Saint of Maharashtra - Sant Eknath Maharaj

Pranams at the lotus feet of Eknath Maharaj!

Chapter – 7

Sant Eknath’s fame spread across the village, especially the Bhramins of Paitan were jealous of this, they plotted plan against Sant Eknath, they were looking in all possible ways to disgrace him.  Sant Eknath goes for a holy dip in the Godavari on a regular basis.  They appointed a Muslim guy to play trick on Sant Eknath,  he took seat near the stairs of the pond and started chewing pan, he intentionally spit juice of the pan on Eknath when he was passing through the stairs, it compelled Sant Eknath to go for holy dip again and this wicked person repeated the same several times.  Finally, he realized that he was spitting on a Mahapurusha not on ordinary man, ultimately he regretted his demeanor and begged for forgiveness.  Sant Eknath pacified him and was concerned about the wound caused in his mouth by the continuous chewing of Pan, he took the Muslim guy to his home and served him to get rid of the pain of the wound on his tongue.   There were many incidents like this that happened in his life, many people were trying to put off his righteousness and piousness, but none could win over his determination and faith.  He has treated people of all caste and faith without any differentiation, even though those days people of low caste were treated as untouchables, he taught the people of lower caste about the truth of ‘oneness in all’,   his humility paid its fruits; he had forgiven all the sinners with great empathy. 

Once he visited the Samadhisthal of Sant Gyaneshwar situated twelve miles away from Pune city, he had a dream on the previous day in that Sant Gyaneshwar was giving instruction to remove creepers from his Samadhisthal.  Sant Eknath arrived in the place and conducted a thorough search for the Samadhisthal, all his search went in vain, he was too desperate and prayed to Lord Siddheshwara in the temple, suddenly Nandikeshwara guided him to a hidden corridor which leads to the underground tunnel where he could reach the Samadhisthal of Sant Gyaneshwar, he attained the Dharshan of Gyaneshwar Maharaj who advised Eknath to continue his effort to publicize his great work Jyanehswari which is the essence of Bhagavad Gita in Marathi.