You, the people of Ahmedabad, have designated me in your citation the foremost disciple of Gandhiji. I pray, may God make me worthy of it! But I know for sure that I am not worthy of it. I don’t know how many lives I will have to spend before I could acquire it. But, I still want to emphasise that you have cited many things with exaggeration purely out of your love for me. I may accept all those things but not this one.
All of you know that in the Mahabharat, there was a Bhil disciple of Dronacharya He had never met him personally. He made Dronacharya’s statue, which he worshipped everyday and would visualise it teaching him archery. How did it happen? Because he worshipped his teacher and had absolute faith in him. His soul was pure. The person you call my teacher is always with me. In spite of this, I am not worthy of being his favourite disciple, or perhaps not worthy of being his disciple even. I don’t have any doubts about it. There may be so many disciples of him in this country who might not have seen him personally. Yet they might have worshipped not the ‘person’ but the ‘mantra’ he has given. This sacred land must be having someone like that. People may say, “What if Gandhiji is gone?” But I have no misgivings about it. He did whatever he had to. Now it’s up to us to do whatever remains to be done.