Page:My Dear Pranav.pdf/20

 when Gandhiji was alive. But the tree has grown. It has become a big tree. Because it continued growing every day. Pranav, that is what you should do. Grow everyday. Vinoba wanted Gandhiji’s thoughts to grow and not become static.

With love,

Yours, L.N. Godbole

4th March, 1990 My dear Pranav,

I was happy to learn from your grandpa that you read my letters with interest. You wanted to talk to me rather than phone or write to me. I like that. Seeing is believing. A lot more can be said face to face. You will be surprised to know that Vinoba has written very few books but he has given hundreds of talks and that all his books are really compilations of his talks. The style,therefore is more direct,which can be understood by villagers with whom he had his talks face to face in all parts of India.

Another important point about Vinoba is that he always thought and expressed himself in Marathi or Hindi. You will find quotations from Jnaneshwar, Tukaram, Eknath and Ramdas in his speeches. They were all saint poets from Maharashtra. He also quotes from Kabir, Mirabai, Tulsidas, Thiruvalluvar. Andal, Mahadevi Akka, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, Narsi Mehta and other Bhakti poets from all over India. Besides Marathi, he was well-versed in Sanskrit, Hindi, Gujarati, Tamil, Bengali, Oriya, Kannada, Malayalam, English, French, Arabic, German and dozens of Indian languages. He did his best to read all religious texts in their original languages. He published books on the essence of the Bible, the Quran, Dhammapada,

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