"To listen to you, I can snatch the time from somewhere. You may explain without hesitation. Look, I have taken my seat and will remain seated. I will stay as long as you wish. Where will I ever get such an opportunity again?"
Gandhi was in a very happy mood, and Baba welcomed him to express his views on his writings. Gandhi stated:
These [writings of yours] should be in their original form, else they will lack sweetness. Whatever is yours is yours, and whatever is from others is others'. I have gone through your sayings and have grasped their truth. All these I have drunk and digested. I have clearly understood what you wish to convey. But the writings by other new, raw and inexperienced hands are difficult to follow. [K. J.] Dastur has an eye only for grammar and language, and murders the sweetness of your original words. There is as great a difference in your description of a thing and Dastur's translation as between heaven and earth! Your saying go is not merely a word. Behind this go is your power to make one go, which Dastur does not have.
Suppose my son has climbed up a tree, but finds himself in such a predicament that he can neither climb further nor come down. He just keeps hanging on. I tell him I will bring a mattress, but it is doubtful that he can hold on until my return; and if he falls down, he may be lost to me forever. So, remembering God, I tell him, 'Jump! Jump down!' Although I have no strength to catch him, I raise my hands and he jumps. No one is injured.
When the boy was ready to leap from such a height, it was not due to my telling him to jump. No, behind these words were a father's love and faith. The child thinks: 'I will fall into my father's arms and he will save me.' With this belief and confidence, he jumps; I catch him and he is saved. Similarly, there is a vast difference in your saying go and in my or anyone else's utterance of the same word.
Regarding your book, whatever you have written by hand in English [in the book] and whatever you want to express cannot be expressed in English. I suggest that such works ought to be written in Sanskrit or Gujarati.