One must reflect deeply on the nature of the adversity, and on how it may be converted into an instrument for growth. The routine Gandhiji set for himself was always so much stricter and so much more demanding than anything that a jailer would have thought of imposing on anyone. Similarly, picture Vinoba in solitary confinement in that cell, 8 feet by 9 feet in dimension: how he converts imprisonment into ashram life; how in that tiny space, in forced and complete isolation, he retains his mental discipline by meditating for two to three hours every day; how he disciplines himself physically by walking every day for eight hours inside that suffocating cell, and thereby covering ten miles—covering ten miles in a cell 8 feet by 9 feet every single day! In both cases, control remained in the hands of the prisoner, not the jailer—a very important factor in dealing with adversity.
