'Bharat Mata' is voice of every Indian: Rahul Gandhi on I-Day

"To hear India, my own voice - my desires - my ambitions had to fall silent. India would speak to one of her own, but only if one was humble and completely silent," Gandhi said.

Sharing his experience all along the Yatra journey, he said, "how simple it had turned out to be. I had been looking in the river for that which could only be found in the sea." He quoted Persian poet Rumi to say, "If words come from the heart they will enter the heart".

The former Congress chief also talked about the pain in his knee from an old injury that had surfaced soon after he started his Yatra, but subsided as the number of people grew larger and he received their energy.

"And then I started to notice something. Every time I would think about stopping, every time I considered giving up, someone would come and gift me the energy to continue," he said.

"It was as if a silent energy kept helping me, and like fireflies in a dark forest, it was everywhere. When I really needed it, it was there to help and to guide," Gandhi noted.

"Then one day, I felt a silence I had never felt before. I could hear nothing but the voice of the person holding my hand and talking to me. The inner voice that had spoken to me ever since I was a little child was gone. It felt as if something had died," he noted.

(With PTI inputs)