GLIMPSES OF SRI RAMANA MAHARSHI

By Raja Iyer

IN 1911 when I was in the high school in Tiruvannamalai, Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi was living in Virupaksha Cave. At that time we boys would climb the Arunachala hill in small parties to visit Bhagavan. He was usually found sitting on the elevated place outside the cave. He would smile at us as a sign of recognition and would allow us to sit at his feet and sing devotional songs to our hearts' content. When the singing was over, we would share with him the food we had brought and wash it down with the cool water from a spring just above the cave. We would then return home in high spirits.

After high school I used to stay with Bhagavan whenever I felt like it and eat and sleep there. By that time, he had left the cave which was too small for the crowd that came to see him and moved a little higher to Skandasramam where the devotees had built some terraces and huts. Echammal, Mudaliar granny and a few others made it their duty to bring cooked food up the hill regularly for Bhagavan. This enabled some of us to stay with him permanently. The food was meant for him, but there was enough for all. He would not allow any discrimination in matters of food. It was shared equally and what remained was consumed the next morning. Nor were there regular hours for food. We would sit down for food when there was food and when we felt the need. Bhagavan would not eat food from the previous day; but he was willing to cook for all and he made me his kitchen boy.

Then Bhagavan's mother and his younger brother Chinnaswami came to live with him. The mother started a regular household. Devotees would bring rice and other provisions and all partook of the frugal meals, oftentimes consisting of some rice, buttermilk and pickles.

While in Skandasramam, Bhagavan used to build walls, embankments and stone and mud benches, the poor man's furniture in India. Once he was plastering a wall with mud. Bespattered with mud, with a rag tied round his head, he looked like an ordinary labourer. Some visitors came up the hill in search of Bhagavan and one of them shouted, "Hey coolie, where is the swami who lives hereabouts"? Bhagavan looked round and said, "He has gone up the hill". A visitor protested that they were told that he could be found there at that hour. Bhagavan shrugged his shoulders and said, "He has gone up the hill. I can't help it". While the disappointed visitors were going down the hill Echammal met them. She told them that the swami would not go anywhere at that time. She offered to show them the swami. In the meantime Bhagavan had washed himself, smeared his body with sacred ash, and was sitting in the classic yogic padmasana posture. The visitors greeted him very reverently but were all the time looking for the coolie. After they left Echammal asked Bhagavan why he had played a joke on them. He said, "What else could I do? Do you want me to go around proclaiming, `I am the swami', or to wear a board, `This is Sri Ramana Maharshi'"?

While Bhagavan was still at Skandasramam he often went round Arunachala. We used to take with us what was needed for cooking some food by the roadside. Food was usually cooked at Palakottu and what remained was taken along and eaten at Gautama Ashram, which we would reach at about nine in the evening. We would sleep there, get up early in the morning and walk to Pachaiamman Temple, which was, according to Bhagavan, the most spiritually charged of all the Pachaiamman temples. Bhagavan used to walk round the hill so slowly that a walk with him was like a festival procession. We would reach Skandasramam by ten or even later.

Though I was married I was not interested in family life.

My wife also passed away sometime after marriage and I was free to roam about and live as I wished to.

I am not by nature a willing worker but for the sake of staying at the Ashram I was ready to work. Bhagavan had come down from the hill after his mother's samadhi and an Ashram grew around him. I did odd jobs like collecting flowers for worship, drawing water from the well, grinding sandalwood paste etc. For sometime I was performing the puja at Bhagavan's mother's shrine.

One day Chinnaswami asked me to take up the preparation of the morning iddlies, the steamed rice and pulse cakes common to South India. This gave me a chance to become a permanent resident of the Ashram. In preparing iddlies I achieved such excellence that visitors commented that nowhere had they tasted iddlies comparable to those of the Ashram.

Once the workers in the kitchen asked me to grind some pulses to a paste. Try as I might I could not do it. I was told not to leave the kitchen without finishing the job but I just refused to continue. Bhagavan heard the quarrel and advised me to add some salt. When I did so the grinding became easy, and eversince the dislike for grinding left me completely. Very often Bhagavan would work with us side by side cutting vegetables etc. He kept a watchful eye on me and taught me the right way of doing everything. He was very particular about avoiding waste. He showed me how to use a ladle so that not even a drop of food would fall on the ground, how to avoid spilling while pouring and how to start a fire with just a few drops of kerosene. If all this were not a part of my spiritual discipline, why should he have bothered? When we prepared iddlies we would send him two, steaming hot. He would eat one and give the other to the people present. At breakfast everybody would get two iddlies and a cup of coffee, But Bhagavan would take only one iddlie, counting as his first, the one he took earlier.

In 1937 a post office was opened in the Ashram and I was made the Postmaster. On the first two days Bhagavan came to the post office and did all the stamping. Prior to that I used to bring the mail from the town post office to the Ashram.

"Oh, the postman has been made the Postmaster", remarked Bhagavan. I thus had the opportunity of serving Bhagavan and the Ashram for several years.

In whatever manner and at whatever level the devotee approached him, he responded in the same way, fulfilled his needs and made him happy. Bhagavan showed us tangibly to what extent all devotion will find its way to him, whatever its level, provided it is sincere.

The White Peacock

Bhagavan seems to have developed a fancy for the white peacock which devotees think to be the incarnation of the late Madhavasami, his old attendant who died about two years ago. Today (18-6-1948) the famous cow Lakshmi died. Some believe that she was a disciple of Bhagavan in her previous birth. They draw this conclusion from her birth, the events of her life, her great attachment to him, etc. After finishing the history of Lakshmi, Bhagavan takes up that of the white peacock, which had been brought from such a great distance as Baroda. It was born in October 1946, three months after the death of Madhavasami (July 1946) and brought to Madras in April 1947 by the Maharani of Baroda and to Ramanasramam by Mr David MacIver on the same day.

Bhagavan then watched the peacock's movements. It used to go to the cupboard where books were kept and touched its glass door with its beak in a straight line from east to west, as if scanning the titles of the books. Secondly it used to appear in the hall and quit it at the very hours when Madhava used to come and go. Thirdly it used to sit in the very places where Madhavasami used to sit and, like him, used to visit the office, bookshop, library, etc., also at the hours he used to visit these places. Its habits used to be a copy of Madhava's. Hence the conclusion of several devotees that he was Madhava reincarnated.

From Residual Reminiscences by S.S. Cohen.

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Referred Resources: Virupaksha Cave
Death of Madhavaswami
Deliverance of Cow Lakshmi

OTHER LINKS:
Links to letters: White Peacock: (Chapter 112: The White Peacock
Echamma: (Chapter 15: Echamma’s Demise
Lakshmi: (Chapter 193: The Deliverance of Lakshmi the Cow
Lakshmi: (Chapter 194: Burial of Lakshmi the Cow
Lakshmi: (Chapter 195: The History of Lakshmi the Cow
Links to rl: Virupaksha: (Chapter 18: The Peerless Hill
Lakshmi: (Chapter 34: Followers
Lakshmi: (Chapter 40: Withdrawal of the Manifestation
Echamma: (Chapter 21: Echammal
Echamma: (Chapter 40: Withdrawal of the Manifestation
Chinnaswami: (Chapter 45: What Next ?

BHAGAVAN'S COOKING

By Sundaram

WITH the death of my wife the bond between me and my family snapped. The desire to serve God had been in my mind for quite a long time. I gave up my job. I had heard a lot about Bhagavan. So I decided to go to Ramanasramam. Immediately after my arrival I was fortunate to be taken on the Ashram staff. I was looking after the Ashram's correspondence. Still later I was asked to work in the kitchen. There I had the good fortune to work under Bhagavan's direct supervision.

I was suffering for long from Asthma. It gave me a lot of trouble while cooking, but I never mentioned it to Bhagavan. I felt that I should endure it to the very end.

Bhagavan used to prepare various kinds of chutney, usually made of coconut with fragrant herbs and condiments. He was very fond of using the cheapest and most commonly found herbs and seeds and was a wizard in making wonderful dishes from the simplest ingredients. When something unusual was ready, he would give everybody in the kitchen a pinch to taste and we would take it with eyes closed, deeming it to be prasad. On one such occasion he gave me a pinch of some chutney and said, "This is medicine for you". Without giving much thought to it I swallowed the titbit and soon realised that I was completely cured of asthma.

Once somebody complained to Bhagavan that the Ashram food was very pungent. He said, "When sattvic food is essential for spiritual practice how is it that the Ashram food is so heavily spiced"? Bhagavan explained that as long as the ingredients were pure and prepared in a pure place and in the proper way, seasoning was a matter of taste and habit and did not make food less sattvic.

An unwritten rule in the Ashram demanded that until the last meal was served and cleared, the workers should attend to their duties only. Sitting in meditation or in Bhagavan's hall was strongly discouraged. The manager argued, with good reason, that devoted service to the Ashram was itself spiritual practice of the highest order and no other practice was needed. He would not allow us to linger in the hall during working hours, which was often tantalising because of the interesting discussions and happenings that were going on there. When we would sneak in and hide ourselves behind people's backs, Bhagavan would look at us significantly, as if saying, "Better go to your work. Don't ask for trouble".

At night, after dinner, we would all collect around Bhagavan. The visitors would have left by that time and we had him all to ourselves. We felt like a big family collected after a day's work. During this short hour Bhagavan would enquire about our welfare, chat with us, make us laugh, and also give instructions for the next day.

With time I realized that working with Bhagavan in the kitchen was not mere cooking, but definitely a form of spiritual training. The first lesson in spiritual education to learn, and to learn for good, is to obey the guru implicitly without questioning or using one's own judgement in the least. Even if we knew a better way of doing it, we had to do it exactly as the Master told us. It might have appeared that by obeying him the work would be ruined, but still one had to obey. One must master this art of instantaneous and unquestioning obedience, for the secret of realization lies in this utter surrender and renunciation of one's own judgement.

Bhagavan himself was an excellent cook and made a point of teaching us to cook properly. Cooking is the most rewarding work, for good cooks are usually poor eaters, and all profit goes to others. That is probably why Bhagavan selected cooking as a training ground for some of his devoted disciples.

It was Bhagavan's order that the leftovers should be used as stock for the next day's breakfast. Iddlies with sambar being the standard breakfast at the Ashram, the leftovers from the previous day would come in handy. Bhagavan would come into the kitchen in the early hours of the morning, warm the leftovers, dilute it and add some more ingredients for the morning sambar. The injunction against taking food from the previous day was very much respected among the higher castes. He insisted that avoidance of waste overrules everything else, and he would never permit God's gifts to be thrown away. As to giving leftovers to beggars, it was not practicable, for he insisted that beggars be given the same food as everybody else and not some inferior stuff. Even dogs had to be fed from the common meal, and first, too!

Every morning just before breakfast Bhagavan would enter the kitchen. The vessels containing coffee, iddlies and sambar were kept ready, covered and shining bright. He would lift the lid, look inside and say, "This is coffee. These are iddlies. This is sambar". We all felt that this consecrated the food before it was distributed to the visitors and inmates.

Once he came to the kitchen before dawn and put some of the previous day's soup on the fire for heating. Some leaves were washed and cut and he told me to mix them in the soup and continue mixing until they lost their bright green colour. For a long time he did not return. The leaves would not change colour, the soup was getting dry and I was afraid there might be no sambar for breakfast. Bhagavan came in just before breakfast. "What, you are still mixing?" he asked with a bright smile. He was pleased that I had implicitly obeyed him and asked me to continue mixing. The gravy was ready in time and was delicious.

Once Bhagavan was frying a large quantity of condiments in a big iron pan over a strong fire. I was standing beside him when he quietly asked me to remove the pan from the fire at once. Probably he saw that more heating would burn the spices. There was nothing nearby to hold the pan with, so I caught the pan with my bare hands, lifted it and put it on the ground. I was not at all afraid to touch the hot iron, nor was I surprised that I could lift it without feeling its weight. The surprise came later when I realized how utterly impossible was all that had happened. It was a striking instance of the power of obedience to one's guru.

Sometimes I was fortunate enough to be able to serve food to Bhagavan with my own hands. I studied carefully how I should serve to please him and was very alert and careful. Yet he would be more alert than me and notice the slightest mistake.

"Why did you serve me more than usual? Do I need more food today than yesterday? And why do I get more sweets and dainties than others? How do you dare to make distinctions?"

People nearby would plead for me. "No, Bhagavan", they would say, "Sundaram did not serve you more. Look, we got as much as you did". But Bhagavan would not be easily appeased. "You do not know, the ego is strong in him. His giving preference to me is the working of his ego". I could not find out where I was at fault, but I took his scolding as a kind of blessing and would not worry.

The women working in the kitchen were so orthodox that they could not accept the previous day's food. Once when some leftover sambar was taken to a devotee's house, a special ceremony was ordered to purify the house. On hearing that Bhagavan told the ladies, "Call the purifiers and get your kitchen purified. I shall never more enter your kitchen". The women, for the sake of their orthodox customs, lost Bhagavan's constant presence, company and guidance. It was a real tragedy. Each devotee in the Ashram believed that Bhagavan was God Himself who had come to purify and bless him and put his feet firmly on the path to liberation. Yet when God Himself went against their religious customs, they would rather cling to their customs than to God. Blessed were those who had no other rule but obedience to Bhagavan. It was clear that he was trying to teach us the simple lesson that in his presence no rule was valid except the rule of absolute surrender. But it was not an easy lesson to learn. Again and again old habits and loyalties would assert themselves and make us pit our will against his, to our greatest harm.

Bhagavan was not a rebel or a reformer. He did not discourage people from following their religious customs at home. But in the Ashram he would not take all customs for granted. In the Ashram he was the religion and the custom, and those who forgot it had to face his very strong will.

APOLOGY TO HORNETS

One day a disciple said to Bhagavan, "When you stepped on a hornet's nest, mistaking it for a bush and the hornets attacked your leg and stung it badly, why did you feel remorse for what had happened only accidentally, as if you had done it intentionally?"

Bhagavan replied:

When I was stung by hornets in revenge
Upon the leg until it was inflamed,
Although `twas but by chance I stepped upon
Their nest, constructed in a leafy bush;
What kind of mind is his if he does not
At least repent for doing such a wrong ?

The story relating to the above is as follows:
One day when Bhagavan was climbing about the Hill as was his wont in the early days of his sojourn in Tiruvannamalai, his leg struck against a hornet's nest and disturbed the hornets. They attacked him in a body and stung his leg and thigh very badly so that it became terribly swollen and painful. Bhagavan expressed great sorrow for what he had done unwittingly. He would not move from the place till they had finished the punishment and flown away.

Refer Apology to Hornets

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Referred Resources: Apology to Hornets

OTHER LINKS:
Links to gems: renunciation: (Chapter 10: Renunciation)
Please also see No Waste