Day by Day with Bhagavan - Part 7

Day by Day with Bhagavan

“There are various controversies or schools of thought as

to whether a jnani can continue to live in his physical body

after realization. Some hold that one who dies cannot be a jnani,

because his body must vanish into air, or some such thing. They

put forward all sorts of funny notions. If a man must at once

leave his body when he realises the Self, I wonder how any

knowledge of the Self or the state of realisation can come down

to other men. And that would mean that all those who have

given us the fruits of their Self-realisation in books cannot be

considered jnanis because they went on living after realisation.

And if it is held that a man cannot be considered a jnani so long

as he performs actions in the world (and action is impossible

without the mind), then not only the great Sages who carried

on various kinds of work after attaining jnana must not be

considered jnanis, but the gods also, and Ishwara Himself, since

He continues looking after the world. The fact is that any amount

of action can be performed, and performed quite well, by the

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jnani without his identifying himself with it in any way or ever

imagining that he is the doer. Some power acts through his

body and uses his body to get the work done.”

Bhagavan has said the same on previous occasions also.

He continued to speak about mukti and said, “Mukti is not

anything to be attained. It is our real nature. We are always

That. It is only so long as one feels that he is in bondage that

he has to try to get released from bondage. When a man feels

that he is in bondage he tries to find out for whom is the

bondage and by that enquiry discovers that there is no bondage

for him but only for the mind, and that the mind itself

disappears or proves non-existent when turned inwards instead

of outwards towards sense-objects; it merges into its source,

the Self, and ceases to exist as a separate entity. In that state

there is no feeling either of bondage or liberation. So long as

one speaks of mukti he is not free from the sense of bondage.”

The visitor who had asked about yoga in the morning

now pursued his questions further.

Visitor: I did not quite grasp all that Bhagavan said this

morning. What am I to do when the mind strays in various

directions during dhyana?

Bhagavan: Simply draw the mind back each time it strays

and fix it in dhyana. There is no other way. (Bhagavan also

quoted Chapter VI, Verse 26 from the Bhagavad Gita which

says the same thing).

Visitor: Then is there no use in pranayama (breath

control)? Should I not practise it?

Bhagavan: Pranayama is also a help. It is one of the

various methods that are intended to help us attain ekagratha

or one-pointedness of mind. Pranayama can also help to

control the wandering mind and attain this one-pointedness

and therefore it can be used. But one should not stop there.

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After obtaining control of the mind through pranayama one

should not rest content with any experiences which may accrue

therefrom but should harness the controlled mind to the

question ‘Who am I?’ till the mind merges in the Self.

The visitor further asked whether in his meditation he

could use forms and images of God and mantras.

Bhagavan: Yes, of course. All these things can help, or

why should they be recommended in the books? Various things

are prescribed to suit various natures. Each person must choose

what seems easiest and appeals to him most.

6-5-46

At about 10 o’clock this morning, in the presence of

Bhagavan, the corner-stone was laid for the New Hall that

Bhagavan is to sit in, in front of the temple of the Mother. The

foundation was laid on January 25th, 1945, and is now ready to

be built upon.

In the afternoon a visitor, Lakshmi Narayana Sastri from

Vizianagaram, read out portions of his book for Bhagavan’s

approval and blessing. It is a Telugu verse rendering of

Kavyakantha Ganapati Sastri’s Sanskrit book Uma Sahasram

with commentary.

7-5-46

In the afternoon L.N. Sastri again read out portions of his

book. Bhagavan asked how much was already translated and

he replied only about one century. He also read out a few poems

that he himself had composed in praise of Bhagavan under the

title Atma Nivedanam and prayed for Bhagavan’s blessings.

He told Bhagavan that he had applied to the publishers of the

Sanskrit original that he was translating, for permission to

publish his translation, but the permission had not yet come.

Bhagavan said: “It will come; there will be no difficulty.”

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I could not judge these poems, as they are in Telugu, but

Nagamma tells me they are very good and L.N. Sastri is a

poet of some standing.

8-5-46

In the afternoon there was the following talk with a young

sadhu from North India:

Sadhu: I want to know who I am. The Arya Samajists

say that I am the jivatma and that if I purify the mind and

buddhi I can see God. I don’t know what to do. If Bhagavan

thinks fit, will Bhagavan please tell me what to do?

Bhagavan: You have used a number of terms. What do

you mean by jivatma, mind, buddhi and God? And where is

God and where are you that you should want to go and see

God?

Sadhu: I don’t know what all these terms mean.

Bhagavan: Then never mind what the Arya Samajists

tell you. You don’t know about God and other things, but you

do know that you exist. You can have no doubt about that. So

find out who you are.

Sadhu: That is what I want to know. How can I find out?

Bhagavan: Keep all other thoughts away and try to find

out in what place in your body the ‘I’ arises.

Sadhu: But I am unable to think about this.

Bhagavan: Why? If you can think about other things you

can think about ‘I’ and where in your body it arises. If you

mean that other thoughts distract you, the only way is to draw

your mind back each time it strays and fix it on the ‘I’. As each

thought arises, ask yourself: “To whom is this thought?” The

answer will be, “to me”; then hold on to that “me”.

Sadhu: Am I to keep on repeating “Who am I?” so as to

make a mantra of it?

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Bhagavan: No. ‘Who am I?’ is not a mantra. It means

that you must find out where in you arises the I-thought which

is the source of all other thoughts. But if you find this vichara

marga too hard for you, you can go on repeating “I, I” and

that will lead you to the same goal. There is no harm in using

‘I’ as a mantra. It is the first name of God.

God is everywhere, but it is difficult to conceive Him in

that aspect, so the books have said, “God is everywhere. He is

also within you. You are Brahman.” So remind yourself: “I am

Brahman”. The repetition of ‘I’ will eventually lead you to realise

“I am Brahman”.

* * * *

A young man called Krishna Jivrajani from Karachi said,

“When I reach the thoughtless stage in my sadhana I enjoy a

certain pleasure, but sometimes I also experience a vague fear

which I cannot properly describe.”

Bhagavan: You may experience anything, but you should

never rest content with that. Whether you feel pleasure or fear,

ask yourself who feels the pleasure or the fear and so carry on

the sadhana until pleasure and fear are both transcended and

all duality ceases and the Reality alone remains.

There is nothing wrong in such things happening or being

experienced, but you must never stop at that. For instance, you

must never rest content with the pleasure of laya experienced

when thought is quelled but must press on until all duality ceases.

* * * *

L.N. Sastri has now written out a fair copy of his verses

to Bhagavan. He read it out to Bhagavan and gave it to

Bhagavan. He then said: “I have stayed here for three days. If

Bhagavan gives me leave I shall go tonight; if not I shall stay

two days more.” As usual in such cases, Bhagavan made no

reply. He took leave of Bhagavan in the evening and departed.

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9-5-46

Nagamma asked me to get her the Asramam book in which

Telugu poems are written so that she could copy in it those of

L.N. Sastri. I took it out and gave it to her. Then I told Bhagavan:

“It seems that this L.N. Sastri is a great poet. Nagamma is all

praise for his poems and tells me he is about the best Telugu

poet who has come to Bhagavan for the past five or six years.”

G. Subba Rao said: “Yes, I agree, he is a great poet.”

Bhagavan said, “He is a pandit in the Raja’s College at

Vizianagaram. Nobody would take him for such a great poet. He

looks a very ordinary man. He wants to become an AÑL® (one

who can compose extempore poems on any given subject). But all

this is only activity of the mind. The more you exercise the mind

and the more success you have in composing verses or doing

satavadanam (giving attention to many things at a time) the less

peace you have. What use is it to acquire such accomplishments if

you don’t acquire peace? But if you tell such people this, it does

not appeal to them. They can’t keep quiet. They must be composing

songs. As Nayana used to say: ‘In going forward one can run any

distance at any speed, but when it is a question of going backward,

that is turning inwards, even one step is hard to take.’

“Somehow it never occurs to me to write any book or

compose poems. All the songs I have made were made at the

request of someone or other in connection with some particular

event. Even the Reality in Forty Verses, of which so many

commentaries and translations now exist, was not planned as a

book but consists of verses composed at different times and

afterwards arranged as a book by Muruganar and others. The

only poems that came to me spontaneously and compelled me,

as it were, to compose them, without anyone urging me to do so,

are the Eight Verses to Arunachala and the Eleven Verses to

Arunachala. The first day the opening words of the Eleven Verses

suddenly came to me one morning, and even if I tried to suppress

them, saying, ‘What have I to do with these words?’ they would

not be suppressed till I composed a song beginning with them,

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and all the words flowed easily without any effort. In the same

way the second stanza was made the next day and the succeeding

ones the following days, one each day. Only the tenth and eleventh

were composed the same day. The next day I started out to go

round the hill. Palaniswami was walking behind me, and after

we had gone some way, Ayyaswami seems to have called him

back and given him a pencil and paper saying, ‘For some days

now Swami has been composing poems every day. He may do

so today as well, so you had better take this paper and pencil

with you.’ I learnt about this only when I noticed that Palani was

not with me for a while but came and joined me later. That day,

before I returned to Skandasramam, I wrote six of the eight stanzas

in the Ashtakam. Either that evening or the next day Narayana

Reddi came. He was at that time living in Vellore as an agent of

Singer & Co. and he used to come from time to time. Ayyaswami

and Palni told him about the poems and he said, ‘Give them to

me at once and I will go and print them.’ He had already published

some books about me. When he insisted on taking the poems, I

told him he could do so and could publish the first eleven as

T§Lm (padikam) and the rest, which were in a different metre,

as @xPLm (ashtakam). To make up the @xPLm I at once

composed two more stanzas and he took all the 19 stanzas with

him to get them published.”

In this connection I told Bhagavan, “I hear Narayana Reddi

is now at Tindivanam and that he stays confined in one room.”

Bhagavan said, “That is all right. The mind must have

peace; that is all that matters.”

In the evening the girl Ramana Sundari came and told

Bhagavan she was going to attend the marriage of her

mother’s uncle.

I asked Bhagavan if he remembered how, the last time

she came back here, she ran up to Bhagavan and caught hold

of Bhagavan’s hands and said: “I have had to wait so long to

see Bhagavan!”

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Bhagavan said, “Yes, she rushed up to me when the others

of her party were still far behind and took both my hands and

pressed them to her heart and said: ‘It is two years since I

have seen Bhagavan!’ Actually, I don’t think it was two years;

I think it was about a year; but apparently she felt so.”

I said, “She was so overcome with emotion that she

disregarded the Asramam rules about going right up to

Bhagavan or touching him.”

Ramaswami Pillai thereupon put in, “These rules don’t

apply in such cases.”

This talk of exceptional cases reminded me of one

instance, about which I now reminded Bhagavan. Some years

ago a Brahmin lad of about 17 came here. I don’t know what

trouble he had at home, but one morning he said to Bhagavan:

“I pray that what I have in mind may come to pass.” And

Bhagavan replied: “Yes, it will come to pass.”

The lad came and told me about it but I did not believe

him because Bhagavan had never, to my knowledge, made

such a promise to any devotee, and this lad was coming to

Bhagavan for the first time. But the next day he repeated the

same request before taking leave and I actually heard

Bhagavan say: “Yes, it will come to pass.”

On hearing this, G. Subba Rao said: “I have had the good

fortune to have a similar experience myself. Once when I was

in trouble and asked Bhagavan about it Bhagavan actually

said: ‘Don’t fear.’ That was many years ago.”

10-5-46

In the afternoon Krishna Jivrajani said to Bhagavan,

“During sadhana I feel that something in me is going up. Is

that right or should it go down?”

Bhagavan: Never mind whether anything goes up or

down. Does it exist without you? Never forget that. Whatever

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experience may come remember who has the experience and

thus cling to ‘I’ or the Self.

Jivrajani: Bhagavan has said one must dive deep into

oneself like pearl divers with breath and speech controlled

and discover the Self or attain the Self. So does Bhagavan

advise me to practise breath-control?

Bhagavan: Breath-control is a help in controlling the

mind and is advised for such as find they cannot control the

mind without some such aid. For those who can control their

mind and concentrate, it is not necessary. It can be used at the

beginning until one is able to control the mind, but then it

should be given up. Since mind and prana rise from the same

source, control of one gives control of the other also.

Jivrajani: Is it good to strain to achieve breath-control?

Bhagavan: No, straining is not good. Only a little

pranayama should be done at the beginning — as much as is

possible without undue strain.

Jivrajani: I have never been able to understand

Bhagavan’s explanation as to how ajnana comes about.

I put in, “Bhagavan has said, ‘Find out to whom is the

ajnana and then the doubt will be dispelled’.”

Bhagavan: Ignorance of what ?

Jivrajani: Bhagavan has said that when the ego is

submerged or killed something else arises within us as ‘I-I’.

Will Bhagavan please tell me more about that?

Bhagavan: Everyone has to find that out by his own

experience. It cannot be described. In the same way, you say,

“something goes up”; can you describe that?

Jivrajani: It is only by developing the intellect that

intuition can be attained; in fact perfection of intellect is

intuition, is that not so?

Bhagavan: How can that be? The merging of the intellect

in the source from which it arose gives birth to intuition, as

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you call it. The intellect is of use only to see outside things,

the outside world. Perfection of the intellect would lead only

to seeing the outside world well. But the intellect is of no use

at all for seeing within, for turning inwards towards the Self.

For that, it has to be killed or extinguished, or in other words

it has to merge in the source from which it sprang.

Jivrajani: Has closing the eyes during meditation any

efficacy?

Bhagavan: The eyes can be closed or open as one finds

convenient. It is not the eyes that see. There is one who sees

through the eyes. If he is turned inwards and is not looking

through the eyes they can be open and yet nothing will be

seen. If we keep our eyes closed it is the same to us whether

the windows of this room are open or shut.

Jivrajani: Suppose there is some disturbance during

meditation, such as mosquito bites, should one persist in

meditation and try to bear the bites and ignore the interruption

or drive the mosquitoes away and then continue the

meditation?

Bhagavan: You must do as you find most convenient. You

will not attain mukti simply because you refrain from driving

away the mosquitoes, nor be denied mukti simply because you

drive them away. The thing is to attain one-pointedness and

then to attain mano-nasa. Whether you do this by putting up

with the mosquito bites or driving the mosquitoes away is left

to you. If you are completely absorbed in your meditation you

will not know that the mosquitoes are biting you. Till you attain

that stage why should you not drive them away?

11-5-46

L.N. Sastri, who had taken leave of Bhagavan on the 8th,

returned today. After he left the Asramam I was talking to

Bhagavan about him and said that his poems seemed good but

that it was a pity he did not tell us their meaning, as the

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Pudukottai Pundit had, and Bhagavan said: “He also would

have explained them if you had asked him.” So today I asked

him, and at about 3 o’clock in the afternoon he gave the gist of

the poems as follows:

“You, Bhagavan have realized the Self, turning away from

the world and going inwards into yourself. You have come into

the world for its benefit and uplift. I am always going out,

attracted by the world and its objects; nor is there anything

strange in this, since God has given me the senses and sense

organs, between which and the things of the world he has created

a natural and irresistible attraction. It is not possible to escape

from this without the aid of a Guru who has himself escaped. I

have been in search of a Guru, and today it has at last been my

lot to come face to face with one, and I feel that today all my

misery is ended. I have read books about the Self but had no

actual experience. It is for you, endowed, as the great ones have

said, with the nature and power of Lord Subrahmanya, as the

embodiment of tenderness and mercy, come here for the uplift

and enlightenment of the world, to take me up and bless me

and save me, as I surrender myself completely to you.”

When he had finished this explanation of his verses, he

asked us to give him some subject on which he would try to

compose verses extempore. We all said: “Why then, on

Bhagavan. What other subject need we suggest?” So he

composed a few verses on Bhagavan very fast and fluently.

An advocate from Guntur who was there jotted them down,

but in some places he could not keep pace with the poet and

had to leave blanks.

In the evening M.V. Ramaswami Aiyar’s son brought

two printed copies of Adhyatma Ramayanam and gave them

to Bhagavan, and Bhagavan immediately began going through

them. M. V. R. Aiyar composed this work about a year ago

but it has only just been printed.

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14-5-46

At 11 o’clock this morning, the Asramam lunch-time,

Bose’s mother brought various dishes that she had specially

prepared for Bhagavan and was serving them herself. She has

brought food like this a number of times during recent weeks,

and it means a good deal of cooking, since Bhagavan will not

take anything unless there is enough for all to partake of it alike.

Bhagavan asked me to tell her not to take all this trouble and to

say that it was work enough to prepare food for her family and

it was unnecessary to send things for so many people. He said:

“Let her cook and eat her food at home, dedicating some of it

to me, saying ‘this is for Bhagavan’. They think I have special

liking for one thing or another, but really I have not. All food is

the same to me. I would gladly mix up all the different things

served and take it all together, but those who have prepared the

food and think, ‘Bhagavan will like this’ or ‘Bhagavan will like

that’ would be disappointed, so I don’t. Time was when I took

pleasure in variety, but after realizing unity all that disappeared.”

15-5-46

In answer to a visitor Bhagavan made the following remarks:

“You can have, or rather you will yourself be, the highest

imaginable kind of happiness. All other kinds of happiness

which you have spoken of as ‘pleasure’, ‘joy’, ‘happiness’,

‘bliss’ are only reflections of the ananda which, in your true

nature, you are.

“You need not bother about the lights which you say

you see around things and people. Whether lights are seen or

sounds are heard or whatever may happen, never let go the

enquiry ‘Who am I?’ Keep on asking inwardly: ‘Who sees

these lights or hears these sounds?’

“What do you mean by taking sannyasa? Do you think

it means leaving your home or wearing robes of a certain

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colour? Wherever you go, even if you fly up into the air,

will your mind not go with you? Or can you leave it behind

you and go without it?”

Another visitor asked Bhagavan for a benedictory

foreword to a book he had written, called The Destiny of

Freedom or something of that sort. He said that someone else

had already agreed to write an introduction but he would be

grateful if Bhagavan would write a few words conveying his

message and blessing. Bhagavan explained to him that he had

never done such a thing and therefore should not be expected

to now. The visitor persisted, and I went to some trouble to

convince him that all his persuasion would be in vain. Then

he began saying that the world badly needs a spiritual message

and that the youth of India and of the world are not properly

brought up, since religion is not instilled into them, and so

forth. I had to tell him that Bhagavan holds that before a man

tries to reform the world he should first know himself, and

then he can go about reforming the world if he still feels the

inclination. I believe the visitor was still for continuing his

argument but fortunately it was time for the parayanam and

he was effectively stopped by our starting to chant.

23-5-46

I had been away for several days and this morning was

standing at the doorway to the dining hall when Bhagavan

entered, so I thought he saw me, but apparently he did not

recognise me, so bad has his eyesight become. And yet he

will not use his spectacles. At breakfast I was sitting in the

first place in the row on his right and he recognised me and

asked when I had arrived. I replied, “Last night, but it was

after 9-30 when I arrived.”

G.V. Subbaramayya had come while I was away and he

was making a Telugu translation of a parody Bhagavan had

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composed of a stanza by Avvai. Avvai’s stanza goes: “Oh,

pain-giving stomach, you will not go without food even for

one day, nor will you take enough for two days at a time. You

have no idea of the trouble I have on your account. It is

impossible to get on with you.”

Bhagavan immediately replied with a parody giving the

stomach’s complaint against the ego: “Oh ego! You will not

give even an hour’s rest to me, your stomach. Day after day,

every hour, you keep on eating. You have no idea how I suffer;

it is impossible to get on with you.”

Then Bhagavan explained, “In the month of Chittrai in

1931, on full moon day, we had all eaten heavily and everyone

was complaining of uneasiness in the stomach, so someone, I

think the late Somasundaram, quoted this stanza of Avvai’s.

Then I said that the stomach had more cause to complain against

us than we against it. It can be expected to work but it should

be given some rest too and after taking rest it can work again.

But we never give it a rest. It might not mind even having no

rest if we gave it more food to digest only when it had finished

digesting what we had already given, but we do not even do

that; we load it with more food while it is still digesting the

previous meal. So it has just cause for complaint. That is why I

composed a stanza like that.”

Then Bhagavan asked whether I had been shown the

photograph of the Dakshinamurti image at Madras Museum that

had been received at the Asramam during my absence. I said that

I had not but that the Parsi boy, Framji’s son, had told me about

it. So Bhagavan asked T.P.R. to show it to me. I found it had the

head turned to the right but the eyes looking rather to the left.

When I mentioned this Bhagavan said: “Head and face are all

the same; perhaps that is why he wrote — ‘with face turned to

the right’.” Bhagavan was referring to a phrase in the letter that

accompanied the photograph. Someone remarked that the gaze

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seemed to be turned rather inwards than to the left and I must

admit that it is so.

When I entered the hall in the afternoon Bhagavan was

already explaining in answer to some questions put by Mr. Poonja,

a Punjabi:

“I ask you to see where the ‘I’ arises in your body, but it is

really not quite correct to say that the ‘I’ rises from and merges

in the heart in the right side of the chest. The heart is another

name for the Reality and it is neither inside nor outside the

body; there can be no in or out for it, since it alone is. I do not

mean by ‘heart’ any physiological organ or any plexus of nerves

or anything like that, but so long as one identifies oneself with

the body and thinks he is in the body he is advised to see where

in the body the ‘I’-thought rises and merges again. It must be

the heart at the right side of the chest since every man, of

whatever race and religion and in whatever language he may

be saying ‘I’, points to the right side of the chest to indicate

himself. This is so all over the world, so that must be the place.

And by keenly watching the daily emergence of the ‘I’-thought

on waking and its subsiding in sleep, one can see that it is in the

heart on the right side.”

In the course of the day, G.V. Subbaramayya asked

Bhagavan how Ganapati Sastri wrote his Ramana Gita, whether

he took notes on the conversations and then wrote them out.

Bhagavan replied, “Remembering such talks was child’s play to

him. He could listen to a long and learned lecture on some intricate

subject and then at the end reproduce the gist of it accurately in

the form of sutras, not omitting anything of importance that had

been said. Once he and Arunachala Sastri, who was also a learned

man, had a discussion. Ganapati Sastri took up the position of

drishti srishti, that we create and then see, that is to say that the

world has no objective reality apart from our minds, while

Arunachala Sastri took up the opposite view of srishti drishti,

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that creation exists objectively before we see it. Arunachala Sastri

argued first and upheld his standpoint with a great display of

logic and learning and many quotations. Then Ganapati Sastri

wrote down in the form of sutras all that he had maintained and

asked him whether the sutras gave a faithful summary of

everything he had said. He agreed that they did, so Ganapati

Sastri said: “Then now you will have my criticism and

condemnation of it”. He then expounded very ably the advaitic

point of view, that the world is an illusion as world but real as

Brahman, that it does not exist as world but exists and is real as

Brahman. In the same way he could record any discussion he

heard; so remarkable was his power of memory, that he must

have reproduced the Ramana Gita in that way. It would have

been mere child’s play for him.”

24-5-46

Crowds of devotees have already arrived for tomorrow’s

Mahapuja.* All is bustle and joy with devotees meeting again

under Bhagavan’s gracious watchful care. One of the arrivals

was Mrs. Ranga Aiyar, the wife of Bhagavan’s boyhood friend

at Tiruchuzhi. She brought two ladies with her and introduced

them to Bhagavan. Bhagavan asked her, “Has Ranga come?”

and she said, “No”.

In the afternoon she sang. After singing three songs from

Ramana Stuthi Panchakam she sang a song from Ramanamritam.

Bhagavan called G.V.S. and told him, “This is from the songs

composed by Ranga Aiyar’s son celebrating my ‘marriage’.”

G.V.S. came and told me this and I told him that the author was

the old lady’s son and that she was Ranga Aiyar’s wife.

25-5-46

Mahapuja* was celebrated in a grand scale as usual.

* Death Anniversary of the Mother of Bhagavan.

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26-5-46

When today’s mail came Bhagavan read a postcard and

said, “Pichumani Aiyar of Madurai writes that Meenakshi is

no more. Only this morning or yesterday I thought of her and

now I get this news.”

G.V.S. read out to Bhagavan two stanzas that he had

composed on the occasion of his last visit. Their gist was, “On

seeing your kindness to all sorts of animals, to squirrels, peacocks,

dogs, cows and monkeys, how can one remain unaffected? One’s

very bones melt at it. All sorts of birds and beasts approach you,

receive your glance and touch, and so attain salvation. Vouchsafe

the same to this human animal and save it also.”

In the afternoon Ramaswami Aiyar of Manamadura, a

relative of Bhagavan, came and sat in the hall and Bhagavan

said to him: “Do you know, Meenakshi is no more. We

received this news from Pichu this morning. Only this morning

or yesterday I thought of her as my last paternal aunt still

surviving, and now she too has passed away.”

After some further talk Bhagavan said, “Once before,

when your wife was ill, I dreamed that I went and sat beside

her bed and touched her and she opened her eyes and asked,

‘Who is touching me?’ and when she saw it was I, she said,

‘Is it you? Then you can’. I do not know whether she had

any corresponding dream.”

G.V.S. Replied, “I asked about this and learned that

Mrs.Ranga Aiyar had a corresponding dream that Bhagavan

came and sat beside her and touched her.”

In this connection, G.V.S. Said, “I was once present when

Bhagavan’s aunt came here — the one who fed him when he

left for Tiruvannamalai — Bhagavan was specially gracious

to her. I could not help wondering why Bhagavan was so

gracious towards his aunt when he is said to have been harsh

236

towards his mother. Is it because Bhagavan wanted to help

rid her of the natural feeling that Bhagavan was her son?”

Bhagavan kept quiet, and I too said that he must have

behaved so deliberately in order to train her to see in him a

jnani and not her son. He still did not answer but we gathered

from his attitude that our surmise was correct. And then after

some time Bhagavan said: “I used to say something harsh to

her and she would cry, and then I would say, ‘Go on, cry! The

more you cry the better pleased I am’.”

27-5-46

Nagamma’s niece, a girl of about 9, wanted to know why

Bhagavan would never leave Tiruvannamalai and go to visit

his devotees. She put the question through G.V.S. but

Bhagavan kept silent. However, she importuned G.V.S. to get

a reply. Finally Bhagavan said: “You wanted to see me, so

you came here, and as I am always here you were able to see

me; but if I kept moving about you might not find me here.

Many people come here and if I was absent they would have

to go away disappointed. And even if I left here how do you

know I should ever reach your house, when there are so many

people in Tiruvannamalai and other towns on the way who

would invite me to their houses. If I agreed to go to your

house I should have to agree to go to their houses too, and I

might never reach yours. And besides, all this crowd of people

you see here would go with me. Even here I can’t go anywhere

or the whole crowd follow, like that time when I went to

Skandasramam.” He added, jokingly, “I am kept in

confinement. This is my gaol.”

28-5-46

In the afternoon Mrs. Ranga Aiyar sang almost the whole

of the book Ramanamritam composed by her son about the

‘marriage’ of Bhagavan to jnana. Bhagavan listened very

237

graciously. One of the songs referred to an incident in his

fifth or sixth year when, for something that he had done, his

father said: “Take away his cloth and drive him out.” I asked

Bhagavan about this and it led him to talk about those early

years and about a group photograph of his father and others

that was taken in the hospital compound and another that was

taken later of himself with his uncle. He said that it was from

a copy of the group with his father, recovered from Ranga

Aiyar’s house, that we got the photograph of his father that

hangs in the dining hall, but that the other photograph, the

one with Bhagavan in it, had been lost.

In the evening, when Bhagavan was going out,

Nagamma’s niece was standing in his way and Bhagavan said,

laughing, “If you want to take me you will have to tie me up

and put me in a cart; that is the only way.”

29-5-46

Bose: When the Upanishads say that all is Brahman, how

can we say, like Shankara, that this world is mithya or illusory?

Bhagavan: Shankara also said that this world is Brahman

or the Self. What he objected to is one’s imagining that the

Self is limited by the names and forms that constitute the

world. He only said that the world does not exist apart from

Brahman. Brahman or the Self is like the screen and the world

is like the pictures on it. You can see the picture only so long

as there is a screen. But when the seer himself becomes the

screen only the Self remains. Kaivalya Navaneeta has asked

and answered six questions about maya. They are instructive.

The first question is: What is maya? And the answer is:

It is anirvachaniya or indescribable.

The second question is: To whom does it come? And the

answer is: To the mind or ego who feels that he is a separate

entity, who thinks: ‘I do this’ or ‘this is mine’.

238

The third question is: Where does it come from and how

did it originate? And the answer is: Nobody can say.

The fourth question is: How did it arise? And the answer

is: Through non-vichara, through failure to ask: who am I?

The fifth question is: If the Self and maya both exist does

not this invalidate the theory of Advaita? The answer is: It need

not, since maya is dependent on the Self as the picture is on the

screen. The picture is not real in the sense that the screen is real.

The sixth question is: If the Self and maya are one, could it

not be argued that the Self is of the nature of maya, that is illusory?

And the answer is: No; the Self can be capable of producing

illusion without being illusory. A conjuror may create for our

entertainment the illusion of people, animals and things, and we

see all of them as clearly as we see him; but after the performance

he alone remains and all the visions he had created have

disappeared. He is not a part of the illusion but is real and solid.

30-5-46

Today again Bose reverted to the subject of maya and

asked Bhagavan, “What is Hiranyagarbha?”

Bhagavan replied, “Hiranyagarbha is only another name

for the sukshma sarira or Ishwara. The books use the following

illustration to help explain creation. The Self is like the canvas

for a painting. First a paste is smeared over it to close up the

small holes that are in any cloth. This paste can be compared to

the antaryami in all creation. Then the artist makes an outline

on the canvas, and this can be compared to the sukshma sarira

of all creation, for instance the light and sound, nada, bindu,

out of which all things arise. Then the artist paints his picture

with colours etc., in this outline, and this can be compared to

the gross forms that constitute the world.”

In the afternoon, T.P. Ramachandra Aiyar remarked:

“Chadwick has a picture of Bhagavan in a recumbent posture

239

where Bhagavan looks a mere skeleton. I don’t think anyone

else has such a picture.”

I said: It must have been taken at the time when Bhagavan

was purposely under-eating.

Bhagavan said: Yes, for some time when I was at

Skandasramam I used to take only one meal a day at 11 a.m.

and nothing else. At that time I got very thin.

In connection with this, G.V.S. asked Bhagavan about

his early days and whether he ever went about accepting alms.

Then Bhagavan related how it was T.P. Ramachandra Aiyar’s

father who first took him by mere force to his house and fed

him, and how the first time he begged for food was from

Chinna Gurukal’s wife. He went on to tell how after that he

freely begged in almost all the streets of Tiruvannamalai. He

said: “You cannot conceive of the majesty and dignity I felt

while so begging. The first day, when I begged from Gurukal’s

wife, I felt bashful about it as a result of habits of upbringing,

but after that there was absolutely no feeling of abasement. I

felt like a king and more than a king. I have sometimes received

stale gruel at some house and taken it without salt or any other

flavouring, in the open street, before great pandits and other

important men who used to come and prostrate themselves

before me at my Asramam, then wiped my hands on my head

and passed on supremely happy and in a state of mind in which

even emperors were mere straw in my sight. You can’t imagine

it. It is because there is such a path that we find tales in history

of kings giving up their thrones and taking to this path.”

In illustration of this, Bhagavan told us a story of a king

who renounced his throne and went begging, first outside the

limits of his State, then in his own State, then in its capital city,

and finally in the royal palace itself, and thus at last got rid of his

ego-sense. After some time, when he was wandering as an ascetic

in another State, he was chosen to be its king and accepted because

240

now that he had completely lost the sense of ‘I’ he could act any

part in life as a mere witness and the cares of kingship no longer

worried him. When his own former State heard of it, they also

asked him to resume his kingship, and he did so, because however

many kingdoms he might rule over, he realized now that he was

not the doer but simply an instrument in God’s hands.

Actually, Bhagavan did not finish the story, because when

he was in the middle of it Mrs. Ranga Aiyar began to sing and

he broke off and told us apologetically, “She is leaving tonight

and wants to finish all her songs before she goes.” I asked

him for the rest of the story next day.

31-5-46

Mr. Phillips, an Englishman who used to be a missionary

and is now a teacher and who has been about 20 years in

Hyderabad, came this morning. He said: “I lost my son in the

war. What is the way for his salvation?”

Bhagavan was silent for a while and then replied. “Your

worry is due to thinking. Anxiety is a creation of the mind.

Your real nature is peace. Peace has not got to be achieved; it is

our nature. To find consolation, you may reflect: ‘God gave,

God has taken away; He knows best’. But the true remedy is to

enquire into your true nature. It is because you feel that your

son does not exist that you feel grief. If you knew that he existed

you would not feel grief. That means that the source of the

grief is mental and not an actual reality. There is a story given

in some books how two boys went on a pilgrimage and after

some days news came back that one of them was dead. However,

the wrong one was reported dead, and the result was that the

mother who had lost her son went about as cheerful as ever,

while the one who had still got her son was weeping and

lamenting. So it is not any object or condition that causes grief

but only our thought about it. Your son came from the Self and

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was absorbed back into the Self. Before he was born, where

was he apart from the Self? He is our Self in reality. In deep

sleep the thought of ‘I’ or ‘child’ or ‘death’ does not occur to

you, and you are the same person who existed in sleep. If you

enquire in this way and find out your real nature, you will know

your son’s real nature also. He always exists. It is only you

who think he is lost. You create a son in your mind, and think

that he is lost, but in the Self he always exists.”

K.M. Jivrajani: What is the nature of life after physical

death?

Bhagavan: Find out about your present life. Why do you

worry about life after death? If you realize the present you

will know everything.

In the afternoon, Bhagavan saw a relative of his, a young

man called Sesha Aiyar, in the hall. He said: “Seeing you reminds

me of something that happened in Dindigul when I was a boy.

Your uncle Periappa Seshaiyar was living there then. There was

some function in the house and all went to it and then in the night

went to the temple. I was left alone in the house. I was sitting

reading in the front room, but after a while I locked the front

door and fastened the windows and went to sleep. When they

returned from the temple no amount of shouting or banging at

the door or window could wake me. At last they managed to

open the door with a key from the opposite house and then they

tried to wake me up by beating me. All the boys beat me to their

heart’s content, and your uncle did too, but without effect. I knew

nothing about it till they told me next morning.”

I asked, “How old was Bhagavan then?”

Bhagavan said, “About eleven.” Then he continued: “The

same sort of thing happened to me in Madurai too. The boys

didn’t dare touch me when I was awake, but if they had any

grudge against me they would come when I was asleep and

carry me wherever they liked and beat me as much as they

242

liked and then put me back to bed, and I would know nothing

about it until they told me in the morning.”

I said, “It would seem that even in those days Bhagavan’s

sleep was not ordinary sleep but some state like samadhi.”

Bhagavan: I don’t know what state it was, but that is the

fact. Some who have written about my life have called it

somnambulism.

I: It was certainly not somnambulism; that is walking in

one’s sleep. This was more like samadhi or absorption in the

Self.

In the evening Bose asked, “Is it good to do japa and puja

and so on when we know that enquiry into the Self is the real

thing?”

Bhagavan: All are good. They will lead to this

eventually. Japa is our real nature. When we realize the

Self then japa goes on without effort. What is the means at

one stage becomes the goal at another. When effortless,

constant japa goes on, it is realisation.

Bose: Why did Bhagavan regard Arunachala as Father?

Bhagavan did not reply but sat smiling.

Bose: Perhaps for the benefit of others?

Bhagavan: Yes; so long as there is the feeling ‘I’, it must

have a source from whence it came.

1-6-46

When Bhagavan returned from his morning walk at about

7-45, the attendant Sivananda offered to massage his legs.

Bhagavan forbade him and said: “If I let them they go on

massaging for a long time. This morning too, at parayana, I

did not let them. They begin with the parayana and don’t

stop till it is finished, and sometimes I am unaware of it.”

243

G.V. Subbaramayya: Bhagavan once told me that

Bhagavan is aware of the beginning of parayana and knows

nothing more till the end of it.

Bhagavan: Yes, it often happens that I hear the beginning

and then the end and have been absorbed so that I have lost

count of time in between, and then I have wondered whether

they had left out whole passages to get to the end so soon.

After a moment, Bhagavan continued: “Similarly, those

people go on massaging and I am sometimes not at all aware

that I am being massaged. So now I am not going to let them.

I will do it myself.” So saying, Bhagavan took the liniment

and rubbed it over his knees.

In the afternoon Bhagavan explained in answer to

Mr. H.C. Khanna of Kanpur:

Why should your occupation or duties in life interfere

with your spiritual effort? For instance, there is a difference

between your activities at home and in the office. In your

office activities you are detached and so long as you do your

duty you do not care what happens or whether it results in

gain or loss to the employer. But your duties at home are

performed with attachment and you are all the time anxious

as to whether they will bring advantage or disadvantage to

you and your family. But it is possible to perform all the

activities of life with detachment and regard only the Self as

real. It is wrong to suppose that if one is fixed in the Self

one’s duties in life will not be properly performed. It is like

an actor. He dresses and acts and even feels the part he is

playing, but he knows really that he is not that character but

someone else in real life. In the same way, why should the

body-consciousness or the feeling ‘I-am-the-body’ disturb

you, once you know for certain that you are not the body but

the Self? Nothing that the body does should shake you from

abidance in the Self. Such abidance will never interfere with

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the proper and effective discharge of whatever duties the body

has, any more than the actor’s being aware of his real status

in life interferes with his acting a part on the stage.

You ask whether you can tell yourself: “I am not the

body but the Self”. Of course, whenever you feel tempted to

identify yourself with the body (as you may often have to,

owing to old vasanas) it may be a help to remind yourself

that you are not the body but the Self. But you should not

make such repetition a mantram, constantly saying: “I am

not the body but the Self”. By proper enquiry into the Self,

the notion ‘I am this body’ will gradually vanish and in time

the faith that you are the Self will become unshakeable.

K.M. Jivrajani: In the early stages would it not be a help

to man to seek solitude and give up his outer duties in life?

Bhagavan: Renunciation is always in the mind, not in

going to forests or solitary places or giving up one’s duties.

The main thing is to see that the mind does not turn outward

but inward. It does not really rest with a man whether he

goes to this place or that or whether he gives up his duties or

not. All that happens according to destiny. All the activities

that the body is to go through are determined when it first

comes into existence. It does not rest with you to accept or

reject them. The only freedom you have is to turn your mind

inward and renounce activities there.

K.M. Jivrajani: But is it not possible for something to

be a help, especially to a beginner? Like a fence round a young

tree. For instance, don’t our books say that it is helpful to go

on pilgrimage to sacred shrines or to get sat sang.

Bhagavan: Who said they are not helpful? Only such

things do not rest with you, as turning your mind inward does.

Many people desire the pilgrimage or sat sang that you

mention, but do they all get it?

245

K.M. Jivrajani: Why is it that turning inward alone is

left to us and not any outer things?

I answered: Nobody can answer that. That is the Divine

scheme.

Bhagavan: If you want to go to fundamentals, you must

enquire who you are and find out who it is who has freedom

or destiny. Who are you and why did you get this body that

has these limitations?

3-6-46

G.V. Subbaramayya: Did Subramania Bharati ever come

to Bhagavan?

Bhagavan: I think he did once. It was when we were on

the hill. One evening when only Sivayya (the late Mauni

Swami of Kutralam), who is dead now, was with me, someone

came and sat for nearly an hour before me and then went

away without saying a word. Later, when I saw pictures of

Bharati I thought it must have been he.

G.V. Subbaramayya: Was it Sivayya who beat a monkey

and the monkey was so grieved that it went and drowned itself?

Bhagavan: No, it was someone else. And the monkey was

not even beaten, it was only scolded. Even that was more than it

could stand and it went and drowned itself very soon after. It was

a dog that was beaten. He was a very strange dog. All day he

would lie quiet in a place among the rocks, higher up than our

Asramam, and where it was not easy to see him, and he would

only go out at night. Seeing something black going out and

coming back at night, we looked during the day time and found

that it was a dog. He continued in this way for many days, so we

took pity on him and began giving him food. But even then he

would not come near us. We used to put some food a little distance

away from us and he would come and eat it and then go away. If

246

we went near he would run away. And then one day, when a

number of us had been out and were returning, this dog ran up to

us, and he came straight to me out of all the crowd and jumped

up on me and tried to make friends with me. After that he stayed

with us and he would go and lie in the lap of any devotee. Some

of the orthodox ones didn’t like it, and one day Iswara Swami

beat him for interfering when a devotee was doing puja. This

was more than the dog could stand and he immediately

disappeared. We don’t know what happened to him. We searched

for him but could never find out.

After this, the talk turned to some of the famous or

notable persons who had visited Bhagavan. Speaking of the

late Maharaja of Mysore, Bhagavan said: “He came and stayed

quietly and then went away.”

Some of us asked whether he did not ask any questions,

and Bhagavan said, “No, no, nothing of that sort.”

I said, “I have heard that he asked for Bhagavan’s blessing

to be able to rule his subjects to their best advantage, or

something like that.”

Bhagavan: Yes, he asked for blessing on his work. He

said, “I can’t serve you, as those here are privileged to, but

still I crave your grace,” or something like that. Apart from

that he did not discuss anything with me.

Somebody wanted to know what happened when

Rajendra Prasad was here.

Bhagavan: He also was quiet all the days he was here.

K.S. Seshagiri Aiyar: I was here at the time. Bajaj did all

the talking. He talked for Rajendra also. I remember him saying:

“Rajendra gave up a very lucrative practice to work for his

country; why should such a man be plagued with a distressing

complaint like asthma?” And Bhagavan was silent for a while

and then replied: “This body itself is a disease, so that is a

disease of a disease.”

247

Bhagavan: When Satyamurti came he also was silent and

never spoke at all. When Srinivasa Sastri came he asked me some

questions but when I put him counter-questions he would not

answer them. He wanted to go his own way. I wanted to take him

inward but he wouldn’t, and he wanted to pull me outward.

In the afternoon K.S.S. (Ramanadasa) narrated the

following incident:

When Bhagavan was living at Skandasramam I was once

alone with him, sitting on the steps leading up to the Asramam

when a man came to the gate with his family and stopped

there and called out to me. When I went there he asked me to

go and ask the Swami whether they could approach him and

receive his darshan. I was surprised and said, “Why do you

ask permission?” And he said, “We are untouchables.”

I started to go back to Bhagavan, but then it occurred to

me that even to ask Bhagavan would be an injustice to him,

so I told the man that caste had no meaning with Bhagavan

and that they would be welcome. The whole party came and

prostrated before Bhagavan, and I well remember how for

about ten minutes his gracious look dwelt on that untouchable

and his family; and how many rich and notable people have I

seen fall at his feet without being vouchsafed such grace.

* * * *

Bhagavan was going through the latest edition of Ramana

Lila and pointing out to G.V.S. some errors that had crept

into it, and in the course of the talk he referred to one

Kathirvelu who was his class-mate at Tiruchuzhi and in whose

notebook he had, at Kathirvelu’s request, written down his

name, class and school in English and added ‘Madras

Presidency’ in Tamil and had also numbered the pages in his

own hand. The classmate never came here, but after his death

his son sent the notebook together with another one in which

Kathirvelu had written various things, including essays on

248

religious subjects. Bhagavan wanted to show us the notebooks,

especially the one in which he had written a few lines, but we

couldn’t find it, so Bhagavan himself got up from his couch

and came to the shelf and picked it out for us. The Tamil

handwriting even then was like print, and so was the

numbering of the pages.

6-6-46

In the afternoon G.V.S. asked, “What is the difference

between manasa japa and dhyana?”

Bhagavan: They are the same. In both, the mind is

concentrated on one thing, the mantra or the Self. Mantra,

japa, dhyana — are only different names. So long as they

require effort we call them by these names, but when the Self

is realized this goes on without any effort and what was the

means becomes the goal.

8-6-46

T.P.R., G.V.S. and some others went in a party today to

Gurumoortham, the mango orchard nearby, Ayyankulam,

Arunagirinatha Temple, the Pathalalingam Temple, the Vahana

Mantap, the iluppai tree within the Big Temple — all the places

where Bhagavan stayed in his early days. When they got back

in the evening Bhagavan asked them about their expedition and

they said it was very enjoyable and that at Ayyankulam and on

the way back from there they sang in ecstasy, Viswamoorthi

taking the lead in singing and in rousing them to ecstasy.

Bhagavan said that the marks left on the wall at

Gurumoortham by his leaning against it and also the first

writing in charcoal for Nayanar could still be discerned if the

whitewash were scraped off. They said that the whole place

was now filled with bundles of tobacco so that they could not

even see the corner where Bhagavan used to sit.

249

9-6-46

In the afternoon T.P. Ramachandra Aiyar made

Viswamoorthi sing two of the songs he had sung at

Gurumoortham the previous day. After that Viswamoorthi

sang his Kannada life of Bhagavan in which each line ends

with ‘Sri Ramana’, and T.P.R. and I joined in the ‘Sri Ramana’

as a chorus. T.P.R. then told Bhagavan that the previous day

Venkatesa Sastri had roused them to sing this song with

fervour, and they not only sang but danced and went into

ecstasy. Bhagavan said, “Is that so? They did not tell me that

yesterday: I thought you simply sang.”

10-6-46

Dr. Haridas, a disciple of Swami Madhava Theertha and

a relative of Mahatma Gandhi by marriage, asked Bhagavan,

“If ajnana is also Brahman, why is Brahman not visible but

only ajnana or the world?”

Bhagavan: Brahman is not to be seen or known. It is

beyond the triputis (triads) of seer, seen and seeing or knower,

knowledge and knowing. The Reality remains ever as it is; that

there is ajnana or the world is due to our moham or illusion.

Neither knowledge nor ignorance is real; what is beyond this,

as all other pairs of opposites, is the Reality. It is neither light

nor darkness but beyond both, though we sometimes have to

speak of it as light and of ignorance as its shadow.

G.V.S.: It is said that the Self cannot be realized by

reading books but only by anubhava (personal experience).

Bhagavan: What is anubhava? It is only going beyond

the pairs of opposites or the triputis.

In the evening Bhagavan said with reference to a question

somebody had asked: “During sleep there is both the Self and

ajnana — ajnana because we knew nothing and the Self

250

because we existed, and when we wake we say, ‘I slept well’,

although we knew nothing. If one asks how the Self and ajnana

can exist together, any more than light and darkness, the

answer is that to one who realises, the Self is all light and

there is no such thing as darkness at all, but to one who has

not realised we say that there can be ajnana in the Self like

the seeming shadows on the moon.”

13-6-46

Visitor: I do japa with an image of Lord Subrahmanya

with Valli and Daivayanai on either side, but as soon as I close

my eyes the image of Subrahmanya as the Palani Andavar, that

is as a beggar with a staff, appears before my mind’s eye. I

don’t know what that means. Should I change the image I have

before me for japa?

Bhagavan did not reply.

I said to Bhagavan: It is strange that when a man does

japa before an image another image though of the same God

should appear before his mind’s eye.

Then the visitor added: There is one more thing I must

add. I used to do japa before a Palani Andavar image; but my

mother said that such an image is not auspicious in a household

and that I should change it for one of Lord Subrahmanya with

Valli and Daivayanai.

I said: Now it is understandable. That is probably the

explanation.

But still Bhagavan made no reply.

An ascetic claiming to be a native of Bagdad, naked,

keeping silent and holding his right arm permanently aloft in

the air, has been staying in Palakothu since the 11th. He claims

to have been with Sai Baba for 25 years. If this is true he must

be at least 65 now, though he looks only 30 or 35. He met

Bhagavan this morning when Bhagavan was returning from

251

his morning walk and asked for Bhagavan’s blessing. I went to

see him out of curiosity. He sent the following question to

Bhagavan through Ramasubba Aiyar: “What is my future?”

First Bhagavan said, “Why does he bother about the

future and not the present?” Later he added: “Tell him his

future will be as his present is.”

I told Bhagavan that I was not impressed with him. When

I told Bhagavan that his finger nails were five or six inches

long, Bhagavan said, “That means nothing. When I was at

Gurumoortham I found that in less than a year the nails grow

an inch long. Matted locks also grow very long in a few years.

Ordinary hair does not grow so long. I remember when

Udhandi Nayanar had matted hair only five or six inches long

and twenty-five years later it was fifteen feet long. So however

long and imposing nails and matted hair may be they are no

sign of great age.”

I recalled how Bhagavan had once told us that in those early

days people used to look at his nails and say: “He is ever so old;

he has been like this for years.” And Bhagavan said, “Yes, yes.”

15-6-46

When I entered the hall in the evening Bhagavan was

saying, “Everything we see is changing, always changing.

There must be something unchanging as the basis and

source of all this.”

G.V.S.: What justification have we for imagining that the

source of all this must be unchanging?

Bhagavan: It is not mere thinking or imagining that the

‘I’ is unchanging. It is a fact of which everyone is aware. The

‘I’ exists in sleep when all the changing things do not exist. It

exists in dream and in waking. The ‘I’ remains changeless in

all these states while other things come and go.

252

Dr. S. Mani, Assistant Director of Public Health at

Madras, a frequent visitor, asked Bhagavan “But why should

these things, that is the world, appear?”

Bhagavan: To whom does it appear? You see and so the

world exists. Does it exist independently of the seer? Does it

come and tell you, “I exist”? What proof is there of its

existence except that you say you see or perceive it?

Another visitor said to Bhagavan: I want to have darshan

of God. What should I do?

Bhagavan: First we must know what you mean by ‘I’

and ‘God’ and by ‘darshan of God’.

The visitor dropped the matter and said no more.

16-6-46

G.V.S.: Is it stated in any book that for ultimate and final

Self-realization one must ultimately come to the Heart even

after reaching sahasrara, and that the Heart is at the right

side?

Bhagavan: No. I have not come across this in any book.

But in a Malayalam book on medicine I came across a stanza

locating the heart on the right side and I have translated it into

Tamil in the Supplement to the Forty Verses.

We know nothing about the other centres. We cannot be

sure what we arrive at in concentrating on them and realizing

them. But as the ‘I’ arises from the Heart it must sink back

and merge there for Self-realization.

Later in the day G.V.S. said, “It is said that by repeating

his own name a number of times Tennyson used to get into a

state in which the world completely disappeared and he

realised that it was all illusion.” And a discussion ensued as

to where the quotation came from and whether we could

find it.

253

17-6-46

When Bhagavan returned from his morning walk on the

Hill, a Bangalore photographer took a photograph of him in

Padmasanam posture for inclusion in the Golden Jubilee

Souvenir that is to be brought out in September.

Sri Gunaji, a retired advocate who is now a naturopath

at Belgaum, has been here for some days, massaging

Bhagavan’s legs for rheumatism, and today he sang a song he

had composed in Hindi. He gave its meaning in English as: “I

ask nothing of Thee, Lord; but if Thou art disposed to grant

me any favour, then take away this ego-sense, kill all my

thoughts, destroy the world and let my mind be dissolved in

the ocean of Self.”

Bhagavan said, laughing, “You are not asking me to give

but to take.” And then he added, “There is nothing to give. If

all this goes, that is the ego and the world created by it, the

Reality remains. That is all. Nothing new is brought in. If the

false goes the true remains.”

In continuation of yesterday’s conversation about

Tennyson, the relevant passage was found in a footnote to the

English translation of Upadesa Saram. It was not in a poem

but in a letter to B.P. Blood. Bhagavan asked me to read it out,

so I did: “. . . .a kind of waking trance I have frequently had,

quite up from boyhood, when I have been all alone. This has

generally come upon me through repeating my own name two

or three times to myself, silently, till all at once, as it were out

of the intensity of consciousness of individuality, the

individuality itself seemed to dissolve and fade away into

boundless being: and this not a confused state but the clearest

of the clearest, the surest of the surest, the weirdest of the

weirdest, utterly beyond words, where death was an almost

laughable impossibility, the loss of personality (if so it were)

seeming no extinction but the only true life.”

254

Bhagavan said, “That state is called abidance in the Self.

It is described in a number of songs.”

He took up Thayumanavar and it opened at the very page

where was the poem he was looking for. He read out the poem,

‘áÓRÛPu ©±RXtß’ which is the 8th stanza in ‘£u UVô]kR

ÏÚúY’. Bhagavan also quoted the 2nd stanza in ‘AûNùVàm’

the 5th in ‘T¬éW÷]kRm’ of Thayumanavar which all refer to

this ‘¨~’ of ‘NL_¨xûP’ (state of sahaja nishta).

18-6-46

G.V.S. translated the Pancharatna (the last of the Five

Hymns) of Bhagavan in English verse and showed it to

Bhagavan. Bhagavan said, “The third stanza deals with the sat

aspect, the fourth with the chit and the fifth with the ananda.

The jnani becomes one with the sat or Reality, like the river

merging in the ocean; the yogi sees the light of chit; the bhakta

or karma-yogin is immersed in the ocean of ananda.”

19-6-46

G.V.S. slightly altered his translation of the Pancharatna and

showed it to Bhagavan. In the talk that followed, Bhagavan said,

“This is how the Pancharatna was composed: I had somehow

composed the first stanza in a slightly different form, when Ganapati

Sastri saw it and altered it a little and said it had become, Arya

Geetha and asked me to write four more similar stanzas saying

that he would use them as mangalam for his works. That was in

1917. Later, in 1922, Aiyasami Pillai was getting up an edition of

the first four songs of the present Arunachala Stuti Panchakam

and I was asked to translate the Pancharatna also into Tamil to go

with them, and I did.”

A newcomer called Gajendra Mehta asked Bhagavan

about the state of the soul after death. He has just returned

from Africa. He has been writing to Bhagavan for four years

but this is the first time he has come here.

255

Bhagavan: If you know the present you will know the

future. It is strange that people don’t want to know about the

present, about whose existence nobody can have any doubt,

but are always eager to know about the past or the future,

both of which are unknown. What is birth and what is death?

And who has birth or death? Why go to birth and death to

understand what you daily experience in sleeping and waking?

When you sleep, this body and the world do not exist for you,

and these questions do not worry you, and yet you exist, the

same you that exists now while waking. It is only when you

wake up that you have a body and see the world. If you

understand waking and sleep properly you will understand

life and death. Only waking and sleeping happen daily, so

people don’t notice the wonder of it but only want to know

about birth and death.

G. Mehta: Is there a rebirth?

Bhagavan: If there is birth there must be not only one rebirth

but a whole succession of births. Why and how did you get this

birth? For the same reason and in the same manner you must

have succeeding births. But if you ask who has the birth and

whether birth and death are for you or for somebody distinct

from you, then you realize the truth and the truth burns up all

karma and frees you from all births. The books graphically

describe how all sanchita karma, which would take countless

lives to exhaust, is burnt up by one little spark of jnana, just as a

mountain of gunpowder will be blown up by a single spark of

fire. It is the ego that is the cause of all the world and of the

countless sciences whose researches are so great as to baffle

description, and if the ego is dissolved by enquiry all this

immediately crumbles and the Reality or Self alone remains.

G. Mehta had also asked a personal question: Whether

he should remain abroad or return to India, but to that

Bhagavan said: “Don’t worry what you should do. Things

will happen as they are destined to happen.”

(Continued  ...)




(My humble salutations to the lotus feet of Bhagavan Sree Ramana Maharshi
and also gratitude to great philosophers and others     for the collection)