S.S. Cohen's first darshan

[Guest guest]

The third of February 1936, early morning, saw my horse-cart rolling

on the uneven two-and-a-half-mile road from Tiruvannamalai railway

station to Ramanashram. I was led to a small dining room, at the door

of which I was asked to remove my shoes. As I was trying to unlace

them, my eyes fell on a pleasant looking middle-aged man inside the

room, wearing nothing but a kaupin, with eyes as cool as moonbeams,

sitting on the floor before a leaf-plate nearly emptied, and

beckoning me with the gentlest of nods and the sweetest smile

imaginable.

"I was alone in the Hall with him. Joy and peace suffused my being -

such a delightful feeling of purity and well-being at the mere

proximity of a man, I never had before. My mind was already in deep

contemplation of him - him not as flesh, although that was

exquisitely formed and featured, but as an unsubstantial principle

which could make itself so profoundly felt despite the handicap of a

heavy material vehicle. When after a while I became aware of my

environment, I saw him looking at me with large penetrating eyes,

wreathed in smiles rendered divinely soothing by their child-like

innocence. All of a sudden I felt something fall in my lap and heard

the jingling of keys - my keys! I looked up at the Maharshi extremely

puzzled. The man - Sri Ramaswami Pillai - who had dropped them through

the door behind me came in and explained that he had gone to the

railway station on a bicycle and found the station master waiting for

him. It appears that during the few minutes that the train had stopped

at the station a passenger had providentially entered the very

compartment I had vacated, and, seeing the keys on the seat, he

picked them up, and, wonder of wonders! ran up to the station master

and handed them over to him. The latter by an unusual flash of

intuition surmised that the keys belonged to an Ashram visitor, whom

he might have seen detrain in the morning, and awaited a claim for

them.It was a series of miracles which occurred on my behalf in the

short space of barely ninety minutes, of which I was blissfully

ignorant, absorbed as I was in the entrancing personality of this

magnificent human magnet - Sri Ramana Bhagavan.It is needless to say

that from that day Ramanashram became my permanent home."

from Guru Ramana Memoirs and NotesBy S. S. Cohen