Bite your tongue

February 24, 2003

Sri N. Ramachandra Rao of Bangalore, who visited Sri Ramana in 1923, says in

his Kannada book that he saw Sri Ramana living in a shed and that he

garlanded the sage¹s photo hung in the shed and that many devotees were

living in the premises and getting up at 4:00 a.m. to attend the various

items of work in the kitchen. It was in that shed that Sri Ramana was

sleeping on 26-6-1924. Personal attendants were resting in adjacent sheds.

During the night, six robbers easily broke open the bamboo door and entered

the hut and attacked him without any difference and commanded his to deliver

the keys to them. They slapped him on cheeks and said, ³Give us your keys.

Where have you kept money? If you do not give keys, we will break your

legs.² Sri Ramana continued to be as serene as before. In his soft voice, he

replied, ³We are poor sadhus. We have no money. You can take away anything

you want.² By then the attendants ran out from their sheds and entered his

shed. They were also attacked by the robbers. Some asram dogs barked at the

robbers, who punished the dogs too. His attendants wanted to teach a lesson

to the robbers by counter-attack. Sri Ramana gave them a counsel of

perfection. He persuaded them to be non-violent. He told them to treat the

robbers as themselves. Subsequently, his attendants, on being questioned by

others, recollected the very words uttered by Sri Ramana and thus helped

future biographers of the sage to record them in their books. On that night,

when his attendants were about the punish the robbers, he checked them by

saying, ³Look here, we are sadhus. We should not abandon our dharma. These

robbers are also human beings like ourselves. But, they are under the sway

of ignorance. Our own teeth sometimes bite our tongue. Do we therefore break

our teeth? Do not attack the robbers.² This incident shows Sri Ramana¹s

imperturbable calmness. It also shows that he treated the robbers as his own

self.

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