How Sundarammal Camt to the Ashram...

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How Sundarammal Came to the Ashram

During April, 1953, Sundarammal arrived [at Arunachala] to spend forty-eight

days in retreat in a hut close to that of Lakshmi Devi, for whom she had a great

admiration. We were thus living very close to each other, but apart from the

customary greetings, neither she nor I made any attempt to get into

conversation.

 

One day, towards the end of her retreat, she invited me and some other sadhus to

share a meal at her cell. It was the Telugu New Year's Day. It was then, before

the meal began, that she told me her story.

 

She belonged to a wealthy Telugu family of Madras. She married young but very

soon lost her husband. As a widow, she continued to live at home, surrounded by

the love of her parents and brothers. She rarely went out, and when she did, it

was always with her father. One day he took her to the neighboring temple to

hear a talk given by a sadhu. This sadhu was a devotee of the Maharshi. He told

his audience about the sage's 'conversion', his disappearance from the world

[leaving Madurai], his resort to the mountain of Arunachala, and the rest.

Sundarammal was deeply moved. She begged her father to allow her to accompany

some pilgrims to Arunachala. He refused, but promised that he would soon take

her there himself.

 

But the promise was not fulfilled. Sundarammal passed the time thinking of

Ramana and praying to him. She soon lost her appetite and was unable to sleep.

But her father always had some specially urgent work which prevented him from

taking her to Tiruvannamalai.

 

One afternoon, about four o'clock, she seemed to see Ramana coming down the

mountain and approaching her. "Sundarammal, have no fear!" he said to her. "It

is I. Enough of this weeping and not eating or sleeping. Come, I am expecting

you." Her heart was filled with joy. Once more she appealed to her father, and

once more he put off the pilgrimage to another day.

 

Some weeks later, she was alone one night in her room, weeping and calling on

the Maharshi. Then, quite worn out, she fell asleep. Suddenly she felt a blow on

her side and awoke with a start. It was about three o' clock in the morning.

There was the Maharshi standing by the head of her cot. "Come," was all he said.

 

She followed him downstairs, crossed the hall and came out on the verandah.

Hardly had she reached it when to her alarm she found herself alone. The

Maharshi had disappeared. She sat down uneasily.

 

Soon a rickshaw appeared and the rickshaw puller said: "Is this Number 12, and

are you Sundarammal? An old sadhu told me to come here and take you to the bus.

Get in." Sundarammal thought quite simply, "It is Bhagavan, the Maharshi," and

got into the rickshaw.

 

At the bus stand she and the rickshaw puller were both surprised not to find the

old sadhu. However, she asked for the Tiruvannamalai bus and got in.

 

Somewhere on the way her bus passed another one from which someone alighted and

then entered the Tiruvannamalai bus. "Are you Sundarammal?" he asked. "Yes, I

am," she replied. "Good. Bhagavan has sent me to look for you."

 

In the evening she reached Tiruvannamalai and retired for the night in one of

the large halls kept for pilgrims. She prepared a cake to offer to Bhagavan and

fell asleep full of joy.

 

The next morning she went to the Ashram and fell at the feet of Bhagavan. "Here

you are at last," he said to her.

 

Some days later her brothers arrived, unable to understand how this child, who

by herself had never set foot outside her home, could have managed to reach

Tiruvannamalai. But Sundarammal was so deeply absorbed that she never even saw

her brothers, either in the hall or at midday in the dining hall. Only in the

evening were they able to approach her. They told her how upset everyone was at

home and begged her to return. If she wanted, they would build her a hermitage

in the garden. But nothing moved her and the brothers even spoke of taking her

home by force. "If you do, I will throw myself into a well," she said. Her

brothers had to yield, but they soon returned with their father. They found her

in a cottage near the Ashram and arranged for her continued stay there as well

as they could.

 

During the fifteen years that remained of the Maharshi's life, she never left

Tiruvannamalai even for a day.

 

This was the story that Sundarammal told me that morning-Sundarammal who could

never speak of God without her voice breaking with emotion and her eyes filling

with tears.

 

Swami Abhishiktananda