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 Notes

By S. S. Cohen

 

 

 

 

 

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