Sri Ramana..Animals.. last one

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The most favored of all the animal devotees of Sri Ramana was the cow Lakshmi.

She was brought to the Ashram as a young calf together with her mother in 1926

by one Arunachala Pillai and presented to Sri Bhagavan. He was reluctant to

accept the gift as there was no accommodation for cows at the Ashram. However

Arunachala Pillai absolutely refused to take them back and a devotee Dikshitar,

offered to look after them, so they stayed. Dikshitar saw to their needs for

about three months and then they were left with someone in town who kept cows.

He kept them for about a year and then one day came to have darshan of Sri

Bhagavan and brought them with him on a visit. The calf seems to have been

irresistibly attracted to Sri Bhagavan and to have noted the ways to the Ashram

because she returned alone next day and from then on came every morning and

returned alone next day and from then on came every morning and returned to town

only in the evening. Later, when she came to live in the Ashram, she would still

come to Sri Bhagavan, going straight up to him and taking no notice of anyone

else, and Sri Bhagavan would always have bananas or some other delicacy for her.

For a long time she would come to the hall daily at lunch-time to accompany him

to the dining-hall and so punctually that if he had been occupied by anything

and sat beyond the hour he would look at the clock when she came in and find

that it was time.

She bore an number of calves, at least three of them on Bhagavan's Jayanthi

(birthday).

When a stone cowhouse was built in the Ashram it was decided that Lakshmi should

be the first to enter it on the day of its inauguration, but when the time came

she could not be found; she had gone to lie by Sri Bhagavan and would not budge

until he came too, so that he entered first and she behind him. Not only was she

uncommonly devoted to Sri Bhagavan, but the Grace and kindness he showed her was

quite exceptional. In later years there were a number of cows and bulls at the

Ashram but no other that formed such and attachment or elicited such Grace.

Lakshmi's descendants are still there.

On June 17, 1948 Lakshmi fell ill and on the morning of the 18th it seemed

that her end was near. At ten o'clock Sri Bhagavan went to her. "Amma (mother)

he said, "you want me to be near you?' He sat down beside her and took her head

on his lap. He gazed into her eyes and placed his hand on her head as though

giving her diska (initiation) and also over her heart. Holding his cheek against

hers, he caressed her. Satisfied that her heart was pure and free from all

vasanas (latent tendencies) and centered wholly on Bhagavan, he took leave of

her and went to the dining-hall for lunch. Lakshmi was conscious up to the end;

her eyes were calm. At eleven-thirty she left her body, quite peacefully. She

was buried in Ashram compound with full funeral rites, beside the graves of a

deer, a crow and a dog which Sri Bhagavan had also caused to be buried there. A

square stone was placed over her grave surmounted by a likeness of her. On the

stone was engraved that Sri Bhagavan had written stating that she had attained

Mukti (liberation). Devaraja Mudaliar asked Bhagavan whether that was used as a

conventional phrase, as the phrase that someone has attained samadhi is a polite

way of saying that he has died, or whether it really meant Mukti, and Sri

Bhagavan said that it meant Mukti.

 

>From Ramana Maharshi by Osborne.

 

Loving Sri Ramana