"It is enough if you study the One."

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While Sri Bhagavan was an expert linguist, poet, in His knowledge of the

scriptures & so on, he did not usually encourage that expertise in others,

as the following extract from Kunju Swami's story illustrates:

 

A few days after my return to the ashram I told Sri Bhagavan about the

events that had taken place at Peraiyur.

 

I concluded: 'When people from the other maths who have studied Vedanta

find out that I have come from the Sri Ramanasramam, they start asking me

philosophical questions. I feel that if I do not give fitting answers to

their questions, it will reflect badly on our ashram. Because of this I

asked Sri Krishnananda of Tirukhalar to give me lessons on Vedanta. He has

asked me to come to Tirukhalar and he has agreed to give me lessons on

Vedanta, and to complete them as early as possible. I am now thinking of

going to Tirukhalar to learn Vedanta.'

 

Sri Bhagavan replied with a mocking smile, 'Now you are going to study

Vedanta, then it will be Siddhanta, then Sanskrit, and then polemics.'

 

As he kept adding more and more subjects, I stood before him

dumfounded.

 

Seeing my depressed look Sri Bhagavan said, 'It is enough if you study

the One'.

 

He could see that his answer had puzzled me, so he added, with some

compassion, 'If you learn to remain within your Self as the Self, that will

amount to learning everything. What Vedanta lessons did I take? If you

remain as the Self, the echo from the Heart will be from experience. It

will be in agreement with the scriptures. This is what is called "the

divine voice".'

 

On hearing Sri Bhagavan's words, the desire to learn Vedanta in order

to answer the questions of others left me for good. From that day onward, if

someone asked me questions related to Vedanta, I was able, through

Bhagavan's grace, to get the appropriate answer from within. As Sri

Bhagavan himself has written in ATMA VIDYA KIRTANAM, verse three:

 

"Without knowing the Self, what is the use if one knows

anything else? If one has known the Self, what else is

there to know? When that Self that shines without

differences in different living beings is known within

oneself, the light of Self will flash forth. It is

the shining forth of grace, the destruction of 'I' and

the blossoming of bliss."

 

Though Sri Bhagavan discouraged most of us from studying Vedanta in a formal

way, he himself was a pandit par excellence.

 

(From "The Power of the Presence." David Godman, vol 2, pp70-71