Monica Bose-Growing up in the Grace of Bhagavan

[Guest guest]

Growing up in the Grace of Bhagavan

Childhood Memories

Monica Bose

 

I was eleven years old when my mother brought my grandmother and myself,

newly arrived from England, into the presence of Bhagavan at Sri Ramanasramam.

I saw him sitting there before us on a sofa in a long narrow hall. He was an elderly

clean-shaven man, fair of complexion and with wonderful eyes. When he saw us

he smiled sweetly as if to say 'So you have reached safely."

 

My grandmother, Jeanne, and myself had been living in England, where my father

wanted me to be educated. But when war broke out and the Battle of Britain got

under way, my mother, who was known in India as Sujata, urged us to come back

to India. She herself had come to Tiruvannamalai in 1936 to visit Bhagavan

and had stayed on ever since. Very warried about our safety in wartime, she had

a dream in which she saw Bhagavan sitting on the threshold of our house in Brighton

with one hand raised in the sign of protection. I have been a little afraid of coming before the great Master my mother had described to us in her letters. But from the first

I felt happy and safe in his presence, and even out of his presence when I mentally

invoked him. There was a great power in him but also an unfailing responsiveness

to those who raised their thoughts to him.

 

 

........... to be continued

 

 

 

Monica Bose recently wrote a biography of her remarkable mother,

Sujata Sen, entitled Hill of Fire. An excerpt was published in the

Aradhana issue of The Mountain Path. She lives in London.

 

 

 

 

from The Mountain Path - Jayanti 2004