Guru Ramana - Memories & Notes, S.S. Cohen, #2

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Guru Ramana -

MEMORIES AND NOTES

By S. S. COHEN

 

ARRIVAL

 

 

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. Two sleepless nights in the train from Bombay

found me tired in body and mind. My head was swimming and my senses

were confused.I had hoped for some rest in the Ashram, but when I

arrived there at last, there was not a soul to be seen anywhere.

 

Presently, a corpulent man with a giant rugged head and scarlet-red

lips from perpetual chewing of betel-nuts appeared. He was, I

later discovered, the 'legal adviser' of the Ashram, who sometimes

acted as the de facto sarvadhikari (manager) as well. 'Is that Mr.

Cohen? Follow me quickly before the Maharshi goes out for his walk,'

he called out. I obeyed, extremely eager to see the great Sage, who

had haunted me night and day for three long months. 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 moon beams, sitting on the floor before

a leaf-plate nearly emptied, and beckoning me with the gentlest of

nods and the sweetest smile imaginable. He was the Maharshi himself.

My mind, which was already in a state of haze, grew now more confused

in my haste to enter. But the shoe lace resisted. So I tugged at and

broke it. Just then my guide appeared again and said: " If you

have any fruits to offer, bring them now. " " They are in my suit

case, " I replied, and plunged my hands into my pockets for the keys.

But the keys had gone: I had dropped them in the train or at the

station, I did not know where, in my hurry to race to the Ashram.

 

I told this to the legal adviser and immediately forgot all about

them and entered the room. It was then the Ashram's custom to honour

the newcomer by giving him his first meal in a line directly opposite

theMaharshiâ's seat and at hardly four feet distance from it. My leaf-

plate was thus placed there with two rice cakes on it. I took no

notice of the cakes, although my hand fingered them, but directed my

whole look at the peaceful countenance of Sri Bhagavan. He had by

then finished eating and was slowly rolling a betel-leaf for a

chew, as if deliberatelyto give me a little more of his company, when

a man entered from the back door, which was the passage to the small

kitchen, and, in a low voice, said something in Tamil to him, from

which I understood the single word 'keys.' Then Maharshi rose, looked

at me by way of farewell, and left the room.

 

I hastily swallowed half a cake, gulped the cup of tea,and went out

in search of the room to which my luggage had been taken. But alas, I

could not have a bath or a change of clothes, everything was locked

up in the suit cases. I was greatly embarrassed, and started thinking

of breaking the mopen, when someone announced that Sri Maharshi was

coming to the Darshan Hall.

 

I stopped thinking and rushed straight to the Hall with my hat and

full suit on. Behind me calmly walked in the tall, impressive figure

of the Maharshi with leisurely though firm steps. I was alone in the

Hall with him. Joy and peace suffused my being, never before,

had I such a delightful feeling of purity and well-being at the mere

proximity of a man. My mind was already in deep contemplation of 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

falling 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 aclaim 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.

 

....

to be continued