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Swami Siddheswarananda

Swami Siddheswarananda was the monk of the Ramakrishna Order who founded the Ramakrishna Ashrama in Gretz, France in 1947. He passed away in 1961. From his youth he had much love and reverence for Sri Maharshi, as testified by the numerous articles he wrote about him.

The following notes were gathered by Richard Selvame of Paris, France. On his many visits to the Ramakrishna Ashrama near Paris he made the friendship of an old disciple of Swami Siddheswarananda who kindly gave him access to her diary wherein she recorded several interesting incidents told to her by the Swami.

Sri Swami Brahmananda was one of Sri Ramakrishna's greatest, direct disciples and first President of the Ramakrishna Order. He was also known as Rakhal. He was Swami Siddheswarananda's Master. When Swami Siddeshwarananda was a student in Madras, someone told him about Sri Ramana Maharshi. He at once became very thrilled and thought that there must be something great about this Sage and began to visit him in Tiruvannamalai. When he joined the Ramakrishna Order and became a disciple of Swami Brahmananda he related to his Guru enthusiastically about the life and teachings of Sri Bhagavan. Swami Brahmananda Maharaj, understanding the love of his disciple for Sri Ramana, used to say: "Please tell me more about this Sage."

Sri Krishna

A so-called "enlightened man," who took himself for Sri Krishna, came for the darshan of Ramana Maharshi, wearing clothes like Krishna. The Maharshi appeared to take him very seriously and treated this enlightened one as Krishna himself. He even arranged for one of his attendants to give special treatment to him, like one making puja to an idol of Krishna with all the worship items, etc. The "enlightened one" was very pleased and went out. All the disciples who were there protested against the Maharshi's treatment of this pseudo-Krishna, saying that was not proper for him to treat that man in this manner, etc. Sri Ramana silenced them all by saying: "All of you here are taking yourself for mister X or mister Y, so what's wrong for this one taking himself for Sri Krishna."

American Lady

Swami Siddeshwarananda was once again at Sri Ramanasramam just after the Second World War when the following event took place on the very day he arrived there from Paris:

An American lady arrived for the darshan of Ramana Maharshi and expected the Maharshi to speak to her. Unfortunately, he never addressed a single word to her. She tried her best to talk to him, but was very disappointed by the silence of the master. She also asked the Master's attendant how many dollars it would cost for the Maharshi to agree to speak to her. The attendant just laughed and went his way.

Being hurt and disappointed she decided to leave the Ashrama. While departing with her luggage on a narrow footpath, wonder of wonder, Sri Ramana Maharshi was approaching by the same footpath from the opposite direction. When they were very close, face to face - she was so determined not to speak first - the master stopped, looked at her and asked, "Are you going?" The lady was so completely touched by these few words that she dropped her luggage and said, "No, I am staying." She remained and lived many years at the Ashrama, even after the Mahasamadhi of Sri Maharshi.

Swami Ritajananda

After the death of Swami Siddeshwarananda, Swami Ritajananda became the second Swami in charge of the Ramakrishna Ashram near Paris till 1994. Sri Sivananda (Mahapurusha), another of Sri Ramakrishna's first disciples, was his Master. I personally met him in 1987. He was very fond of me [Richard Selvame]. Sometimes we would go for walks and discuss in Tamil about India and many other things. Once he shared with me his joy of having darshan of Sri Ramana. When Ramana saw Swami Ritajananda he began to laugh, but did not talk to him. The Swami also told me that when he was in Madras on April 14, 1950, he saw the shooting star at the time the holy body of the Maharshi died in Tiruvannamalai.

source: arunachala.org