the writing of verses

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Day by Day with Bhagavan________7-12-45 (concluded)Bhagavan referred to the article in the Vision of December,1945 on Sthita Prajna and to the lines from Sat Darshana quotedin that article. Dr. Syed thereupon asked Bhagavan when Realityin Forty Verses was made by Bhagavan. Bhagavan said, "It wasrecently something like 1928. Muruganar has noted downsomewhere the different dates. One day Muruganar said thatsome stray verses composed by me now and then on variousoccasions should not be allowed to die, but should be collectedtogether and some more added to them to bring the wholenumber to forty, and that the entire forty should be made into abook with a proper title. He accordingly gathered about thirtyor less stanzas and requested me to make the rest to bring thetotal to forty. I did so, composing a few stanzas on differentoccasions as the mood came upon me. When the number cameup to forty, Muruganar went about deleting one after anotherof the old collection of thirty or less on the pretext they werenot quite germane to the subject on hand or otherwise not quitesuitable, and requesting me to make fresh ones in place of thedeleted ones. When this process was over, and there were fortystanzas as required by Muruganar, I found that in the forty therewere but two stanzas out of the old ones and all the rest hadbeen newly composed. It was not made according to any setscheme, nor at a stretch, nor systematically. I composed differentstanzas on different occasions and Muruganar and othersafterwards arranged them in some order according to thethoughts expressed in them to give some appearance ofconnected and regular treatment of the subject, viz., Reality."(The stanzas contained in the old collection and deleted byMuruganar were about twenty. These were afterwards addedas supplement to the above work and the Supplement too nowcontains 40 verses).Bhagavan also said, "Marital Garland of Letters wascomposed partly at the Virupakshi Cave and partly on my walksround the hill. Upadesa Saram alone was written with a schemeand a set purpose and at a stretch at one sitting. That was becauseMuruganar had set a limit of one hundred stanzas for the entiretheme of the poem and in it had planned that the particularsubject of Upadesa should be confined to thirty stanzas, ofwhich again he had already composed three stanzas, leavingthus only twenty-seven stanzas within the brief compass ofwhich I was required to deal with the whole subject."In the afternoon Bhagavan explained to Dr. Srinivasa Raothe significance of the name Rama. "The `Ra' stands for theSelf and `ma' for the ego. As one goes on repeating `Rama',`Rama', the `ma' disappears, getting merged in the `Ra' andthen `Ra' alone remains. In that state there is no consciouseffort at dhyana, but it is there, for dhyana is our real nature."