REMINISCENCES OF A FRENCH DEVOTEE

[Guest guest]

prof laxmi narain (prof_narain)

 

Source and courtesy: Sri Ramana Kendram, Hyderabad

This article was published in Sri Ramana Jyothi,

monthly magazine of the Kendram.

 

REMINISCENCES OF A FRENCH DEVOTEE

 

Ethel Merston, came to Sri Ramana in 1939. She settled down near

Sri Ramanasramam for many years before and after Sri Ramana's

mahanirvana. She wrote about her meetings with Sri Ramana in

journal The Call Divine.

 

In 1937-8, a small group of seekers in Paris was discussing

teachings of J. Krishnamurti and others. All of us had read

Brunton's A Search in Secret India. One of us – Pascaline Mallet

had visited Sri Ramanasramam and been much impressed. Pascaline had

asked me to help her to translate `Who am I?' into French, which made

a deep impression on me. We were curious to see the great man so

eulogized by Brunton.

Bhagavan drew me to Tiruvannamalai in 1939. It took me a few

moments after entering his hall to know that I was in the presence of

the greatest teacher I have ever met. From the first moment in his

presence he made me feel at home, and the peace in that little hall

drew me as nothing had before. We had planned to stay for two days.

When finally I had to leave, I knew that sometime I should return.

The return came two years later and from then on for five consecutive

years, I visited the Ashram each summer to sit in Bhagavan's

presence. Then in 1944 my work in North India coming to an end, I

came to live permanently near him.

Newcomers including me, would begin by asking him questions,

but soon found no necessity to voice them; in one way or another,

without asking, the questions would be answered and problem solved.

Once I had been mulling over a problem for three days without

finding the solution. The fourth day, sitting opposite to Bhagavan,

and still harassed by the problem, Bhagavan suddenly turned his eyes

upon me. After a moment, he asked one of his attendants to find him

a certain book of puranic stories; he turned over the pages until,

finding the passage he wanted, he handed the book to one of the men

who knew English and told him to read the story aloud. That story

gave me the answer to my problem.

He taught each seeker as suited his need. He was clairvoyant

and could read our thoughts. Of psychic powers, I saw him use none,

beyond conveying thoughts silently and so powerfully that the

vibrations would sometimes roll in waves down the hall almost hurting

one by the force with which they impinged on the body, not only of

the recipient, for whom the thought was meant, but on many of us

sitting there.

Bhagavan's gaze was spellbinding. Once an elderly sannyasi

entered the hall. Bhagavan, who was reading, dropped his book

immediately and looked straight up at the man who took two strides

forward and stood near Bhagavan's feet, returning his gaze. There

was such love and joy in Bhagavan's gaze that one could almost hear

him say, " So you have come at last, my beloved brother. " The two

went on gazing at each other, without a word spoken aloud, but I

could literally feel them speaking to each other, the flow of the

current going back and forth between them. They talked thus

voicelessly for some ten or fifteen minutes, then suddenly the

sannyasi dropped to the floor and passed into samadhi for the next

two hours. Bhagavan quietly took up his book again and went on,

remaining as though nothing had happened, as doubtless indeed for him

it had not. But for us it was an unforgettable experience.

Quite apart from solving our problems, or helping us to do

so, just to sit in Bhagavan's presence was to realize or get a

feeling of what true relaxation and a quiet mind might mean. It did

not mean shutting oneself away, isolating oneself, contrariwise, it

meant being with all, yet remaining within, being in the world and

yet not of it.

During the last years of Bhagavan's life, we learned many

lessons from him. But one, which he never ceased to hammer into us

was that he was not the body, the body might go, but he would not

go. He always was and always would be there with us, as now. I only

saw three people cry as we spent the night keeping vigil of the

corpse. We just knew that Bhagavan had not gone, so why cry for

him, or rather, cry for a non-existent loss? We who knew him in the

body are not the only ones to feel his presence. Even after he left

the body, people in England who never knew him in the flesh, have

told me that after reading about him, they have had the experience of

his actual presence near them, even of his touch, ready with his

grace to help. (Source: Face to Face with Sri Ramana Maharshi –

Enchanting and Uplifting Experiences of 160 persons, the forthcoming

publication of our Kendram.)