Few Follies Committed By Few People In Ramana Ashramam

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16th December, 1949Some time in 1942-43, Sri Jagadeeswara Sastri’s son who was studying in the Vedapatasala in Madurai, came here during the holidays. Being young, he had tresses of hair hanging down to the shoulders. May be he wanted to appear fashionable. As soon as he came into the hall and got up after prostrating, Bhagavan said, “Oh, is that you? When I saw your hair style, I thought it was somebody else. Oh! My! How you look! Who would believe that you are the son of Jagadeeswara Sastri?” The boy was so ashamed, that he came to the hall next day with only a small tuft of hair behind.Noticing it, Bhagavan said, “Yes. That is right. Will not people criticise adversely if Jagadeeswara Sastri’s son, a bachelor living in a Gurukula (the house of a Guru), has an unbecoming hair style?”

In 1943, Gurram Subbaramayya Garu came here with his daughter of five or six years of age. As you know, she had no mother. Noticing that she had a plait of hair on either side of her head, Bhagavan remarked, “What child! Only two plaits? Why not have two more in front and two in the centre of the head?” So saying Bhagavan laughed.Bhagavan had passed similar remarks before whenever he saw other children dressed up like this. Now this child felt ashamed, came to me,got her hair done into a single plait and went to Bhagavan.Smiling at it and saying it was good, Bhagavan told her father, “Look, European ladies who come here, wear sarees, tie their hair in a plait and put some flowers in it and thus try to appear like our ladies, while our people try to adopt their style. What to do?”

Sometime in 1943-44, a European by name Mr. McIver used to live here; on a Dipavali day, he wore a Salem silkbordered dhoti in the orthodox style, covered the upperportion of his body with a similar cloth, prostrated before Bhagavan, put on his forehead holy ashes and kumkum, went out of the hall and sat there with closed eyes in padmasana style. Bhagavan began smiling to himself, looking at him through the window. Meanwhile Rajagopala Iyer came into the hall, whereupon Bhagavan, laughing loudly, exclaimed, “Look at that. McIver Sastri has come here. There he is,sitting over there. Really, if anyone were to see him now,could they say he was not a Sastri? While all of you put on suits and boots, instead of wearing dhoties, he dressed himself up like a Sastri. The only thing that is wanting now is the sacred thread. As our people are discarding even that, there is no difficulty even on that score now. Look at him!”

Whenever Bhagavan speaks to native Indians, he normally talks to them in their own language, namely Tamil,Telugu or Malayalam, but never in English. Even though they know this, some of our young men put their questions to Bhagavan in English. Sometimes, there will be nobody to translate or the translation will be found difficult. If on such occasions, we enquire why those people could not put their questions in their own language, Bhagavan would say, “You want to know why they ask me in English? That is because they want to test Bhagavan. They have gained some knowledge of the English language. Should not all people know about it? Not only that, they sincerely believe that their language is no good for such an important matter. The infatuation for that language makes them feel like that. Poor people!What can they do?”

Source: Letters from Sri Ramanasramam VOLUMES I, II & Letters from and Recollections of Sri Ramanasramam By SURI NAGAMMA Translated by D. S. SASTRI

-- Om Namo Bhagavate Sri Ramanaya

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