A Personal Encounter

 

What does Sri Bhagavan mean to me? After many years of experiencing his grace I can now reply, ‘He is everything to me. He is my Guru and my God.’ I can say this with confidence because, had I not had the good fortune of seeing him and thereafter getting into closer contact with him, I would have been still groping in the dark. I would still have been a doubting Thomas.

 

How did it all begin? When I was eighteen I read a lot of books by Swami Vivekananda and Swami Rama Tirtha. This reading generated a desire in me that I should also become a sannyasin, like the authors of these books. Their writings also implanted in me the ideal of plain living, high thinking, and a life dedicated to spiritual matters. Somehow, my desire to become a sannyasin was never fulfilled, but the ideal of a dedicated life made a deeper and deeper impression on my mind. At the age of twenty I had the good fortune of contacting Mahatma Gandhi. His ideals won my heart and for several years I faithfully tried to put them into practice.

 

I was doing my duty to the best of my ability and leading, as best I could, a pure and dedicated life till the age of thirty-eight. Around that time scepticism began to assail me and my mind became a home for all kinds of doubts. I began to doubt the ideals of Gandhiji; I began to doubt sadhus and sannyasins; I doubted religion, and I began to doubt the existence of God.

 

It was in this darkest period of my life that I first heard of Sri Ramana Maharshi. At that time I seemed to be heading swiftly towards total scepticism. The world appeared to me to be full of injustice, cruelty, greed, hate and other evils, the existence of which logically led me to a strong disbelief in God. For, I argued, had He truly existed, could anything dark or evil ever have flourished? Doubt upon doubt assailed me like dark shadows that dogged my footsteps. I had, as a consequence, lost whatever little reverence I might have had for sadhus and sannyasins. I found myself slowly but surely losing my interest in religion. The very word itself eventually became a synonym in my mind for a clever ruse to delude the credulous of the world. In short, I began to live a life lacking in optimism and faith. I was not happy in my disbelief, for my mind took on the aspect of turbulent waters, and I felt that all around me there was raging a scorching fire that seemed to burn up my very entrails.

 

One day, while travelling as usual on the train to the office, I happened to meet a friend who had spent over a decade in Europe  and America. I hadn’t met him for quite a long time and I sometimes used to wonder where he had disappeared to. In answer to a query about his recent activities he said that he had been to Sri Ramanasramam and immediately launched into a description of what went on there. While he was trying to describe to me his experience of the darshan of Sri Bhagavan he drew out from his pocket a small packet that he extended to me. I wondered what it contained. He explained that it contained something extremely precious – some vibhuti, holy ashes brought from the ashram. He insisted on my accepting them. His kind invitation did not interest me in the least. On the other hand, it amused me.

 

I said, scornfully, ‘Pardon me, but I think that all this sort of thing is mere sham and humbug, so I trust you will not misunderstand me if I refuse to accept.’

 

He then argued that by refusing his gift, I was not merely insulting him, I was also insulting the vibhuti. I thought that this was rather comical, but to placate him I replied, ‘Well, if that be so, to please you I will take a pinch of these ashes on condition that you will allow me to do whatever I like with them’.

 

Unsuspectingly, he nodded his head in assent and passed the packet over to me. A smile appeared on his lips as he watched me take a pinch out of it. This smile was the preface to a zealous expiation on Sri Bhagavan and his miraculous greatness. While he was lost in his missionary enthusiasm, I surreptitiously let the ashes fall onto the floor of the compartment. To be quite frank, it was a relief when my friend had concluded what I had then considered to be a puerile and unnecessary lecture.

 

At the end of it I remarked, ‘I have an utter contempt for these so-called saints’.

 

My friend refused to give up. He insisted on impressing on me that Sri Ramana Maharshi was not a ‘so-called’ saint, but an authentic sage, acknowledged as such by great savants all over the world. He suggested that for my own benefit I read about him in some of the available literature. To start me off he gave me a book entitled Sri Maharshi that had been written by Sri Kamath, the editor of The Sunday Times in Madras.

 

I must confess that despite my prejudices the book evoked in me an interest in Sri Bhagavan. After completing this small book I was sufficiently curious to borrow another book about him from a different friend. It was the second edition of Self-Realization, the earliest full-length biography of Sri Bhagavan. From then on, my interest grew without my being aware of it. A little later I felt compelled to write to Sri Ramanasramam to ask for all the literature on Sri Bhagavan that was available in English. As I began to study it with great avidity, I found that my outlook on life began to undergo a subtle transformation, but only a partial one. At the back of my mind there still lurked a heavy doubt, resembling a cloud, that stained the gathering illumination. My old scepticism did not wish to yield place so easily to this new faith, which was apparently being inculcated in my mind.

 

My scepticism tried to challenge my new faith by arguing, ‘So many books are wonderful to read, but their authors, more often than not, are not as wonderful to know. It is possible for men to teach truths that they are unable to live themselves. What, then, is the use of books, however wonderful?’