Grammar for disciples:

 

BE ALERT TO GURU’S LOOK EVEN

 

 

Suri Nagamma was among the foremost devotees of Bhagavan Ramana Maharishi in Tiruvannamalai. Born in 1902, she lost her father when she was four years old and her mother when she was ten. She was married at 11 and her husband died of smallpox within a year, sentencing her to lifelong widowhood. Crushed down by the calamities, this unlettered girl cooped herself up in an unlighted room in her village home, not bearing to come into daylight even. Emaciated and looking like a lizard, she lay stretched out on a mat with her hand for pillow, weeping continuously and slipping into restless spells of wearied sleep.

 

After some years of such self-flagellation, the thought arose in her mind that perhaps Nature, in its omniscience had inflected all the misery on her in order to save her from the clutches of samsaram (world-process). With painstaking effort she learnt to read in her mother-tongue Telugu and the first book that came to her was Pothana’s Bhagavatam. In that scripture is a chapter where Kapila gives upadesam to his mother Devabhuti. On reading the pages, Nagamma started praying sincerely that she should also be vouchsafed a Sadguru like Kapila.

 

While asleep on night she had a vision — of a Sage looking like Lord Dakshinamurthy showing the chin-mudra and spreading a circle of peace around him. The picture got imprinted in her mind but she did not mention it to anyone.

 

Acceptance took root in her mind that she had to live out the rest of her life whatever tragedies might have befallen her in the past. She went on pilgrimages, worshipped idols in temples, did puja regularly and in the afternoon explained Bhagavatam to those who came to her house to listen. 

 

Nagamma was nearing 40 when she received a letter from her elder brother working in Ahmedabad that she should pay a visit to Tiruvannamalai and have darshan of Bhagavan Ramana Maharishi. She would benefit much by the experience, wrote her brother. That was the background for her journey to the Ramanasramam in Tiruvannamalai in the year 1941.

 

On seeing Bhagavan Ramana Maharishi she realised much to her thrill that he was the same Sage who had appeared in her dream, quite a few years earlier. The inner burden she had been carrying for decades was lifted in a trice through one look of compassion from him. All ties with her family members also stood dissolved, and what remained and would never be taken away was the link with the Master, the Mahapurusha for whom she had waited even as Sabari did in the Ramayanam.

 

It was not long, before Nagamma settled down in Tiruvannamalai and took up residence in a compound near the Asramam so that she may be present in the Meditation Hall as much as possible, render service to the administration and record the day-to-day occurrences in simple Telugu. Journals in Andhra were happy to publish her material and a vast number of people in that part of the land received the benefit of Bhagavan’s Philosophy. Her book “Letters from Sri Ramanasramam” provides a valuable contemporary account of seekers in varied levels of Consciousness and spiritual development.

 

In the Meditation Hall, there was always a silent competition among visitors to sit as near Bhagavan as possible. Not wishing to join the fray, Nagamma once found a seat at some distance from the Sage’s sofa. As audibility was not full there, she became somewhat absent-minded and was gazing abstractedly at the Hill. Her neighbour, a lady by name Sooramma, nudged her and said, ‘Bhagavan has been looking in your direction for a while; perhaps some service from you is required.’ Thereupon Nagamma went to the sofa and found that a Telugu poem had to be read out and copied. She completed the task and sat down.

 

A while later, Bhagavan was relating some of his experiences on the Hill in the earlier years. He used to observe the habits of monkey-hordes closely. Monkeys lived in compact groups with a leader for each gang. The monkeys of a group would have scattered to different trees in order to pick fruits or berries; but if one of them apprehended or encountered any danger or difficulty, it would look around in a particular manner, whereupon its friends would hasten to rally around it. ‘The earnest disciple should be like that, he should be sensitive and alert to even every look from the Master and comprehend and act on it. That is why in Vedantic literature, lakshya drishti is likened to the look of the monkey.’ Bhagavan concluded his brief upadesam. Nagamma needed no further instruction in the matter of attentiveness.

 

A life-link comes to be established between the Master and every disciple of his, but the progress of the seekers on the spiritual path varies according to the degree of receptiveness which the latter bring to the task. Instead of becoming discouraged or indulging in comparison, seekers who feel they are lagging behind should bestir themselves to sharpen their receptors and to reduce the factors causing retardation, which consists mostly of needless and excessive involvement in worldly affairs such as job and promotion and acquiring assets. ‘Give unto Caeser what is Caeser’s and unto God what is God’s. A mix-up of priorities will neither bring peace nor take you to Liberation.

 

 

(Excerpt from a Lecture by Sage TGN)

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