After three days I left my mother at Ramanasramam and went back to Gudur. I wanted to devote myself full time to meditation but the atmosphere in my house was too oppressive for proper concentration. I decided instead to go to a village called Govindapalli, which was nearer the coast and about fifteen miles from Gudur. Some of my relatives lived in this village but I didn’t want to stay with them. I just wanted a quiet place where I could meditate without being disturbed. I selected a quiet spot, away from the village and about three miles from the sea. My relatives helped me to build a small hut, which I paid for out of my own funds.
I moved into this hut and spent most of my time in meditation. Milk was sent once a day from the village, but I prepared the rest of my food myself, cooking it on a small fire that I would build by the side of my hut. I still kept up with the habit of getting up at 3 a.m. and going for a swim. Sometimes I swam in a tank near my hut and sometimes in a small river that flowed nearby. In the evenings I often walked to the beach and swam in the sea.
The local people had been very cooperative in the matter of building the hut, but many of them had advised me not to live on the spot I chose because there was supposed to be an evil spirit that inhabited the area. I wasn’t worried about things like that, so I settled down to do my sadhana. After staying there for a few days I heard a great noise that sounded as if all the trees in the vicinity were being blown down by a great wind. I went out of the hut and looked around me. I saw that the trunks of all the local trees were bending down to the ground and then springing back up again. Since there was no obvious natural explanation, I decided that it was this local spirit that was trying to frighten me. These spirits are harmless so long as you do not fear them, but if you become afraid, some of them are so strong, they can easily kill you. I ignored it and went back to my meditation.
My meditation proceeded very well. The constant repetition of my Guru’s name made my mind very quiet. On a few occasions it became absolutely still. When this happened the question ‘Who am I?’ would spontaneously arise inside me. Whenever this happened, as if in answer to the question, my mind would automatically sink into its source, the Heart, and experience the bliss of the Self. I never made any conscious attempt to practise self-enquiry. The question ‘Who am I?’ simply appeared inside me whenever my mind became completely free from thoughts.
My stay in Govindapalli lasted about five months. At the end of that period I contracted a severe case of malaria and had to be taken back to Gudur. The doctor who examined me there decided that I was likely to die. He informed my relatives, many of whom then came to see me to pay their last respects. I had no intention of dying. I had a strong determination that I would not die until I had seen my Guru again. I placed a picture of Ramana Maharshi by my bedside and willed myself to stay alive long enough to see him again. I meditated on this picture throughout the ordeal. Whenever I looked at it I felt as if Bhagavan himself was laughing or smiling at me. I am convinced that it was the power and the grace of Bhagavan that kept me alive and enabled me to make a full recovery.
I was in bed for nearly two months. Towards the end of that period I became a little despondent about my apparent lack of spiritual progress.
As soon as I was able to walk I told my family that I wanted to return to Tiruvannamalai to have Bhagavan’s darshan. Both my mother and my brother tried to convince me that I was too weak to travel, but I refused to listen to their advice. There were some heated arguments about the matter but when it became clear that my family would not give me permission to go, I walked out on them, vowing never to return to their house again. As I left I drew three long vertical lines on the door frame of my family home. This is a traditional symbol that indicated to my family that I had no intention of ever entering their house again. When my brother finally realised that I could not be persuaded to stay, he very reluctantly gave me Rs 60 to take care of my immediate expenses.
I set off for Ramanasramam immediately and arrived during the Navaratri celebrations of 1949. The second day of my visit was Vijayadasami, the final day of the festival. In the afternoon I stood in front of the Mathrubhuteswara Temple, waiting for Bhagavan to appear. He came out of his small room, accompanied by Swami Sathyananda, entered the new hall that was in front of the temple and took his seat on the stone sofa. There were only a few devotees present at the time. I went up to Bhagavan and made a full prostration in front of him. When I stood up, Bhagavan looked intently at me for a few moments. I withdrew and went to look for a place where I could do self-enquiry and not be disturbed by the other devotees. I selected a pillar that was outside the door that Bhagavan had entered through and sat down in front of it. Though I was outside the hall, Bhagavan could still see me from where he was sitting. Shortly afterwards I saw Muruganar taking a seat close to Bhagavan. I noticed that other devotees were entering the hall. After a few minutes Muruganar came and sat down next to me. A few other devotees came and sat near us. I closed my eyes and began to do ‘Who am I?’, the quest for the Self.
Within a few minutes I found that all thoughts had disappeared except for the primal ‘I’-thought. The question ‘Who am I?’ then spontaneously appeared within me. As it did so, the gracious smiling face of Ramana Maharshi appeared within me on the right side of the chest. There was something like a lightning flash that resulted in a flood of divine light shining both within and without. Bhagavan’s face was still smiling on the right side of my chest. It seemed to be lit up with a radiance that exceeded innumerable lightning flashes rolled into one. The bliss and joy these experiences gave me brought tears to my eyes. A torrential flow welled up within me and rolled down my face. I was unable to control them in any way. Finally, the ‘I’-thought went back to its source, the internal picture of Ramana Maharshi disappeared, and the Self absorbed my whole being. From that moment on the Self shone alone and the ‘I’-thought, the individual self, never arose or functioned in me again. It was permanently destroyed through the grace of my Guru in his holy presence.
I remained absorbed in the Self, without body consciousness, for about three hours. The experience was so intense, even when I opened my eyes I found I was incapable or either speaking or moving. The realisation had caused an immense churning within the nervous system, so much so that when body consciousness returned, I felt extremely weak.
When I was finally able to register what was going on around me, I noticed that everything was perfectly normal. Bhagavan was still sitting on his couch and all the assembled devotees were pursuing their normal duties and activities. My tears and my loss of consciousness had not attracted any attention at all.
I remained where I was for another three hours because I was incapable of movement of any kind. I remember hearing the dinner bell and the noise of the Vijayadasami procession as it went round the temple, but I was too absorbed in the Self to contemplate either eating or joining in the celebrations. At 9 p.m. I finally rose to my feet and very slowly made my way back to my allotted place in the mens’ dormitory.
The following morning I still felt very weak. Thinking that I might feel better if I ate some food, I started to walk towards town to see if I could get a meal at one of the hotels there. Unfortunately, I overestimated my strength. Before I could find a place to eat, I had an attack of dizziness and collapsed on the street. A friendly passer-by took me under his wing, ascertained that I needed food, and then guided me to a hotel that was located on the south side of the temple. I felt much stronger after the meal and I had no difficulty returning to the ashram.
Later that afternoon I went up to Bhagavan in the darshan hall, prostrated before him, and handed him a note via his attendant Venkataratnam. The note, which I had written in Telugu said, ‘Bhagavan, in your presence and by the quest [“Who am I?”] I have realised the Self’.
Bhagavan read the note, looked at me for a moment, and then his face lit up in a radiant smile. For some time we just looked at each other.
Bhagavan broke the silence by asking me where I had come from.
‘Gudur,’ I replied.
‘That’s in Nellore District, isn’t it?’ enquired Bhagavan.
‘Yes,’ I answered.
This was the only conversation I ever had with Bhagavan. After giving him these two brief replies, I didn’t speak again for another thirteen years.
As I returned to my place in the hall I heard Bhagavan tell Venkataratnam to keep my note on a shelf that was behind his sofa.
Accommodation was in short supply at the ashram. After four days I was asked to leave to make room for other visitors who wanted to see Bhagavan. I decided to look for accommodation in the surrounding area since I planned to stay permanently. I had no intention of going back to Gudur. Before I left home my family had agreed to send me the rental income that came from my half of my grandfather’s house. The amount was more than enough to live on. Raja Iyer, the local postmaster, helped me to find a small thatched house about 250 yards from the ashram. I shared it with a boy called Raghavan who was already living there. Since I had money and he didn’t, he agreed to do all the cooking if I bought the food.
One of the first people to visit me in my new house was Venkataratnam, Bhagavan’s attendant.
On his first visit he said, ‘In all the years I have been Bhagavan’s attendant, I have never seen anyone present a note like this before. I am experienced enough in the ways of Bhagavan to know that the beaming smile he immediately gave you was proof that the claim was genuine. Bhagavan made no comment to me about your note and the message it contained, but he did ask me to check up on you to make sure that all your needs are being taken care of and that you are properly looked after.’
From that day on Venkataratnam became a regular visitor. He would come and sit with me whenever his services were not required in the ashram, and on one occasion he embarrassed me by trying to massage my feet and legs.
Bhagavan was giving darshan every day from nine to eleven in the morning and from three till six in the afternoon. At those times I would go and sit with him in the ashram. Around midday I would walk to town and eat a meal in a hotel, and at the end of the afternoon darshan I would sit for an hour on the lower slopes of Arunachala. I had no further interaction with Bhagavan, but every time I went to see him in the hall, his face would light up and break out into the same radiant smile he had given me on the afternoon I had presented him with my note.
After about three months in Tiruvannamalai, I moved to Palakottu. I found a small room I could occupy by myself and moved in. I paid one rupee a month rent to the watchman of the Ganesh Temple that bordered Palakottu Tirtham and I engaged a young girl to bring a cooked lunch to me since I no longer felt like making the daily trip to town to eat.
A woman called Marakatha Mataji also tried to feed me, but her attentions were a bit of a nuisance. She had a great liking for sadhus and she spent most of the money she earned on feeding them. When rich visitors came to the ashram, she would offer her services as a cook. She was very good at her job and her employers, including at least one maharani, were always satisfied with her cooking. She often used to make sweets for her employers, and when she did so, she would always contrive to keep a few for the sadhus near the ashram. Any cash payment she received would also be converted into sweets for sadhus. At distribution time she always tried to give the recipients a big kiss along with the sweets. I became a favourite of hers and she frequently tried to ambush me with a sweet and a kiss as I was leaving my room. If I knew she was there, I would stay in my room in the hope that she would give up waiting and go away, but she had enormous patience and sometimes I had to put up with her ministrations. She also tried to kiss Bhagavan on many occasions, but her habits were well known and his attendants had strict instructions to keep her away from him.