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.
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