Bhagavan & Muruganar 2

[Nagaraj]

In the early days, very few devotees stayed with Bhagavan. However, Bhagavan was seldom totally alone. Muruganar had a strong desire to have Bhagavan wholly to himself, at least for a short while. Muruganar never mentioned this yearning to anybody. But can anybody hide anything from Bhagavan? Muruganar's secret wish was to be fulfilled in a totally unexpected way. In those days, Bhagavan and his devotees used to collect leaves from the trees in the forest, to make leaf-plates. Once, while a part was getting ready to go into the forest, Bhagavan gave Muruganar a very significant glance. Interpreting this look as a signal to follow him, Muruganar hurried after Bhagavan. By the time the others entered the forest, Bhagavan and Muruganar had disappeared into the woods.

Bhagavan led Muruganar deep into the forest. At one place, Bhagavan sat down on a log, and asked Muruganar to sit beside him. Muruganar sat, but no words were exchanged. Bhagavan looked directly into his eyes and Muruganar felt the power of Bhagavan's Grace flowing through him like an electric current. He lost all perceptions of time and space, and experienced a joy beyond description. Immersed in this state of bliss, Muruganar was oblivious to the passage of time it was only when he regained his senses that he realised that he must have remained in this state of bliss for hours together. Muruganar has mentioned this incident in one of the poems in the section titled Keerthi Thiruagaval in Sri Ramana Sannidhi Murai. This verse expressed Muruganar's gratitude to Bhagavan, for giving him this experience of blissful union with the Self.

Salutations to Sri Ramana

[Subramanian.R]

Dear Nagaraj,

Yes.  Unlike Mastan, Muruganar did not get the bliss of self in his
first meeting itself.  He had worries, like his mother's safety, etc.,
The Atma Jnana Bodha had to be conferred upon him, much later,
by Bhagavan Ramana.  Muruganar wanted Bhagavan all to himself
for a direct teaching.  This happened some time in 1928{?}.

Bhagavan Ramana took him to the forest with Him on the pretext of plucking leaves to make leaf-plates.  There, with great delight,
He destroyed his mind's restlessness by bestowing His glance
on him.  In the middle of the night He subdued his divided individual consciousness, granting him the experience of the undivided reality.  Muruganar describes this in Keerthi Tiru Ahaval,
[Song on His Glory] and also in Piditha Pathu [Decad of holding firm], in Sri Ramana Sannidhi Murai.  He also mentions it in Padamalai.


Arunachala Siva.

[Subramanian.R]

In Keerti Tiru Ahaval, Muruganar says:

Annaiyai tan sevadi nizhal serkumun....akanda sivanubhava vaalaRi
aLithum.  (Lines 220 to 228)

"Before He took my mother to His Feet, in His own way, He took me,
who was bewildered in a state of confusion, without knowing the goal, into the forest on the pretext of picking leaves for leaf plates.
He then gazed me with all love and extinguished my individuality.
He, in that dead of night, conferred me the Akanda Sivanubhava
Knowledge."

In Piditha Pathu, however, Muruganar mentions the same incident
in Verse 10.

I was simply feeling lazy, ever in sleepy condition, with all inner
miseries.  Before I died and became a heap of ashes, You showed
me the Satchitananda state of naturalness, in Palakottu by imprisoning me and take me there.  O Venkata, sweet like a Jack fruit, I am holding you firm, where can you go hereafter?"

David Godman has described these in detail, in Part II of the Power
of the Presence.  He also says, to say that awakening took place
for Muruganar on his first visit, is unsupportable.

Muruganar describes this Anubhuti state, also, in his famous Sri
Ramananubhuti - Sri Ramana Experience. [1948].  This book has
been translated by Robert Butler.  Some verses have been given
by David Godman in the account referred to above.



Arunachala Siva. 

[Nagaraj]

Muruganar was very special, Bhagavan's leelas towards Muruganar are very special and one feels ecstatic joy while reading the incidents of Muruganar and Sri Bhagavan.

Bhagavan's special care for Muruganar, to give him avial, while he had gone out for Bhiksha, Bhagavan askinging his wife to change Ramana Mayavane into Muruga Mayavane. Occasional teases. Muruganar expressing his childlike disappointment to Sri Bhagavan in the form of his verses as to how he is not as talented as the master of the three world.

I have read Smt. Kanakammal somewhere that it was Muruganar who suffered the maximum after the Maha Nirvana of Sri Bhagavan, it seem he used to roll in the floor crying for Bhagavan.

One word that comes to my mind whenever i think about Muruganar is INTENSITY

Intensity in Bhkati
Intensity in evberything.

Salutations to Sri Ramana

[Subramanian.R]

Dear Nagaraj,

David Godman in his Padamalai, has neatly arranged the verses
with regard to the incidents and situations.  Originally, Muruganar
did not arrange these verses in any order.  David Godman has done
a yeomen service in this regard.  Towards the end of his English
translation, David has arranged Padam's Grace towards Muruganar.
There he says about the Padam's glance of Grace.  These are to be
fitted into the event that occurred between Bhagavan and Muruganar in the deep forest of the Hill:

Verse 334:  Through its glance, golden Padam dammed up in my Heart, the ocean of Siva-ananda -- that which cannot be dammed up.

Verse 2899: Padam is the eye of grace that looked upon me in such a way, that the open expanse of that grace, which cannot be contained, was confined within my Heart.

Verse 588:  The light of mauna illumined my face as golden Padam
dispensed the grace of Jnana through His radiant gaze.

Verse 2227:  Through His grace-filled glance, golden, bewitching Padam destroyed my infatuation with the ego mind, scooping me up and consuming me with relish.

Verse 1370: The grace-bestowing gaze of Padam shot forth, granting me, in the form of deep absorption, the victorious sword of exalted Swarupa Jnana.

Verse 2465:  Having abolished the defect of the poison like delusive ego by looking at me with His Jnana-bestowing eye,
Padam resides within my Heart.


Arunachala Siva.