Letters from Sri Ramanasramam, by Suri Nagamma

That is like the sleep of a Realized Soul. The body is for him a
cart; while in motion, while standing still, or while being
unloaded, that man goes on sleeping.’ Subsequently, the same
idea was expressed in the verse referred to above, which was
also written in prose in Telugu.”*
Continuing our conversation, we walked on and reached
the turning which leads to the Isanya Mutt. Kunjuswami
then continued his narration:
“Sometimes, while going round the hill, it would all of a
sudden rain heavily. Others accompanying Bhagavan would
run for shelter, but he never hurried his pace and walked on
steadily, unaffected by the rain. Once at this turning, it began
to rain heavily; we all ran to the Isanya Mutt, but Bhagavan
walked as usual and was drenched by the time he reached the
mutt. As a rule, he did not go to the mutt because they would
detain him there unnecessarily; he would go alongside the
hill to the Municipal Bungalow over there and sit on the
narrow verandah in front of it. Except for one or two of his
attendants, the rest of the party continued the walk after
prostrating to him. This was because, had they all gone
together as a crowd, the people of the town would come to
* “To the Realized Soul who is asleep in the gross body the states
of activity, samadhi and deep sleep mean no more than a cart’s
moving, stopping and being unyoked mean to a traveller who is
asleep in the cart.” (Translation).

know about our circumambulation and would have gathered
round and begun to do something in adoration of Bhagavan.

So, after sending all the others off, he would cover himself
with a shawl and reach the Ashram by a byepath. Even so,
sometimes a few people would recognize him and offer him
something to eat. If he went round the hill at night, he would,
on nearing the town, ask us not to sing or talk loudly as that
might disturb the people in their sleep.”
By the time Kunjuswami had finished telling us these
incidents, it was about 2 a.m. and we had reached the
town. Everything was quiet, and he again began
reminiscencing to us:
“Another time, during summer, after supper we
started to go round the hill. There was good moonlight
and by the time we reached this place, it was as now about
2 a.m. All the people in the town were asleep and it was
very quiet. Being summer, all the windows of the houses
were open. All the shops were closed and locked; only the
watchmen were patrolling the streets. Bhagavan, pointing
this out to us, said, ‘Do you see how still the whole town
is? The streets, the houses and the lights are there, but all
the people are asleep except the watchmen. Hence it is all
quiet. But when the day breaks, everyone will get up and
there will be activity on all sides. That is like ‘savikalpa
samadhi’. Do you see those big houses and small ones? The
windows are open, but the one who sees is sleeping. That
is like the turiya, or Fourth State. It could be said that the
state of the Realized Soul is also the same and could be
given as an example. It appears as though the eyes see;
they, however, sleep peacefully.”
After listening to this story, we reached our homes. The
next day, after finding out from those near him all the details
of what had happened during our walk round the hill,
Bhagavan said, “When I hear the happy way you went round
the hill, I feel envious of you. But then I cannot go out like
that now.” And he laughed. “If a lot of people accompanied
me, I used to go by the path through the jungle; but if I was
going alone, I used to take the path along the foot of the
hill.”
“Are there three paths for going round the hill?” asked
a devotee.

“Yes. The one is the road, the other is along the foot of
the hill, and beyond it is the jungle path,” said Bhagavan.

“So Bhagavan used to wander along all those paths?”
asked the devotee.

“Why along those paths only?” said Bhagavan, “I might
even say that there is no place on the hill that I have not set
my foot on. There are innumerable Ayurvedic herbs on the
hill; there are waterfalls in several places. That is why it is said
that this mountain is the abode of siddhas (adepts with powers).

Some time ago, a geophysicist came here to find out how old
this hill is, and when he wrote to us on his return to his native
land, he asked us to send him some stones as specimens. They
were sent and, on receiving them, he compared those stones
with some from other mountains (like the Himalayas) and
found that those from Arunachala were older. He himself
wrote to us about it.”