Letters from Sri Ramanasramam, by Suri Nagamma

Bhagavan: “Yes, that is a fact. We all thought that it would
be convenient for visitors to sit on. So I built it with stones and
mud. It was only some time later that it was cemented.”
I said: “Is it a fact that while the platform was being
constructed some stranger came and enquired of Bhagavan
where the Swami was and Bhagavan sent him away saying
that the Swami had gone somewhere?”
Bhagavan said, “How did you come to know of that?”
and laughed. I replied that Echamma had told me about it.

Thereupon Bhagavan related the incident to us as under:
“Yes. It is a fact. One morning I arranged the stones,
prepared the mud and was building the platform. Some
stranger came there and asked me ‘Where is the Swami?’ There
was no one else besides myself. So I said, ‘Swami has just gone
out somewhere.’ He again asked, ‘When will he return?’
I said, ‘I don’t know.’ As he was afraid it might be a long time
for the Swami to return, he began descending the hill when
he met Echamma coming up, who asked him why he was
going down. When he mentioned what had happened, she
asked him to accompany her saying she would show him the
Swami. Echamma came up, put down inside the cave the vessel
containing the food she had brought with her, prostrated
before me, rose and told the stranger, ‘There he is. He is the
Swami.’ The man was surprised and, after prostrating before
me, said to her, ‘Is he the Swami? When I came here a little
while ago, he was building the platform. Not knowing who he
was, I asked him “Where is the Swami?” and he said “The
Swami has gone out somewhere.” I believed him and so started
going back.’ Echamma thereupon began teasing me for
misleading him. Then I said, ‘Oho! Then do you want me to
tie a board round my neck saying I am the Swami’?”
Devotee: “It seems you misled people in the same way
even after coming here?”
Bhagavan: “Yes. That is true. We did not have many
buildings then. We had only this hall where we all are now
sitting. Even this was originally constructed as a kitchen with
a chimney. Our Shanmugam Pillai, father of Gopala Pillai,
and several other devotees insisted on having a hall for
Bhagavan to sit in, and said that the construction of a kitchen
could wait. The chimney that had already been constructed
was therefore dismantled and the building was converted
into this hall. Between this hall and Mother’s temple there
used to be a thatched shed for a kitchen and by its side near
the black neem tree there used to be the store room. That
also was a thatched shed. Daily, we used to get up early in
the morning and cut vegetables. One day while I was thus
cutting vegetables keeping the door of the store room open,
and all the others had gone out on different errands, two or
three people who were going round the hill came into the
hall and, finding the couch empty, came round to the store
room. They were people who frequently visited the Ashram.

What has that got to do with it? My head was wholly covered
with a bed-sheet and as I was cutting vegetables, my face was
not visible. ‘Sir, Swami is not on the couch. Where is he?’ they
asked me. I replied saying that he had just gone out and would
be back in a little while. They thereupon went away without
waiting as it would be too late for them to go round the hill.

Some one here noticed that and asked me why I had misled
them. ‘What else to do?’ I said. ‘Was I to tell them that I was
the Swami?’ Such incidents happened quite a number of
times.”
When I mentioned all this to a devotee, who has been
in the Ashram from very early days, he said, “Not only that.

You know there used to be a swami by name Dandapani. He
was stout with a big paunch and with an ochre-coloured loin
cloth. He had a stentorian voice. Bhagavan therefore used
to say that it would be a good thing to keep him at the doorway
during the Krithikai Festival of Lights so that people who
came in crowds could take him to be the Swami, prostrate
before him and go without troubling Bhagavan. Bhagavan
has thus always been anxious to avoid publicity.”