Nature’s Splendour

As summer has advanced and the space in the hall has been found insufficient, Bhagavan has started staying in the Jubilee Hall itself all day.

As summer has advanced and the space in the hall has been found insufficient, Bhagavan has started staying in the Jubilee Hall itself all day. Bamboo screens are usually tied down behind his seat, but the attendants raised them yesterday as they were obstructing the free flow of the breeze. I did not notice it. I went there this morning at 8 o’clock. Bhagavan was seated there on the sofa, facing south, like Dakshinamurthy. The mango trees behind covered the whole space like a pandal with their branches, their tender leaves and delicate flowers heralding the dawn of summer. Between those leaves and the flower stalks, bunches of little mangoes, looking like Sivalingas, were dangling. The bowers of the flower garden on his right were full of flowers. Pots containing crotons were placed behind him very close to the sofa. On the left, they had filled a cement tub with water, in which sparrows were enjoying a bath. On either side of the sofa, two peacocks were standing — one white and the other coloured. The incense sticks were giving forth their perfumed smoke, assailing the nostrils of the devotees

gathered there. The sun’s rays were coming in through the slits in the covering of the thatched roof and falling on Bhagavan’s body, making it shine like gold. Seeing all this splendour, I do not even know if I prostrated as usual before Bhagavan; I remained standing still, lost in admiration.

Ramachandra Iyer, one of the attendants, looked at me as much as to say, “What is it?” Unable to contain my joy any longer, I exclaimed, “Brother, have you noticed how beautiful this scene is? See how nature around has blossomed and is showing us all its beauty! It would be nice if a photo were taken.” Bhagavan enquired as to what it was all about. “The whole scene here looks so beautiful that I was suggesting that a photo might be taken,” I said. Iyer also fell in with the idea, and so said, “Yes, we will take a photo.” Immediately thereafter, Bhagavan began narrating to us some incidents in his early life: “As you all know, I was in the Mango grove next to Gurumurtham, for some time. At that time also, I had a small shed under a mango tree. They erected something overhead like a nest to prevent rain falling on me. There was however not enough space even to stretch my legs fully while sleeping. I used to be sitting almost all the time like a bird in its nest. Opposite my shed, Palaniswami also had a small shed. In that huge garden, only two of us used to stay.”

Quoting, I said, “icÇ< vqtraemURle v&Ïa> iz:ya> guêyuvaR>... ‘It is nice to see the young Guru and the old sishyas together under the banyan tree’. It used to be like that, I suppose. Did anyone take a photo at that time?”

“No. Where were photos in those days?” said Bhagavan. Addressing his attendant, he said, “See. She says a photo must be taken of this sight.” “We shall arrange for it this afternoon,” said Ramachandra Iyer. Looking at the trees and recalling past incidents once again, Bhagavan said, “That

mango tree also had small fruit like this. They used to fall on top of my shed now and then, creating a sound like ‘tup, tup.’ Even though they got ripe, the outer cover was green. After they were sufficiently ripe, they used to be plucked and kept in storage until fully ripe. In the meantime, you know what used to happen! Bats used to come in the nights, nibble at all the ripe mangoes, eat a bit of each and throw it down. The balance fell to our lot. That means it was a prasad (remnants of food presented to a deity) from the bat.” When he heard this, Ramachandra Iyer asked, “Did that gardener never give you any fruit?” “He used to tell us to take the fruit from the trees when we felt like it, but we never touched them. We had the bat’s prasad, you see. When they got fully ripe on the tree itself, they were delicious. Is that not enough? Those thatched sheds and that nature’s beauty, gave us immense joy,” said Bhagavan.