Where Is the Swami? - Suri Nagamma Letters

After Bhagavan told us yesterday that he does not now have that happiness which he enjoyed when he was sleeping on an earthen platform, some devotees went to Skadasramam after obtaining Bhagavan’s permission and, on their way back, saw the Virupaksha Cave. On returning to the Ashram they asked Bhagavan if the earthen platform referred to yesterday was the same as that which is now in the verandah there, and whether it was a fact that Bhagavan himself constructed that platform.

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.”