Letter from Dilip

I stayed with Ma F.Taleyarkhan in her beautiful retreat at Arunachala when I went for the second time to pay my homage to the Sage of Arunachala, Maharshi Ramana. She was to me a perfect hostess. The Maharshi loved her as only he could love and her fulfilment as an authentic God-seeker was accelerated primarily by his blessing, even though she must have been blessed by many other holy men since she had been impelled to worship them since her adolescence.

Hailing from a distinguished family, she turned to Maharshi Ramana as her Guru with all the impetuous ardour of her high-born soul and served him from 1939 till 1950 with a moving devotion which is astonishing, the more so as she had taken refuge at her Guru's feet and become actually an inmate of the Ashram in the teeth of the opposition of her family and cultured circle of friends. Shri Aurobindo wrote to an English disciple of his that one of the most difficult hurdles for the human mind to cross is to be one-pointed. Ma F.Taleyarkhan achieved this feat with almost a regal ease, brushing aside sans peur the chorus of disapprobation of almost all who were near and dear to her.

I can well recall how she used to pay her childlike heart’s offering of adoration at the feet of the Maharshi and how he was wont to accept the worship of her guileless loyal soul. I cannot find words to praise her unwavering faith in the Maharshi whom she adored all along with a single-mindedness which had to be seen to be believed. In the Gita the Lord has said:

अनन्यचेता: सततं यो मां स्मरति नित्यश: |
तस्याहं सुलभ: पार्थ नित्ययुक्तस्य योगिन: || 8.14 ||

ananya-chetāḥ satataṁ yo māṁ smarati nityaśhaḥ
tasyāhaṁ sulabhaḥ pārtha nitya-yuktasya yoginaḥ

Who – sleeplessly and in one-pointed love
to me appeal – shall swiftly win to my Grace.

I understand she has written about Maharshi Ramana in a book entitled Sages, Saints and Arunachala Ramana. She is surely eminently fitted for this noble task she has set herself, even though it is far from easy to bring out the greatness of so resplendent an Illuminate, a Saint-cum-Sage, as Ramana Maharshi. May her book inspire thousands of aspirants and instil hope in their hours of despair, Could there be a mission more commendable in this purblind age of growing nihilism which is the logical outcome of Godless materialism and scientific agnosticism?

– June 1, 1970. Dilip Kumar Roy