Letter 102, 3rd April, 1947

The other day there was a talk in Sri Bhagavan’s presence about old songs. Bhagavan said, “Mother used to sing ‘Dakshinamurthy Stotra’ and other Vedantic songs. They used to be full of meaning. Nobody cares about them nowadays but it would be very good if they were edited and published.” On hearing that, I remembered about the old philosophic songs in Telugu also and felt that it would be beneficial spiritually to our ladies if those songs also could be edited and published, and wrote an article about it. In it I mentioned the “Appalam Song”^[2] which assumed much prominence in Bhagavan’s teachings to Mother Alagamma, and which is considered to be one of the best of songs. When I told Bhagavan that I wanted to send the article to the Telugu magazine Griha Lakshmi, he asked me to read it out to him. On hearing it, Bhagavan said, “There is a big story about this song,” and at my request he was pleased to narrate it.

“In the early days when Mother came to stay with me in Virupaksha Cave, there was no cooking. If Echamma or anybody else brought her any food she used to eat it, clean the vessels and then go to bed. That was all. One day she thought I had nothing special to eat and as I was fond of the twin appalams, she thought it would be a good idea to make some for me. Being well experienced, she could not refrain from making them. Without my knowledge she asked the Mudaliar old lady, Echamma and some others to get everything ready and one evening she set out, saying that she was going to the village. I wanted to see where she was really going, and so when she left, I waited silently under the tree outside. She thought I did not know anything. She went to several houses, collected all the required things in a big vessel and returned. I closed my eyes and pretended complete ignorance. She put them away carefully in the cave till all the visitors left. After nightfall, I had my usual meal and lay down pretending to sleep. Leisurely, she took out the wooden roller, wooden seat, loose flour and the balls of paste and commenced making appalams. There were about two to three hundred to be made. She could not prepare them all single-handed. I knew the job. So she quietly began telling me, ‘My boy, please help me with it.’ I got the opportunity I was waiting for. If I were lenient in this, she would start something else. I wanted to put a timely stop to it. I said, ‘You have renounced everything and have come here, haven’t you? Why all this? You should rest content with whatever is available. I won’t help you. I won’t eat them if you prepare them. Make them all for yourself, and eat them yourself.’ She was silent for a while and again started saying, ‘What, my dear son, please help me a little.’ I was adamant. She continued to call me again and again. Feeling it was no use arguing any more, I said, ‘All right. You make these appalams; I will make another kind’, and I started singing this ‘Appalam Song’. She used to sing a rice song, soup song and other such songs, all with Vedantic meanings. None appears to have written an appalam song. So I felt I should compose one. She was very fond of songs. So she felt that she could learn another song. By the time the preparation of the appalams was over, my song also was finished. ‘I will eat this appalam (the song about the appalams), and you eat those that you have made,’ I told her. That happened sometime in 1914 or 1915.”

“What a big story! I wrote it in brief in this essay. This won’t do,” I said. “Why all this in that essay?” asked Bhagavan. I said I would write all this in my “Letters” (to my brother) and Bhagavan agreed to it. He was then reminded of some other incident, and said, “Some time after the ‘Appalam Song’ was composed, we all set out one day on giri pradakshina.

Someone said, ‘Swamiji! Please tell us the meaning of the “Appalam Song”’. I started explaining thus: ‘Take the words ‘thanugani pancha kosa kshetramunnada (in the body with the five elements)’ — there are many authorities about the ‘pancha kosa kshetra’ in the Bhagavad Gita and other Vedantic texts. I quoted them all. Similarly for every word there are many authorities. I gave them all, explaining their meanings and significance. We finished our round of the hill, returned to the Virupaksha Cave and sat down. I was still explaining. All the essence of the Vedanta is incorporated in that one song. If properly commented upon, it would make a big volume by itself.”

I said, “It would have been good if somebody had recorded all that when Bhagavan explained. Who can comment upon the song as Bhagavan does! Why not somebody record it even now?” “That is all very well!” he said laughing. After hearing all the commentary, I said, “I am not satisfied with this article and so I will not send it to Griha Lakshmi.” Bhagavan said, “Just as you please,” and resumed his talk, “Though I was remonstrating with my mother, she slowly started cooking, first a vegetable, then soup, and so on. We went to Skandasramam afterwards. She used to wander all over the hill, gather something or other, and say, ‘He likes this vegetable and that fruit’. She took no notice of my remonstrations. Once, while she was coming to the jungle at this side, her saree got in a thorny bush. It was only then that this path was cleared of all bushes and the like. She said she would not leave me and go anywhere else. If she went anywhere, she was afraid that she might die there. She was particular that she should die in my arms. When Alamelu (Bhagavan’s younger sister) built a new house in their village near Manamadurai, she begged mother just to go over there and see the house. She said it was enough if she (mother) just set her foot in it. But she never went. She declined because she was afraid that in case she fell ill there, there might not be trains running properly at that time to bring her back here and in that case, she might not die in her son’s arms.

She used to say, ‘Even if you were to throw away my dead body in these thorny bushes I do not mind but I must end this life in your arms.’” As he was saying that, his voice began to falter through emotion. My eyes got moist. I said, “Renunciation should be as firm as that with everybody.” “Yes, yes!” he said and was silent.

Because she said, “Even if you were to throw away my body in these thorny bushes,” we now see that the place of her burial is adorned by a temple fit to be worshipped by kings and emperors.

– Ch.102, 03 April 1947

Forty Verses on Reality (Uḷḷadu Nārpadu) – Part III

The Invocatory (Mangalam) Verses

We conclude Laksmana Sarma's commentary on the second of the two invocatory verses of Sri Bhagavan's composition, Uḷḷadu Nārpadu. The translation has been done from the original Tamil by 'Kays'.

Exegesis: Brahman, the nirguṇa (attributeless) form that was dwelt upon in the first invocatory verse, appears with form and attributes (saguṇa) for the sake of yet other devotees. When the mind has resolved into the ego-less state, Brahman is nirguṇa and is saguṇa when the mind is functional. Then it is called Īśvara or God. Those who love God with pure devotion finally offer their very selves (ego-sense) to him, and they become the fit recipients of his grace. They obtain the same pure non-dual experience of being the self. The averment of this truth forms the content of the second invocatory verse:

Maraṇa­bhaya mikkuḷa­vam makkaḷara ṇāga
Maraṇa­bhava millā magēśaṉ – chara­ṇamē
Sārvar­tañ sārvoḍu­tāñ savuṭṭṛār sāveṇṇañ
Sārvarō sāvā davar

Verse-split: maraṇa bhayam mikku uḷa ammakkaḷ araṇ āha maraṇa bhavam illā mahēśan caranamē sārvar; tam sārvodu tām sāvuttṟār; sāvu eṇṇam sārvarō sāvādavar?

Import: Virtuous people, seized with an intense fear of death, to sunder that fear, seek as refuge and surrender themselves unto the Lord who is free from birth and death. Thereby their ego ('I') along with their attachments (mine) gets destroyed. Will they, having become deathless, entertain the thought of death?

Commentary: Fear of death assails all at some point of time but passes away without any significant impact. The fleeting and so-called ‘dispassion of the cremation ground’ triggered by close encounters with death is short-lived and gets extinguished with enjoyment of objects of pleasure like good food, etc. But men of higher calibre made of sterner stuff do not allow the impact of death on them to wane but ever remember it, seek a remedy, and instantly reach the sublime goal.

For men ensnared by the māyā of the world and enslaved by nescience, the painful woes of samsāric life are but stepping stones leading to the door to release. Bhagavan says: “When one dreams while asleep, so long as the dreams are pleasant and joyful, he will not wake up from slumber, but sorrowful or frightful visions shake him up to wakefulness. So long as the world appears to be a stretch of placid enjoyment the worldling (wallowing in sams¿ra) will not wake up from the māyā world to his own Truth. Only encounters with the tragic aspect of samsāra or fear of death can drive one towards deliverance.” Though one is aware of the certainty of death, fear of death does not arise intensely until one comes face to face with it. The knowledge born out of personal experience that worldly life is riddled with sorrow turns one through dispassion towards nivritti mārga, the path of withdrawal from activity or of renunciation. A few highly illustrious personages at the very thought of or by merely pondering death turn to the path of knowledge and gain release. Lord Buddha and Bhagavan Sri Ramana, who bestowed this text, are two such.

A mind that has so turned away from the mundane world and its ensnaring holds comes under the sway of the grace of Lord Mahēśa, who is free from birth and death. Such descent of grace turns the mind inward and unifies it with the supreme reality when the ego-sense – the ‘I’ rising in respect of the body – along with the vāsanas of various bonds it is impregnated with, gets annihilated. What is left behind is the deathless, immortal Self.

Ahamk¿ra or ego-sense is the wrong awareness that the body itself is the Self. So long as this wrong notion persists, the death of the body is considered one's own death. But that the very thought of death, is uprooted with the annihilation of this wrong awareness, is what is revealed here.

The heart of the teaching of this text is the quest of the Self, Atma Vicāra – the sādhana with release as the goal.

That which aids, prepares for and guides the sādhana is satyāsatya vivékam, the discriminative knowledge between sat and asat or ascertainment through discrimination of what is real and unreal. The quest of the Self endows one with the attainment of the experience of the Self.

Notes From the North Mountain

On Dec. 2nd, 2019, our dear friend Dennis Hartel, an inspiration to countless of Sri Bhagavan's devotees, retired into a life of solitude, taking the feet of Sri Bhagavan as his sole refuge. He wrote in an email to his friends at Arunachala Ashrama:

“After 48 years of living in His abode, serving Him through His devotees, I became possessed, so to speak, with a single aspiration. I felt Bhagavan telling me: “Now you need only to serve Me by remembering Me and abiding in Me, the Self. Hence, you need not continue to serve Me physically, but serve me by remembering Me and abiding in Me.”

"In addition to this, I experienced an intense yearning to simplify my life, to depend on Him alone for all things, to take complete refuge in Him and leave it to Him to provide me with whatever is required to fulfill this aspiration, as enunciated by Sri Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita:

'To those who always think of Me and engage in exclusive devotion to Me, to those whose minds are always absorbed in Me, I provide what they lack and preserve what they already possess. – Bhagavad-Gita: Ch.9, v.22.

Dennis Hartel

click to see a large image

“I have put all my faith in Bhagavan’s guiding presence and all of you should do the same and celebrate with me this new direction in my life. Does not the Lord of the Universe sustain the trees of the forest, the birds in the sky, the fish in the sea. Will He ever forsake me? How is it possible. And how wonderful it is to want nothing from the world but the opportunity to abandon all hopes, all fears and desires and rest in Him. ”^[3]

As winter approaches Arunachala Ashrama, situated at the foot of the North Mountain here in the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia, magnifying further the deep peace and quietness of its environs, we are remembering Dennis, our friend and guide. On his 75th birthday, Dec. 8, 2023, devotees here and in Arunachala Ashrama in New York recalled with gratitude his life of dedication and devotion to Sri Bhagavan, with the certitude that wherever he may be, Sri Bhagavan's grace continues to sustain, inspire and protect him. Thank you, Dennis. We are all grateful.