RAMANA MAHARSHI – THE MASTER STORY TELLER

[Guest guest]

RAMANA MAHARSHI – THE MASTER STORY TELLER

 

Once someone placed the Periapuranam in Bhagavan's hands. He began

reading out of it.Now Bhagavan was a pastmaster at story telling.

His solo acting was ever the admiration of his devotees. His

modulation of voice of different characters, suiting gestures and

postures of each incident, were wonderfully effective. His devotees

never missed a chance of being in the hall on such occasions.

 

Bhagavan began with the life of the hunter-devotee Kannappan who

worshipped Sivalinga with water carried in his mouth, flowers taken

from his hair, and beef prepared for his own meal. The way in which

the priest resented the intruding defiler of the sacred Sivalinga

was embellished by Bhagavan with his own explanations of the rites

and the meanings of the mantras used in the worship. Then came the

scene of scenes. The Lord in the Sivalinga tested the devotee by

making blood trickle from the eyes on that Linga. Kannappan ran to

and fro for herbs to treat the Lord's eye with them. Finding them

all useless, he plucked out one of his own eyes and applied it to

that in the Shivalinga. Seeing that the treatment was effective, he

ran into ecstasY of joyful dance.

 

When Bhagavan came to the story of how the forest-devotee was

plucking out his second eye to heal the second of the Lord, and of

how the Sivalinga extended a hand to stop him, saying, `Stop

Kannappan', Bhagavan's voice got choked, his body perspired

profusely, his hairs stood on end, tears gushed out of his eyes, he

could hardly utter a word, and there was pin-drop silence in the

hall. All were dumbfounded that this great jnani could be so

overpowered by emotion and ecstasy at the hunter's devotion. After

a while, Bhagavan quietly closed the book, dried the tears with the

end of his towel and laid aside the book, saying, " No, I can't go on

any further. " ( As told by T.K. Sundaresa Iyer )

 

prof laxmi narain (prof_narain)

 

Source and courtesy: Sri Ramana Kendram, Hyderabad

This article was published in Sri Ramana Jyothi,

monthly magazine of the Kendram.