I asked: “Ma, have you been to Ramanashram?”
She stopped,
looked at me, and asked: “Have you been?”
My eldest jethaa moshaai (eldest uncle), Sri Satya Prakash Mukherjee had been to Bhagavan’s abode from very early on in 1952, and because of him four generations of our family, including his own father, had been drawn into Bhagavan’s net of Grace.
Considering I had come in intimate contact with most of the first generation family of Bhagavan through my uncle (my salutations to him), I replied: “Yes Ma, twice.”
She gave me a faraway yet penetrating look and answered: Ota aamaar baaper baadi (“That is my father’s home.”).
By then we had reached ground level and I followed her on along the very narrow lane
towards a car parked at one end of the lane where it joined a larger road. As she stopped and turned to cross the lane and reach the car that was waiting for her, she turned to me and said in Bengali, “Don’t
stop going there. Don’t stop going there.”
She was soon gone. As I watched unblinking, she disappeared through the door of the car held open for her. Upon settling into the rear car seat she then graciously leaned out of the window and
shared her secret with me. With a captivating smile she said,
“Do not stop going there!”
It naturally made a deep impression on me.
Ma may have disappeared from our physical eyes, but her admonition not to stop coming to Arunachala burned bright in my heart. The injunction of Sri Bhagavan to search for the origin of the seeker was endorsed by her on this earthly plane.
She directly empowered my deep-felt faith in Sri Ramana and Arunachala and I went to my father’s house too, as if it were my birthright.
Ma was born in 1896, which was the same year of our Master’s Advent in Arunachala. And later that year, at the age of 56, she did
indeed visit her baap ka ghar in November 1952 to pay her respects to the samadhi lingam of her pitaji (father), Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi, the manifestation of Siva Dakshinamurti.
SS Cohen wrote a report that was published in Ananda Varta, the official magazine of Ma’s ashram. “She went round the Ashram to see the places sanctified by the holy presence of Shri Ramana Bhagavan
in His life-time. Before His samadhi, She reverently stood with folded hands, and enquired about how the sacred body had been buried, and whether there was a lingam on the samadhi. The lingam She could not see because it was covered with flower garlands. Then She entered the Matrubhuteswara shrine which was built over the remains of the Master’s mother and climbed to the sanctum sanctorum where She was shown Sri Chakra and the sacred lingam. At 5 pm. She attended the usual Veda parayan near Sri Maharishi’s samadhi, and between 7 and 9 pm. the bhajan programme, as in Madras.
“All the ashram devotees and many members of the Managing Committee, who had come from Madras, gathered in the Ashram at 9 a.m. on the-next day, the 5th. The ceremony of laying the foundation-stone of the Meditation Hall, which is proposed to be built over Sri Bhagavan’s samadhi, was performed, and at its end, Sri Anandamayee Ma approached and strewed flowers over the foundation stone to the joy of all present.”
Later that same evening after a short movie on Bhagavan in his last years was shown to Her, and then “…a member of the Managing
Committee approached Mataji and with folded hands begged Her to visit our Ashram again, to which
She smilingly replied;
‘I am not going anywhere: I am always here. There is no going nor coming all is Atman’ which very much reminded us of the very words of our Divine Guru, Sri Ramana Bhagavan.”
After three days in the ashram, “On the 7th, at 5 a.m., Mataji stood under the arch of Sri Ramanashram gate in clear moonlight with Sirius brilliantly twinkling overhead. She looked around, and, seeing the small circle of Ramana bhaktas gathered to see Her off, affectionately bade them farewell, then entered Her car and sped away on Her journey in the direction of the Southern Cross, extremely satisfied at the reception given to Her here, and at the peaceful
