In the first year of my stay I was a keen and close questioner, mainly on the technique of meditation. Bhagavan’s answers to these questions I recorded particularly carefully. Some of them appear here under my own initial C., or Mr. C. as that of the questioner. I have classified most of the notes according to subject and, as far as possible, in chronological order, beginning with the light ones, for the convenience of the reader.
After I finished, he remained pensive for a few seconds and, then, in the same language but with considerable deliberation, said: ‘Yes, you are right; all preconceptions must go. Practice alone will show you where the truth lies. Stick to only one form of sadhana.’
“That was a clear pointer. But apart from the words he uttered, I was suddenly gripped by an overwhelming urge to surrender unreservedly to him to guide me in my spiritual hunger, abandoning all the methods I had previously followed and all the beliefs on which I had built my hopes. My fate and all that I was, passed from that moment into the sacred hands of Sri Bhagavan for ever.”
“Bhagavan,” I said on a day then near my hut, “I feel a strong urge to go on a yatra (pilgrimage) to the South – Chidambaram, Srirangam, Rameshwaram …,” but lo! a look on Bhagavan’s face struck me forcibly with the thought “Yatra! what for? Are you still in doubt?” I instantly remembered his words of long ago: “Where is the room for doubt?” and, as if in reply to a verbal question from him,
“So much lies in your power, the rest must be left entirely to the Guru, who is the ocean of Grace and Mercy seated in the heart, as the seeker’s own Self.”
Days melted into weeks, and weeks into months and the foreigner impatiently awaited the Great Experience: each day was the day, and each moment the moment. The Indian is never in a hurry: he knows his work well, and, looking wistfully ahead, continues his practice, full of unshakeable confidence. But the foreigner, being used to work on a timetable, fixes hour and date, as if for an interview.