Adam Mars-Jones - Cedilla

‘Mr Somerset Maugham came here expecting to find a charlatan. But he fainted before he even entered the presence of Bhagavan Sri Ramana. Major Chadwick, who was his host, sent for Bhagavan rather than a doctor, and Bhagavan stroked Somerset Maugham’s forehead until he came to himself. Then Bhagavan said, “It is finished. Heart talk is all talk. True talk ends in silence.” Mr Maugham did not say one word, but when he wrote his book he did not describe a charlatan. I have marked the passage for your interest.’

Then Mrs Osborne asked me casually about my tour of the mountain in the dark. ‘Some people find their first pradakshina disappointing. Perhaps this is true of you?’ I could have said that I had received more in the way of enlightenment from the Ghost Train at the funfair, and that was without benefit of riding the damn thing, just from watching people’s faces as the cars clattered out into daylight. I managed to say that I was too humble to expect an instant impact even from a profound experience.

‘That is a healthy state of mind. Pradakshina is not like a lightning-bolt, but like a single mighty turn of the spiritual generator that charges one’s batteries. I trust your companion was informative?’ I made gracious noises. Then she sprang her trap. ‘Ganesh is a fine teacher, if someone is willing to learn.’

‘ Ganesh? ’ I gurgled. I felt utterly mortified and outmanoeuvred. Bamboozled, even. I had known that at some stage I would be in the same room as Ganesh, since he was a luminary of the ashram, after all. Even before I left Britain I had decided on the attitude I would assume when I met the man who had tried to discourage me from making my visit. I would be friendly but distant. We were united, after all, by more things than divided us. Fellow devotees — that would be my line. I was as much a follower of Ramana Maharshi in my own way as he was in his. But now Ganesh had sneaked in under my radar by presenting himself in the guise of helper, and escorting me on my first pradakshina , as if he was offering a belated blessing on my presence. And all of this insidious conciliation had sneaked up on me without my knowledge.

Mrs O had a certain malicious twinkle in her eyes when she said, ‘Perhaps you were not looking forward to meeting Ganesh, John. It is a mistake to waste time on such feelings. Certainly you should know that the letter Ganesh sent you in England was written in consultation with me. He did not know quite what to do, and we agreed on a course of action. Why not ask him about our discussion tomorrow? He will be coming to take you to the ashram. And now I am tired, and you must be in a similar state — except that you have a bed which tonight, I trust, will meet your exacting standards.’ There were times when it would have been a relief to know, by peeping into her bedroom in a way that I never could, that she was a hypocrite about her austerity and actually rolled herself up for the night in bedding so luxurious it made my Margaret Erskine Dream-Cloud seem like wire wool.

Ganesh turned up again shortly after breakfast the next day, lively and smiling. I had wanted to approach the precincts of the ashram with an attention washed entirely clean of worldly concerns, but that really wasn’t on the cards after what Mrs O had told me the previous night.

This time Rajah Manikkam did the pushing, which made me wonder why he hadn’t been used on the previous occasion. I knew that Westerners were technically unclean to many Hindus, and one of the advantages of the hand-folding namaskaaram gesture is that it offers a polite abstention from touch. Selfishly I approved, since people who are keen to shake my hand are usually in pain socially, and likely to inflict some of their own. Now I wondered if touching the wheelchair wasn’t itself under a taboo for a brahmin like Ganesh, which would mean that on our first pradakshina , when he told me about Parvati’s penance on Arunachala, he had taken on some trifling mortification of his own.

I felt it was up to me to take the initiative, and I started the conversation formally. ‘My name is John Cromer, I am a devotee from England, and you I think are Ganesh, head of the ashram.’ Ideally I would have wanted to have a proper face-to-face confrontation, to thrash things out in bold British style, but that wasn’t possible with him walking alongside me. I would have liked to fix him hypnotically with my gaze, a weapon that can be powerful on occasion but is all too easy to dodge. The ray-gun has rusted onto its tripod.

‘Indeed I am Ganesh, but I am by no means “head” of the ashram. What need of a head as long as there are hearts? After Bhagavan’s mahasamadhi his younger brother Chinnaswami was there to oversee the ashram. Then my father T. N. Venkataraman succeeded him. I am editor of The Mountain Path with Mrs Osborne, which is privilege and labour enough.’ Much of the labour, I imagined, had to do with keeping his collaborator sweet. ‘But let there be a new beginning between us. You are here, you are welcome, you are doing pradakshina , perhaps it has started to take effect. You may remember that I wrote you a letter that did not encourage you to continue with your visit, and perhaps you wonder why.’

‘Mrs Osborne said she had something to do with it.’

‘Indeed so. Yours was an unusual case, John Cromer, both in the strength of your devotion and in the obstacles in your path. Obstacles which, as perhaps you remember, were only belatedly revealed to us. I proposed that I remind you of what Bhagavan said about internal and external change: that if you could realise yourself in the jungle, you could do so anywhere. An outward journey was not necessary, and could simply be a distraction. Mrs Osborne is — can we agree? — capable of great determination. She said instead that we should not preach, but simply be as discouraging as possible on the mundane level. Her thinking (and for this also there is much precedent) was that if your visit was meant to happen then no such strictures would have the slightest effect.’

I could hear him smile at this point. A smile is a perfectly audible aspect of conversation. It colours not only speech but silence. ‘It seems that determination is not exclusively Mrs Osborne’s province. I hope you understand our … stratagem , and the fact that we are very happy for its failure.’

‘I promise I will try.’ By this time we had reached the ashram, and Ganesh said, ‘I shall take you to the Old Hall and then perhaps leave you to meditate. If you need me just mention my name to anyone you see. Ganesh, the god after whom I am named, is the god who removes obstacles, and I would be happy to live up to my name, despite your past doubts.’

I had been determined to memorise my first impressions of the ashram, but alas while Ganesh was offering ambiguous compliments on my mental powers my attention was divided, and those first impressions became lost. There’s a mystical idea that everything that ever happened (and will happen) is stored in a sort of metaphysical store room called the Akasic Records, the astral equivalent of that Harrods Depository where Granny kept ‘nice’ (or even ‘good’) furniture for which she didn’t have space. I suppose my lost impressions must be there, properly docketed, but they slipped away from me immediately.

It was only in the Old Hall that I began to take in my surroundings. I had approached the holy of holies without the proper preparation. I found myself about six feet from the couch on which Ramana Maharshi had spent so much of his time in the body. Ganesh had delivered me into the heart of a spiritual furnace, where everything can be consumed before the devotee hears so much as a crackle.