The Light Of Lights

Ramana Maharshi

-Staff

By Staff

Monday, June 23, 2008, 17:50

The question of fate and freewill pop up in the minds of spiritual aspirants as one begins to tread the spiritual path. We are a bundle of emotions, tossed and turned in life when we begin to embark on a spiritual quest . We walk this way of life clasping the master's arm entreating emotional help until one is stable enough. Despite the assurance of the master's undivided attention, it is customary of one to fumble and falter in one's faith. Our emotions are expertly handled by the master either by granting the boon or by denying it urging one to surrender. The Grace that operates either ways is solely and surely for the evolution of the disciple. Here is an example of Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi's Grace, the ever effulgent light, shinning as the Arunachala within oneself, illumining a pair of eyes that were despaired by darkness.

Padma Sitapati an ardent devotee of Bhagavan was instilled with deep devotion and love for Ramana at a very young age by her mother Janaki Matha. A tragedy struck the devout devotees as a deadly fever plucked the eyesight of her three year old son. Janaki matha however asked her daughter to anchor her trust in Ramana, saying that the God of Gods would retrieve her son's eyesight. Soon a letter was written to Ramanashram explaining the predicament followed by a positive reply. Padma Sitapati's father was a doctor and tried his level best in providing the best treatment possible to retrieve the eyesight.

Months rolled over with an unaltered state in the condition which caused the faith in Bhagavan to falter in the face of harsh reality. Karthigai Deepam, the festival lights which is a huge affair in Thiruvannamalai showed up and Janaki Matha arranged an elaborate pooja. At the end of the pooja the elderly devotee came out of the pooja room proclaiming that Bhagavan Ramana had restored the eyesight of the infant. She asked her daughter to take her grandson to a Shiva temple in the evening.

The child was taken to a Shiva temple half heartedly where it prattled that it could see Bhagavan to everyone's amazement. Tears of joy trickled over the cheeks of the mother. Janaki Matha asked her daughter to visit the ashram after the incident, which they did after a few months. Bhagavan listened to the whole story nonchalantly as if He had no part in working out the miracle; the reaction that was customary of Him when such cases were reported. Just then the child said that it could only see th body of Bhagavan and not His head. On Bhagavan asking, the child's mother explained of it as a partial night blindness that still persisted.

Bhagavan Ramana then asked the child to look at Him properly saying that he can now see His head too. And Lo!, the child could see Bhagavan clearly and normally ! A spark of His effulgence had illumined the darkness of the eyes.