Letter 107

(107) BLESSINGS
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8th April, 1947
Recently, elder brother’s children, Sastri and Murthi, wrote a letter to Bhagavan as follows: “To Chiranjeevi Bhagavan Thathayya (grandfather), Namaskarams. Do you know of any mantram that gets us whatever we want? If so, please send it to us in writing immediately. Your grandchildren, Sastri and Murthi.” When I said, “What do they mean by writing ‘Chiranjeevi Thathayya?’ Silly” (Chiranjeevi means ‘long life’, and is used by elders in addressing younger people).

Sundaresa Iyer remarked: “They have written correctly.

Who else can be Chiranjeevi other than Bhagavan? They bow to the grandfather who lives eternally. They wanted him to bless them so as to get whatever they want. What is wrong?”

Bhagavan said with a smile, “In my younger days I wrote a similar letter to my uncle’s son Ramaswamy. I stayed with them for some time in Dindigul where I was studying. I came to Tiruchuli during a vacation. I wanted to write a letter to Ramaswamy. I did not know how to address him. In the letters written to him by my father I noticed him writing ‘aseervadams (blessings) to Ramaswamy’. So I also began to write to him ‘aseervadams to brother-in-law’. He was older than me and I did not know that I should have writen ‘namaskarams’. I thought it would be the same for all people. I realised this mistake when he laughed at me for this.”

One devotee said, “I believe Bhagavan was very familiar with that Ramaswamy.” Bhagavan replied, “Yes, in the place where my picture is now placed in the Sundara Mandiram in Tiruchuli, there used to be a tape cot. My father used to sleep on it. No one else but Ramaswamy and myself could take the liberty of getting on it. When father was not in town, we two used to sleep on it together. No one had any familiarity with father except Ramaswamy because he had no mother, and myself because I was by nature very free in such matters. Father was a towering personality.”

That devotee said, “Did that Ramaswamy ever come here?”
Bhagavan said, “He came here once long back. To move out of his place was a great problem for him. People who had been here used to tell him about me, it seems. He had been putting off his visit to this place from time to time when this Viswanath ran away from home saying he did not want to marry and came here. He is the son of Ramaswamy.

He thought he could take Viswanath back. After all, it being the case of his own son, he could not delay coming here.

Viswanath himself got a letter saying that he was coming.

Without telling me that news, he (Viswanath) gave me that letter saying, ‘the Dindigul mountain has started moving’.

“On looking into the letter I understood what he meant.

Ramaswamy came here the very next day. Recently, while writing letters to me, he himself has begun writing, ‘namaskarams to Swami’. He writes, ‘Swami should bless me’.

It means he received my blessings even when I was young.

Whoever expected at that time, that it would turn out like this? I wrote something. That was all.”