Letters from Sri Ramanasramam
146
entering the hall. Ramanatha joined the group of Bhagavan’s disciples when quite young, when Bhagavan was still in Virupaksha Cave. After that he never left Bhagavan except for short intervals of about fifteen days in the year. This staunch devotee and lifelong brahmachari went to Madras for treatment and we heard the news of his demise within fifteen days. I entered the hall, feeling sad that it had happened the same way as with Madhavaswamy some time earlier, and simultaneously feeling gratified that he had left his skeleton-like body without much suffering. Bhagavan said to me, “It seems that our Ramanathan is gone.” Once before, when Madhavaswamy died and Bhagavan told me, “Madhavaswamy has gone,” and I asked him, “Where to?” Bhagavan replied, “Where to? There, leaving his body here.” So I did not ask him again this time, “Where to?” but merely replied, “Yes I have heard so.” In the afternoon at 3 p.m., two ladies, Uma and Alamu, began to sing the Tamil verses “Ramana Anubhuti”. Bhagavan told me with some feeling, “Look! These are verses written by Ramanatha himself; there is also another song with the pallavi (refrain) ‘Thiruchulinathanai Kandene’. That also was written by him. There is an interesting story in this connection. During my stay in Virupaksha Cave, on one fullmoon day we all started out on a giri pradakshina. Chidambaram Subramanya Iyer was here at that time. The moonlight was bright and all were in high spirits. They all decided to hold a meeting and each person was to deliver a lecture on a different subject. Subramanya Iyer was elected chairman of the meeting. The first lecture was by Ramanatha. The topic chosen by him was ‘The similarity between the Paramatma dwelling in the cave of the human heart, Lord Nataraja in Chidambaram and Sri Ramana in Virupaksha Cave’. The chairman allowed him half an hour. There was no end to