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A Sadhu's Reminiscences of Ramana Maharshi
11
To try and describe my reactions when I first came, into the presence of Bhagavan is difficult. I felt the tremendous peace of his presence, his graciousness. It was not as though I were meeting him for the first time. It seemed that I had always known him. It was not even like the renewal of an old acquaintanceship. It had always been there though I had not been conscious of it at the time. Now I knew.
In spite of being entirely new to India and its customs, nothing that happened in these first days of my stay at the Ashram seemed strange to me, it was all quite natural. It was only afterwards when I had dwelt in India for some time that I began to realize how gracious Bhagavan had been to me from the very first. And this attitude of mine was to my advantage. Bhagavan responded to people's reactions. If you behaved absolutely naturally with no strain, Bhagavan's behaviour was similar. I do not mean, of course, that Bhagavan really had reactions or that his behaviour could ever be anything but natural, it was only that it appeared like that to us, for he was like a mirror which seemed to reflect back your own feelings. If you were reticent and over-awed he appeared almost standoffish, but on the other hand if you responded quite naturally to the all-embracing love of his presence, then he treated you as one of his own.
When I entered the Hall for the first time he was seated on his couch facing the door. It was about 7 o'clock and he had just returned from his stroll on the Hill. He greeted me with his lovely smile and asked if I had had my
