18/12/2024
* * * Won’t you please hear my speechless appeal ? * * *
You have seen Jagadiswara Sastri, haven’t you?
When he was here, a dog used to go into the hall with him.
It was a particularly intelligent dog.
When Sastri or his wife came
into Bhagavan’s hall, it used to come in and
sit like a wellbehaved child and
go out along with them.
It was very keen on living in the house.
People did whatever they could to
prevent it entering the hall but it was no use.
Once the old couple entrusted it to somebody when they
went to Madras and did not return for 15 days.
At first, during the first four or five days,
it used to search in the halls go round the hall,
and then go about all the places
which they used to frequent.
Having got tired, perhaps disgusted,
with those fruitless efforts, one morning at about 10 o’clock it came
to Bhagavan’s sofa and stood there,
staring fixedly at Bhagavan.
At that time I was sitting in the front row.
Bhagavan was reading the paper.
Krishnaswami and others tried to send the
dog out by threats, but in vain.
I too asked it to go out.
No, it wouldn’t move.
Bhagavan’s attention was diverted by this hubbub and
he looked that way.
Bhagavan observed for a while the look of the dog and
our excitement.
He then put the paper aside and,
as if he had by his silence understood
the language of the dog, waved his hand towards it and said,
“Why, what is the matter?
You are asking where your people have gone?
Oh, I see, I understand.
They have gone to Madras.
They will be back in a week. Don’t be afraid.
Don’t be worried. Be calm.
Is it all right? Now, go.”
Hardly had Bhagavan completed his instructions,
when the dog turned and left the place.
Soon after that Bhagavan remarked to me,
“Do you see that?
The dog is asking me
where its people have gone and when they are returning.
However much the people here tried to send it away
it wouldn’t move until I answered its questions.”
Once, it seems,
the lady of the house punished the dog
with a cane for something it had done and locked it up in a room for half a day.
After it was let out, it came straight to
Bhagavan as if to complain against her and stayed at the
Ashram without going to their house for four or five days.
Bhagavan arranged to feed the dog and admonished the
lady thus:
“What have you done to the dog?
Why is it angry with you?
It came and complained to me.
Why? What have you done?”
Finally she admitted her fault in Bhagavan’s presence and,
with a good deal of cajoling,
got the dog to go home.
~ Letters from Sri Ramanasramam, 2nd January, 1946
