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| Ganapati Muni and Chinna Swami are sitting at the feet of Bhagavan |
(from "Living by the words of Bhagavan"):
Annamalai Swami: Ganapati Muni had wanted to become the ashram manager after Dandapani Swami had to leave this position, squandering a lot of money and dominating many people. But he could not muster enough support for his claim. This lack of support did not deter him. A few months after Chinnaswami took over he decided to bypass the devotees and ask Bhagavan himself if he could take over the management of the ashram.
As he was walking towards the ashram, accompanied by some of his followers, Seshadri Swami spotted him, read his mind, and burst out laughing.
'Ho! Ho!' he cried, 'You are going to manage Ramanashram are you?
Seshadri Swami was the eccentric saint whose encounter with Annamalai Swami was reported in Chapter One. In the 1920s people who had a desire which they wanted Bhagavan to fulfill would often go to see Seshadri Swami first in order to get some indication of whether their desire was likely to be fulfilled. Seshadri Swami would read their minds and react in a negative way if he felt that Bhagavan would not grant the wish.
This negative remark, uttered so derisively by Seshadri Swami, would have deterred most people, but Ganapati Muni carried on with his mission. He went to the Old Hall and began to tell Bhagavan that Chinnaswami (who had been newly appointed by the devotees) was not managing the ashram properly.
As he was telling Bhagavan that he would like to manage the ashram himself, Bhagavan interrupted him by saying, 'Did you come here for this purpose? Chinnaswami is already doing the job. He has been doing tapas for many years to get this job. Why are you interfering?'
Realizing that Bhagavan would not support him in his claim, Ganapati Muni went back to town and never raised the matter again.
Bhagavan had not interfered when Dandapani Swami and Chinnaswami had quarreled about management matters, but he was clearly against Ganapati Muni having a say in the running of the ashram. Soon after this incident I overheard Bhagavan talking to Chinnaswami about Ganapati Muni and his followers.
Picha,' he said, 'be careful with these people. If you let them have any authority here, they will soon take over so completely that you will have to ask their permission to wag your tail!'
'Picha is a family nickname which Chinnaswami acquired during his childhood. Bhagavan is using the translation of a Tamil proverb.
While these management quarrels were taking place there was a lot of friction between Chinnaswami and Ganapati Muni. They both had very strong personalities and they frequently clashed about various aspects of ashram policy. They even quarreled about pointless, trivial matters. I remember very well one rather childish dispute that they conducted in public.
Ganapati Muni had been saying that he was Bhagavan's leading disciple. This statement annoyed Chinnaswami because he always liked to think that he was Bhagavan's foremost devotee. Chinnaswami refused to accept the claim and told Ganapati Muni that he was a better devotee. When Ganapati Muni refused to admit it, a quarrel broke out between them. They eventually took their dispute to Bhagavan and asked him to adjudicate on it.
Initially, Bhagavan refused to give any opinion but when it became clear, after a few days of public wrangling in the hall, that the dispute was not going to die down, he decided to intervene. I was Bhagavan's attendant at that time, so I was in a good position to watch the dispute evolve and to witness Bhagavan's response to it. Bhagavan first said a few nice things about Chinnaswami and then afterwards paid some compliments to Ganapati Muni, but he refused to resolve the argument in favor of either of them. Then he gave both of them a gentle reminder about the necessity of humility on the spiritual path.
'Whatever effort is made by whichever person, that which is the Reality will always remain. No one, however great, can give another person either moksha or bandha [liberation or bondage].
'It is natural for a person to think that he should be well-known to the people of the world and be praised by them. But if this thought is present one cannot attain true greatness or happiness. God is not interested in those who promote their own claims to greatness. One who is not satisfactory to God is an inferior person, not a great one. If anyone dedicates both his mind and his body to God in every possible way, God will make him be famous and praised by people all over the world.'
Bhagavan then supported his remarks by quoting a verse from Vairagya Satakam':
0 mind, you are thinking about how to make the people of the world regard you as great. The ever-existing God alone is the one who bestows bondage and liberation. What is the use of others knowing your greatness? O mind, perform the rare tapas of surrendering to the holy golden feet of God. Then God will make you so great that the world will know your greatness and praise you. Know thus.'
Later that day, when I was walking alone on the hill with Bhagavan, I talked to him about this incident.
'When you were alternately praising Ganapati Muni and Chinnaswami, I couldn't tell from your comments which side you were really favoring.'
Bhagavan laughed and said, 'Chinnaswami is thinking, "I am a great man' and Ganapati Muni is thinking, 'l am a great man". The truth is that neither of them is great.
On returning to the hall Bhagavan gave me a Tamil work called Sivabhoga Saram and showed verse ninety-six to me:
'Those who suppress the thought 'I am great' by not paying any attention to it, the Vedas will say that they are great. Those who say 'I am great' are small people. Say, other than them, who will undergo misery in this world?'
Annamalai Swami wrote an account of this dispute in his diary in 1938. The incident itself happened in 1928. When Munagala Venkataramiah borrowed this diary in order to find new material for the manuscript which was eventually published as Talks with Sri Ramana Maharshi, he severely abridged and censored this story. What remained after his censorship was printed as Talks no. 544. In this brief account, Ganapathi Muni and Chinnaswami are referred to as 'two bhaktas.'
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