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| Kunju Swami |
(from "Reminiscences of Kunju Swami"):
Kunju Swami: ‘When people from other maths who have studied Vedanta find out that I have come from Sri Ramanasramam, they start asking me philosophical questions. I feel that if I do not give fitting answers to their questions, it will reflect badly on our ashram. Because of this I asked Sri Krishnananda of Tirukhalar to give me lessons on Vedanta. He has asked me to come to Tirukhalar and he has agreed to give me lessons on Vedanta, and to complete them as early as possible. I am now thinking of going of Tirukhalar to learn Vedanta.’
Sri Bhagavan replied with a mocking smile, ‘Now you are going to study Vedanta, then it will be Siddhanta, then Sanskrit, and then polemics.’
As he kept adding more and more subjects, I stood before him dumbfounded.
Seeing my depressed look Sri Bhagavan said, ‘It is enough if you study the One’.
He could see that his answer had puzzled me, so he added, with some compassion, ‘If you learn to remain within your Self as the Self, that will amount to learning everything. What Vedanta lessons did I take? If you remain as the Self, the echo from the Heart will be from experience. It will be in agreement with the scriptures. This is what is called “the divine voice”.’
On hearing Sri Bhagavan’s words, the desire to learn Vedanta in order to answer the questions of others left me for good. From that day onwards, if someone asked me questions related to Vedanta, I was able, through Sri Bhagavan’s grace, to get the appropriate answer from within. As Sri Bhagavan himself has written in Atma Vidya Kirtanam, verse three:
'Without knowing the Self, what is the use if one knows anything else? If one has known the Self, what else is there to know? When that Self that shines without differences in different living beings is known within oneself, the light of Self will flash forth. It is the shining forth of grace, the destruction of “I” and the blossoming of bliss.'
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