BHAGAVAN IN THE KITCHEN

By Sampurnamma

IN 1932 I went to Tiruvannamalai with my sister and her husband
Narayanan. We found Bhagavan in a palm leaf hut built over his
mother's Samadhi. Dandapani Swami introduced me to Bhagavan
saying, "This is Dr Narayanan's wife's sister". The days that
followed were days of deep and calm happiness. My devotion to
Bhagavan took firm roots and never left me. I was able to sit for
long hours in Bhagavan's presence without any mental activity
and I would not notice the passing of time. I was not taught to
meditate and surely did not know how to stop the mind from
thinking, It would happen quite by itself, by his grace. I stayed
for twenty days. When I was leaving, Bhagavan took a copy of
Who am I?? and gave it to me with his own hands.

I came back to Ramanasramam after a period of absence
and I was asked to help in the kitchen. Bhagavan helped us in
the kitchen, I soon learnt with his guidance the Ashram way
of cooking. Bhagavan's firm principle was that health
depended on food and could be set right and kept well by
proper diet. He also believed that fine grinding and careful
cooking would make any food easily digestible. So we used
to spend hours in grinding and stewing.

He paid very close attention to proper cooking. He was
always willing to leave the hall to give advice in the kitchen.
He would teach us numberless ways of cooking grains, pulses
and vegetables. He would tell us stories from his childhood,
or about his mother, her ways and how she cooked sampurnam
(sweet filling).

He was very strict with us in the kitchen. His orders were
to be obeyed to the last detail. No choice was left to us to
guess or try on our own. We had to do blindly as he taught us
and by doing so, we were convinced that he was always right
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and that we would never fail if we put our trust in him. When
I think of it now, I can see clearly that he used the work in the
kitchen as a background for spiritual training. He taught us
that work is love for others, that we never can work for
ourselves. By his very presence he taught us that we are always
in the presence of God and that all work is His. He used
cooking to teach us religion and philosophy.

In the kitchen he was the master cook aiming at perfection
in taste and appearance. One would think that he liked good
food and enjoyed a hearty meal. Not at all. At dinner time he
would mix up the little food he would allow to be put on his
leaf -- the sweet, the sour, and the savoury -- everything
together, and gulp it down carelessly as if he had no taste in
his mouth. When we told him that it was not right to mix such
nicely made up dishes, he would say, "Enough of multiplicity,
Let us have some unity".

It was obvious that all the extraordinary care he gave to
cooking was for our sake. He wanted us to keep good health
and to those who worked in the kitchen, cooking became a
deep spiritual experience. "You must cover your vegetables
when you cook them," he used to say, "Then only will they
keep their flavour and be fit for food. It is the same with the
mind. You must put a lid over it and let it simmer quietly.
Then only does a man become food fit for God to eat".

One day he gave me a copy of Ribhu Gita and asked me to
study it. I was not at all anxious to pore over a difficult text
good only for learned pandits, and asked to be excused, saying
that I did not understand a single word of it. "It does not matter
that you do not understand," he said, "Still it will be of great
benefit to you".

He would allow nothing to go to waste. Even a grain of
rice or a mustard seed lying on the ground would be picked
up, dusted carefully, taken to the kitchen and put in its proper
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tin. I asked him why he gave himself so much trouble for a
grain of rice. He said, "Yes, this is my way. I let nothing go to
waste. In these matters I am quite strict. Were I married no
woman could get on with me. She would run away". On some
other day he said, "This is the property of my Father
Arunachala. I have to preserve it and pass it on to His
children". He would use for food things we would not even
dream of as edible. Wild plants, bitter roots and pungent leaves
were turned under his guidance into delicious dishes.

Once someone sent a huge load of brinjals on the occasion of
his birthday feast. We ate brinjals day after day. The stalks alone
made a big heap which was lying in a corner. I was stunned
when Bhagavan asked us to cook the stalks as a curry. Bhagavan
insisted that the stalks were edible and so we put them in a pot to
boil along with dry peas. After six hours of boiling they were as
hard as ever. We wondered what to do and yet we did not dare to
disturb Bhagavan. But he always knew when he was needed and
he would leave the hall even in the middle of a discussion. As
usual he did not fail us, and appeared in the kitchen. He asked,
"How is the curry getting on"? "Is it a curry we are cooking? We
are boiling steel nails", I exclaimed laughing. He stirred the stalks
with the ladle and went away without saying anything. Soon
after we found them quite tender. The dish was simply delicious
and everybody was asking for a second helping. Everybody
except Bhagavan praised the curry and the cook. He swallowed
one mouthful like medicine and refused a second helping. I was
very disappointed, for I had taken so much trouble to cook his
stalks and he did not even taste them properly. The next day he
told somebody, "Sampurnam was distressed that I did not eat
her wonderful curry. Can she not see that everyone who eats is
myself? And what does it matter who eats the food? It is the
cooking that matters, not the cook or the eater. A thing done
well, with love and devotion, is its own reward. What happens to
it later matters little, for it is out of our hands".

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In the evening before I left the Ashram for the town to
sleep, he would ask me what was available for cooking the
next day. Then, arriving at daybreak the next morning, I would
find everything ready -- vegetables peeled and cut, lentils
soaked, spices ground, coconuts scraped. As soon as he saw
me he would give detailed instructions as to what should be
cooked and how. He would then sit in the hall awhile and
return to the kitchen. He would taste the various dishes to see
if they were cooked properly and go back to the hall. It was
strange to see him so eager to cook and so unwilling to eat.

As a cook, Bhagavan was perfect. He would never put in
too much or too little salt or spices. As long as we followed
his instructions, everything would go well with our cooking.
But the moment we acted on our own we would be in trouble.
Even then, if we sought his help, he would taste our brew and
tell us what to do to make the food fit for serving. Every little
incident in our kitchen had a spiritual lesson for us. We thus
learnt the art of implicit obedience while perfecting our
culinary skills under Bhagavan's guidance.

On my way from the town to the Ashram and back, I had
to walk in the dark along a jungle path skirting the hill and I
would feel afraid. Bhagavan knew this and once said to me,
"Why are you afraid, am I not with you"? Chinnaswami,
Bhagavan's brother and the manager of the Ashram once asked
me whether I was not afraid to travel alone in the dark.
Bhagavan rebuked him saying, "Why are you surprised? Was
she alone? Was I not with her all the time"?

Once Subbalakshmiamma and myself were going round the
hill early in the morning chatting about our homes and relatives.
We noticed a man following us at a distance. We had to pass
through a stretch of forest, so we stopped to let him pass and go
ahead. He too stopped. When we walked he also walked. We
were quite alarmed and started praying, "Oh Lord! Oh
Arunachala! Only you can save us"! The man said suddenly,
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"Yes, Arunachala is our only refuge. Keep your mind on him
constantly. It is His light that fills all space". We wondered
who he was. Was he sent by Bhagavan to remind us that it was
not proper to talk of worldly matters when going round the
hill? Or was it Arunachala Himself in human disguise? We
looked back but there was nobody on the path. In so many
ways Bhagavan made us feel that he was always with us, until
the conviction grew and became part of our nature.

Those were the days when we lived on the threshold of a
new world -- a world of ecstasy and joy. We were not conscious
of what we were eating, of what we were doing. Time just rolled
on noiselessly, unfelt and unperceived. The heaviest task seemed
a trifle. We knew no fatigue. Commenting on our early
completion of work in the kitchen on one occasion, Bhagavan
pointed out, "The greatest spirit, Arunachala is here, towering
over you. It is He who works not you".

Bhagavan's Sayings

A traveller in a cart has fallen asleep. The bullocks move,
stand still or are unyoked during the journey. He does not
know these events but finds himself in a different place after
he wakes up. He has been blissfully ignorant of the occurrences
on the way, but the journey has been finished. Similarly with
the Self of a person. The ever-wakeful Self is compared to
the traveller asleep in the cart. The waking state is the moving
of the bulls; samadhi is their standing still (because samadhi
means jagrat-sushupti, that is to say, the person is aware but
not concerned in the action; the bulls are yoked but do not
move); sleep is the unyoking of the bulls for there is complete
stopping of activity corresponding to the relief of the bulls
from the yoke.

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