Letters from Sri Ramanasramam, by Suri Nagamma

Bhagavan accepts it with the greatest reverence saying,
“Look, Subrahmanya from Tiruchendur has come. See there,
Meenakshi from Madurai has come. Here is Ramalingeswara
from Rameswaram. Here is this God, there is that God.”
Others bring holy water saying, “This is from the Ganga,
that is from the Gouthami, this is from the Cauvery, that is
from the Krishna.” Whenever such water is brought in
Bhagavan accepts it, saying, “Here is Mother Ganga, there
is Gouthami, this is the Cauvery and that is Krishnaveni.”
At first this used to puzzle me. When Ramana himself
is the embodiment of that Eternal Being, who is the origin
of all thirthas (holy waters) and who is shining in his abode as
himself, how foolish of these people to bring him prasad of
water from thirthas as if they had done a great thing! Are
they mad? I wondered!
Sometime back someone brought sea water (sagara
thirtha). Bhagavan accepted it saying, “Upto now all the rivers
have come to me, but not the sagara, the ocean. This is the
first time it has come. That is very good. Give it here.”
When I heard that, I suddenly remembered all the
ancient lore where it is stated that all thirthas (rivers), samudras
(seas) and devatas go to such Sages as Ramana to pay respects
to their lotus feet. I then used to feel that they were all
hyperboles because stones and waters cannot walk to the
places where great people live. But now, what I find is that
without anybody desiring it, all these holy waters, holy ashes
and the like are brought by bhaktas and Bhagavan accepts
them, saying, “They have come.” I could now see from
incidents that occur in the immediate presence of the
Mahatmas that one should read the inner meaning of things
carefully. If that is done, it becomes clear that dharma is one
thing and dharma-sukshma (the underlying principle of
dharma) is another.

Since Bhagavan accepts all these waters with evident
pleasure, it should be interpreted as his accepting the service
of all thirthas and prasadas. This inner meaning occurred to
me when sagara thirtha, i.e., holy water from the sea, was
brought in. You remember that when he was living in a cave
Bhagavan said when a leopard came, “Many who belong to
the class of siddhas (realised souls) come to see me in different
forms.”