Letters from Sri Ramanasramam, by Suri Nagamma

One of the Ashram devotees took a photo of that unusual
group. From about 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Bhagavan confined
himself to one end of the sofa keeping the cubs on the sofa
in the same position all the time. They woke up afterwards
and were there till about 4 p.m., moving about freely in the
hall. Once again, before Bhagavan went up the hill at the
usual time, photos were taken with the cheetah cubs on the
sofa and also on the table in front of the sofa. They were
published in the Sunday Times later.

The wonder of it was that even the cheetah cubs lay
down happily on the sofa, overpowered by sleep induced by
the touch of Bhagavan’s hands. While they were there, the
squirrels came and ate nuts and the sparrows came and ate
broken rice, as usual. In olden days, when animals and birds
of all sorts moved about together without enmity in any place,
people used to think that it was perhaps a Rishi Ashram.

There are stories like this related in the Puranas. But here
we see the same thing before our very eyes. When I read out
to Bhagavan yesterday’s incident about the pigeons, and the
worship of the cow, Bhagavan said, “Many similar things
often happened here previously. But who was there to record
them at that time?”
When the first edition of this book (in Telugu) came
out and was being read in the presence of Bhagavan, one of
the devotees who heard the above story said, addressing him,
“Is it a fact that when you were in Pachiamman Koil somebody
got frightened and ran away from an approaching tiger
there?” Bhagavan said, “Yes, yes! When I was there,
Rangaswami Iyengar used to come off and on. One day, when
he went to answer calls of nature it seems he saw a tiger in a
bush. When he tried to drive her away by shouting, she
replied by a mild roar. His body shook with terror and getting
up involuntarily from where he sat, he began running
towards me gasping for breath, and shouting at the top of
his voice, ‘Oh, Bhagavan! Ramana! Ramana!’ I happened to
come out for some work and so met him. When I asked him
what all his fright was about, he said imploringly, ‘Ayyo, tiger,
tiger! Come, Swami, we must go into the temple and close
all the doors, otherwise she will come in. Why don’t you
come?’ I said, laughing, ‘Let us wait and see. Where is the
tiger? It is nowhere.’ Pointing towards the bush he said,
‘There it is in that bush.’ I said, ‘You wait here. I will go and
see.’ When I went there and saw, there was no tiger. Still, he
could not shed his fear. I assured him that it was a harmless
animal and there was no need to be afraid, but he would not
believe me. Another day, while I was sitting on the edge of
the tank opposite the temple, that tiger came to drink water,
and without any fear, roamed about for a while looking at
me, and went its way. Iyengar, however, observed all this,
hiding himself in the temple. He was afraid of what might
happen to me. After the tiger left, I went into the temple
and relieved him of his fear saying, ‘Look! What a mild animal
it is! If we threaten it, it will attack us. Not otherwise.’ I thus
dispelled his fears. We too were not there for long after that,”
said Bhagavan.