Letters from Sri Ramanasramam, by Suri Nagamma

In January 1945, you remember that you sent your book
on Banking with a request that Bhagavan might be pleased
to write in it the word ‘OM’ or ‘SRI’ and return it to you,
and Bhagavan declined to do so. Instead, he gave me a piece
of paper, on which he wrote a Telugu translation of a verse
that he had written long back in Tamil when
Somasundaraswami made a similar request. When I sent that
slip of paper to you, you took it as an upadesa, a precept
from Bhagavan, and were overjoyed. Subsequently, he made
some slight alterations therein. Later on Bhagavan translated
it into Sanskrit as a sloka at the request of Muruganar as
follows:
@km]r< ùid inrÉaste Svy< ilOyte kwm!.

It means: “The one imperishable which is in the Heart
at all times is self-luminous. How to write it?”
I was reminded of all this when the Gujaratis made a
similar request today and got a refusal.

About ten months ago, Pantu Lakshminarayana Sastri,
Telugu Pandit, Maharajah’s College, Vizianagaram, came
here. After praising Bhagavan with verses composed
extempore, he appealed to Bhagavan thus: “Please let me
have something to commemorate this event and bless this
poor soul.” “What shall I give?” asked Bhagavan. “Anything
you please; just an aksharam (letter) by way of upadesa,” he
said. Bhagavan said, “How can I give that which is ‘akshara’?”
and so saying he looked at me. I said, “It will perhaps do if
you tell him about the sloka Ekamaksharam.” Sastri asked,
“What is that sloka?” I read out that sloka. “Where is that
dwipada?” asked Bhagavan. I read out that too. Sastri was
overjoyed as if he had got a great treasure, and copied both
the sloka and the dwipada. When I told him about the
circumstances under which those two were written, he felt
very happy and went away after bowing before Bhagavan. I
remembered all this when Bhagavan was saying to the
Gujaratis, “What is a name or a native place for me?” Not
only this. I was reminded of a song which mother used to
sing while engaged in her domestic work, the meaning of
which is somewhat as follows:
“Ramanamam is the wide universe which has no name
or body or work. It has a lustre surpassing the moon, the
sun and the fire.”
Ramana’s name also is just like that!