Letters from Sri Ramanasramam, by Suri Nagamma

But it is true samadhi only if you know your Self. What is the
use of sitting still for some time like a lifeless object? Suppose
you get a boil on your hand and have it operated under
chloroform; you don’t feel any pain at the time, but does
that mean that you were in samadhi? It is the same with this
too. One has to know what samadhi is. And how can you
know it without knowing your Self? If the Self is known,
samadhi will be known automatically.”
Meanwhile, a Tamil devotee opened the Tiruvachakam
and began singing the “Songs on Pursuit”. Towards the end
comes the passage, “Oh, Ishwara,
*
You are trying to flee,
*
Ishwara signifies the personal God.

but I am holding You fast. So where can You go and how
can You escape from me?”
Bhagavan commented with a smile: “So it seems that He
is trying to flee and they are holding Him fast! Where could
He flee to? Where is He not present? Who is He? All this is
nothing but a pageant. There is another sequence of ten songs
in the same book, one which goes, ‘O my Lord! You have
made my mind Your abode. You have given Yourself upto me
and in return have taken me into You. Lord, which of us is
the cleverer? If You have given Yourself up to me, I enjoy
endless bliss, but of what use am I to You, even though You
have made of my body Your Temple out of Your boundless
mercy to me? What is it I could do for you in return? I have
nothing now that I could call my own.’ This means that there
is no such thing as ‘I’. See the beauty of it! Where there is no
such thing as ‘I’, who is the doer and what is it that is done,
whether it be devotion or Self-enquiry or samadhi?”