Witnessing

I had to be away from the Ashram for nearly two months and when I returned I saw Sri Cohen in a much worse condition and confined to a wheel-chair. His talk was no longer coherent: "See, Ganesan, I am maimed. Yet, the management has suddenly shifted me to a room on the seventh floor and there is no water there. Whatcan I do?" - "They say they have given me an exclusive room for myself, but see, in the night nearly 12 people sleep here, squatting around me." - "Don't think there is only one Kannan (servant), There are nine Kannans, all looking alike!" I cried on seeing his pathetic condition and told Him: "Mr. Cohen! You are the most intelligent sadhak I have met. Why are you talking so incoherently?" He then adjusted himself and squarely looked at my face and said: "When the body becomes old, you lose control over it. And so over the mind! So, don't give any importance to how the body or mind behaves. They are not 'me'." I was astounded when he said that since just a few minutes back he was talking sheer nonesense! Then, I asked him "If you are not the mind nor the body, who is speaking to me? Who are you? In which state are you, now?" "I am pure spirit, witnessing what takes place through the body and mind. I have nothing to do with them. I am in the presence of my Master: Guru Ramana, enjoying His benign and blissful presence! I am pure ananda!" As he uttered these words I saw a different Mr.Cohen, the one we had known for years with all his brightness and serenity. - in V. Ganesan's excellent book "Moments Remembered".

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