I looked around. Squatting on the floor or sitting in the Buddha posture or lying prostrate face down, a number of Indians prayed-- some of them reciting their Mantras out loud. Several small monkeys came into the hall and approached Bhagavan. They climbed onto his couch and broke the stillness with their gay chatter. He loved animals and any kind was respected and welcomed by him in the ashram. They were treated as the equals of humans and always addressed by names. Sick animals were brought to Bhagavan and kept by him on his couch or on the floor beside him until they were well. Many animals had died in his arms. When I was there he had a much-beloved cow who wandered in and out of the hall, and often lay down beside him and licked his hand. He loved to tell stories about the goodness of animals. He was very fond, too, of snakes and many came into the hall to pay their respects. He always had a little milk for them. It was remarkable that none of the animals ever fought or attacked each other.

The story of the Bhagavan is a simple but unique one. Born into a poor Brahmin family of South India, at the age of seventeen he asked himself "Who am I?" He said, "I am not this changing body, nor am I these passing thoughts." Then he tried to imagine death. He stretched out and so vividly visualized himself dead that his body became cold and lifeless. This convinced him that the body was not he, but only a cloak that would be cast off at death, in the process bringing forth his First Death Experience. He decided that the goal of every life should be to find the Self and that nothing else was important. He had heard of the sacred hill of Arunachala and had long been attracted to it. He decided to go there and start the quest for the Self. He first went to the temple in Tiruvannamalai. There he meditated for several months with such spiritual absorption that the temple priest began to wonder about him. But people, sensing his holiness, became his devotees. Feeling that he was attracting too much attention in the temple, he left it and one night wound his way up the hill of Arunachala. At this early time he took up his abode in a cave and underwent his excruciating Second Death Experience. Until his FINAL death experience on April 14, 1950, except for several well documented translocation experiences(see) induced through the supernormal perceptual states of Siddhis Ramana never left the hill and later never left the ashram. Devotees found him and asked his help and guidance. Out of compassion he allowed them to live near him and from then until his death he allowed anyone--poor and rich, great and humble--to come freely to see him. He himself, through the quest of the Self, found Enlightenment, in the Death of the Ego, living out his long life in the egoless state, but subject nevertheless, to all the conditions of human pain and sickness. Bhagavan was asked many times about his egoless state. He explained it and said, "The Jhani (the Enlightened) continually enjoys uninterrupted, transcendental experience, keeping his inner attention always on the Source, in spite of the apparent existence of the ego, which the ignorant imagine to be real. This apparent ego is harmless; it is like the skeleton of a burnt rope--though it has form, it is of no use to tie anything with."

After I had been sitting several hours in the hall listening to the mantras of the Indians and the incessant droning of flies, and lost in a Sort of inner world, Guy Hague suggested that I go and sit near the Maharshi. He said, "You can never tell when Bhagavan will come out of samadhi. When he does, I am sure he will be pleased to see you, and it will be beneficial for you, at this moment, to be sitting near him."

I moved near Bhagavan, sitting at his feet and facing him. Guy was right. Not long after this Bhagavan opened his eyes. He moved his head and looked directly down at me, his eyes looking into mine. It would be impossible to describe this moment and I am not going to attempt it. I can only say that at this second I felt my inner being raised to a new level--as if, suddenly, my state of consciousness was lifted to a much higher degree. Perhaps in this split second I was no longer my human self but the Self.(see) Then Bhagavan smiled at me. It seemed to me that I had never before known what a smile was. I said, "I have come a long way to see you." He said, "I knew you were coming and I have been guiding your steps." There was a silence. I had stupidly brought a piece of paper on which I had written a number of questions I wanted to ask him. I fumbled for it in my pocket, but the questions were already answered by merely being in his presence. There was no need for questions or answers. Nevertheless, my dull intellect expressed one.

"Tell me, whom shall I follow--what shall I follow? I have been trying to find this out for years by seeking in religions, in philosophies, in teachers and teachings." Again there was a silence. After a few minutes, which seemed to me a long trine, he spoke.

"You are not telling the truth. You are just using words--just talking. You know perfectly well whom to follow. Why do you need me to confirm it?"

"You mean I should follow my inner self?" I asked.

"I don't know anything about your inner self. You should follow the Self. There is nothing or no one else to follow."

I asked again, "What about religions, teachers, gurus?"

"If they can help in the quest of the Self. But can they help? Can religion, which teaches you to look outside yourself, which promises a heaven and a reward outside yourself, can this help you? It is only by diving deep into the Spiritual Heart that one can find the Self." He placed his right hand on my right breast and continued, Here lies the Heart, the Dynamic, Spiritual Heart. It is called Hridaya and is located on the right side of the chest and is clearly visible to the inner eye of an adept on the Spiritual Path. Through meditation you can learn to find the Self in the cave of this Heart."

It is common to demand entry into Enlightenment through someone else. This renders it needful to make clear that NOBODY, not even the best of gurus, can bestow final and lasting realization--a glimpse is the most he can possibly pass on and there are not many with that capacity. Even in such cases, his disciples must work diligently and win it themselves. (source)

It is a strange thing but when I was very young, Ignacio Zuloaga said to me, "All great people function with the heart." He placed his hand over my physical heart and continued, "See, here lies the heart. Always remember to think with it, to feel with it, and above all, to judge with it."

But the Enlightened One raised the counsel to a higher level. He said, "Find the Self in the real Heart."

Both, just at the right moment in my life, showed me the Way.

Bhagavan was not a philosopher and he did not set himself up as a teacher, a master or a guru. He made the same statement all through his life--that there is no use knowing anything if one does not know the Self. He said, "Without knowing the Self, of what avail is it to know anything else? And, knowing the Self, what else remains yet to know? all else but the Self is ignorance." He pointed out a path to Liberation through the practice of "Self Enquiry" and the question "Who am I?" If this question is pursued and narrowed down, the questioner will arrive at understanding that there is no "I" because I am not my hands, my feet, my body, my so-called personality, or even my brain. I am certainly not my physical sum total, because, when I am dead, where am l? Does some success flatter me? I must ask the question "Who is flattered?" Am I sad? I ask the question "Who is sad?" By remembering that I am not the doer it is possible to understand the illusion of the world. Bhagavan gave as an example a bank clerk who handles money daily, but without agitation because he knows it is not his money. So, too, it is not the Real Self that is affected by changes of states or fortunes.

People said to Bhagavan, "I would like to find God." His answer was: "Find the Self first and then you won't have to worry about God." And once a man said to him, "I don't know whether to be a Catholic or a Buddhist." Bhagavan asked him, "What are you now?" The man answered, "I am a Catholic." He then said, "Go home and be a good Catholic and then you will know whether you should be a Buddhist or not."

Bhagavan pointed out to me that the REAL Self is timeless (i.e., Not-self), "But," he said, "in spite of ignorance, no man takes seriously the fact of death. He may see death around him, but he still does not believe that he will die. He believes, or rather, feels, in some strange way, that death is not for him. Only when the body is threatened does he fall a victim to the fear of death. Every man believes himself to be eternal, and this is actually the truth. This truth asserts itself in spite of man's ignorant belief that the body is the Self."

I asked him how to pray for other people. He answered, "If you are abiding within the Self, there are no other people. You and I are the same. When I pray for you I pray for myself and when I pray for myself I pray for you. Real prayer is to abide within the Self. This is the Meaning of Tat Twam Asi --- I Am Thou. There can be no separation in the Self. There is no need for prayer for yourself or any person other than to abide within the Self."

I said, "Bhagavan, you say that I am to take up the Search for the Self by Atman Vichara, asking myself the question Who Am I? I say I ask Who Are You?"

Bhagavan answered, "When you know the Self, the 'I' 'You' 'He' and 'She' disappear. They merge together in pure Consciousness."

I understood then that Bhagavan, being egoless, could not speak for himself in terms of "I" or "We." His nearest approach to a direct answer was "Pure Consciousness" which to a discriminating mind did not answer the question, though it could not be answered in any other way. Bhagavan, abiding in the egoless state, was awake only to Truth and the Real Self. He was asleep to the world, the appearance of which is false, being born out of and sustained by ignorance.

Noticing one time what I thought were some evil-looking priests who had come from the temple, I remarked on them to Bhagavan. He said, "What do you mean by evil? I do not know the difference between what you call good and evil. To me they are both the same thing just the opposite sides of the coin." I should have known this. Bhagavan was, of course, beyond duality. He was beyond love and hatred, beyond good and evil, and beyond all pairs of opposites.

To write of this experience with Bhagavan, to recapture and record all that he said, or all that his silences implied, is like trying to put the Infinite into an egg cup. One small chapter cannot in any way do him justice or give an impression of his Enlightenment, and I do not think that I am far enough spiritually advanced--if at all--to try to interpret his Supreme Knowledge. On me he had, and still has, a profound influence. I feel it presumptuous to say he changed my life. My life was perhaps not so important as all this. But I definitely saw life differently after I had been in his presence, a presence that just by merely "being" was sufficient spiritual nourishment for a lifetime. It may have been that when I returned from India undiscerning people saw very little change in me. But there was a change--a transformation of my entire consciousness. And how could it have been otherwise? I had been in the atmosphere of an egoless, world-detached, and completely Pure Being.

I sat in the hall with Bhagavan three days and three nights. Sometimes he spoke to me, other times he was silent and I did not interrupt his silence. Often he was in samadhi. I wanted to stay on there with him but finally he told me that I should go back to America. He said, "There will be what will be called a 'war,' but which, in reality, will be a great world revolution. Every country and every person will be touched by it. You must return to America. Your destiny is not in India at this time."

Before leaving the Ashram, Bhagavan gave me some verses he had selected from the Yoga Vasishta. He said they contained the essence for the Path of a Pure Life.

Steady in the state of fullness which shines when all desires are given up, and peaceful in the state of freedom in life, act playfully in the world, O Bhagava!

Inwardly free from all desires, dispassionate and detached, but outwardly active in all directions, act playfully in the world, O Bhagava!

Free from egoism, with mind detached as in sleep, pure like the sky, ever untainted, act playfully in the world, O Bhagava!

Conducting yourself nobly with kindly tenderness, outwardly conforming to conventions but inwardly renouncing all, act playfully in the world, O Bhagava!

Quite unattached at heart but for all appearance acting as with attachment, inwardly cool but outwardly full of fervor, act play- fully in the world, O Bhagava!

I sorrowfully said farewell to Bhagavan. As I was leaving he said, "You will return here again." I wonder. Since his physical presence has gone I wonder if I shall. Yet often I feel the pull of Arunachala as though it were drawing me back. I feel the pull of that Sacred Hill of which he was so much a part, and where his mortal body lies buried.

Guy walked with me down the hill into the town. We went to the temple and saw the spot where Bhagavan had first attained samadhi. Then I went by car to see the beautiful Meenakshi Temple in Madura, stopping on the way to see other temples in southern India. From Madura I went to Ceylon, stopping first at Colombo. I went, of course, to Kandy and to a number of places and temples throughout the island sacred to Buddhists. In Anuradhapura I had a deeply spiritual experience. I sat beneath the sacred Pipal or Bodhi Tree under which Buddha often sat and preached his sermons. It was transplanted from Buddhgaya, in India, to Anuradhapura by the Princess Sanghamitta around 288 B.C. It is the oldest historical tree existing. To me it was more than a tree. It was the living essence of Buddha himself. It had sheltered the Tathagata and surely drunk into its very roots the Supreme Holiness of the Blessed One. I touched its trunk and leaves and felt purified. And I sat beneath its shade and meditated.

While visiting a Buddhist monastery, a monk asked me if I came from America. When I told him that I did he said there was a monk in the monastery who was an American, but that, unfortunately, she was in India on the road with the begging bowl. In Buddhist monasteries no distinction is made between men and women. They both wear the yellow robe, shave their heads, are considered monks and are known only by the name they take when they enter the order. When I inquired this monk's name, he said he would go and look it up in the book. He came back with it written on a slip of paper. It was Constant Lounsbery. This was a great surprise to me as I had been looking for Constant Lounsbery since Rita's death in 1929 (Mercedes' sister, Rita De Acosta). I had wanted to thank her for the very touching piece she had written about Rita then in the Paris Herald Tribune. I left a note for her there in Ceylon.

And there in Ceylon I received word from Gandhi that he would see me. I had written him before coming to India, but his answer had followed me around from one place to another and now, sadly enough, I did not have the money or the energy to retrace my steps and go north to him. Besides I felt that having seen the Maharshi, my cup was already filled and, in a sense, brimming over. I wired my regrets, thinking I would see him the next time I went to India. Alas. Had I known I surely would have made the effort.

Consuelo was there in Ceylon with me. Together we sailed on the S.S. Victoria from Colombo, the same ship we had arrived in India on. Two days later it stopped in Bombay. Consuelo couldn't make up her mind whether or not to get off and stay on in India a few weeks longer. At the last minute she got off and I sailed alone back to Europe.

Before leaving the ashram I wrote down several questions for Guy to ask Bhagavan that I had not had a chance to ask myself. I had been bothered by the fact that so many saints and enlightened people had been ill and suffering physically. I asked, should they not have perfect bodies and why do they not cure themselves? In Europe I got a letter from Guy saying he had discussed my question with Bhagavan. He wrote, "Bhagavan told me to tell you that the spiritually perfect person need not necessarily have a perfect body. The reason, as he explained it, is very simple- You see, the ego, the body and the mind are the same thing. The spiritually perfect person, like Bhagavan, is above these three things. Consequently he has no body to heal, neither a mind--or ego--to heal it with. He is beyond all this because it is illusion. He is living in Reality. Christian Scientists can take the mind and heal the body--for they are the same thing. American Indians heal, too, in this manner. It is faith healing. But if the spiritually perfect person is sick in body it is because the body is working out its Karma. Bhagavan gave an illustration of Karma, which he says is like an electric fan and must just run its course, only gradually ceasing even after it has been turned off. He says the mind is born into illusion and builds a body and a world to suit it--that is, a world that it has earned and deserves (by its Karma). Bhagavan, knowing the body and the mind to be illusion, cannot experience any bodily ailment or discomfort. We make him suffer pain, loss of weight, etc. It is in our minds not his. He is bodiless, actually is, though you and I cannot realize this as a fact."

In another letter Guy answered my questions, which led to others. He wrote down my questions and Bhagavan's answers.

Question: Is reincarnation a fact?

Bhagavan: You are incarnated now, aren't you? Then you will be so again. But as the body is illusion then the illusion will repeat itself and keep on repeating itself until you find the Real Self.

Question: What is death and what is birth?

Bhagavan: Only the body has death and birth, and it [the body] is illusion. There is, in Reality, neither birth nor death.

Question: How much time may elapse between death and Rebirth?

Bhagavan: Perhaps one is reborn within a year, three years or thousands of years. Who can say? Anyway what is time? Time does not exist.(see)

Question: Why have we no memory of past lives?

Bhagavan: Memory is a faculty of the mind and part of the illusion. Why do you want to remember other lives that are also illusions? If you abide within the Self, there is no past or future and not even a present since the Self is out of time--timeless.

Question: Are the world, the mind, ego and the body all the same thing?

Bhagavan: Yes. They are one and the same thing. The mind and the ego are one thing, but there is no word to explain this. You see, the world cannot exist without the mind, the mind cannot exist without what we call the ego [itself, really] and the ego cannot exist without a body.

Question: Then when we leave this body, that is when the ego leaves it, will it [the ego] immediately grasp another body?

Bhagavan: Oh, yes, it must. It cannot exist without a body.

Question: What sort of a body will it grasp then?

Bhagavan: Either a physical body or a subtle-mental-body.

Question: Do you call this present physical body the gross body?

Bhagavan: Only to distinguish it--to set it apart in conversation. It is really a subtle-mental-body also.

Question: What causes us to be reborn?

Bhagavan: Desires. Your unfulfilled desires bring you back. And in each case--in each body--as your desires are fulfilled, you create new ones. You must conquer desire to be absorbed into the One and thus end rebirth.

Question: Can sex change in rebirth?

Bhagavan: Oh, surely. We have all been both sexes many times.

Question: Is it possible to sin?

Bhagavan: Having a body, which creates illusion, is the only sin, and the body is our only hell. But it is right that we observe moral laws. The discussion of sin is too difficult for a few lines.

Queston: Does one who has realized the Self lose the sense of "I"?

Bhagavan: Absolutely.

Question: Then to you there is no difference between yourself and myself, that man over there, my servant, are all the same?

Bhagavan: All are the same, including those monkeys.

Question: But the monkeys are not people. Are they not different?

Bhagavan: They are exactly the same as people. All creatures are the same in One Consciousness.

Question: Do we lose our individuality when we merge into the Self?

Bhagavan: There is no individuality in the Self. The Self is One--Supreme.

Question: Then individuality and identity are lost?

Bhagavan: You don't retain them in deep sleep, do you?

Question: But we retain them from one birth to another, don't we?

Bhagavan: Oh, yes. The "I" thought [the ego] will recur again, only each time you identify with it a different body and different surroundings around the body. The effects of past acts [Karma] will continue to control the new body just as they did the old one. It is Karma that has given you this particular body and placed it in a particular family, race, sex, surroundings and so forth.

Bhagavan added, "These questions are good, but tell de Acosta [he always called me de Acosta] she must not become too intellectual about these things. It is better just to meditate and have no thought. Let the mind rest quietly on the Self in the cave of the Spiritual Heart. Soon this will become natural and then there will be no need for questions. Do not imagine that this means being inactive. Silence is the only real activity." Then Guy added, "Bhagavan says to tell you that he sends you his blessings." [1]

This message greatly comforted me.

On my way back to Europe my boat stopped at Port Said. I landed there and motored across the desert to Cairo where I stayed three days and then caught the ship again when it docked at Alexandria.

In Cairo I stayed at the old famous Shepherd Hotel. I spent one day in the museum seeing the Tut Ankh Amon collection, and the second day I rode out by camel to see the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid. When I reached the Pyramid it was nearly sunset. There was no one around except my own dragoman and one or two Arabs sleeping against their kneeling camels. I decided to climb to the top of the Pyramid. Although it towered above me, tapering off into the sky, and looked terribly high, I did not realize how high it was until I started climbing. I started out briskly but after a certain distance I grew tired and my pace slackened. The steps of the Pyramid are very narrow and eroded, but I was determined to reach the top. Thoroughly exhausted, I finally did. The sun had already gone down. I turned and looked down the steep and awesome slope of the Pyramid. Suddenly I was overcome by the most frightful vertigo. My head swam and I felt that I was going to plunge to my death. I crouched on the narrow steps and clung to the top of the Pyramid so fiercely that my nails broke against the stone and my fingers bled. I could not bring myself to look down again. An agonizing fear took hold of me. I felt cold sweat pouring over my face, neck and back. I became hysterical. What was I to do? I knew if I let go I would fall, but I also knew I could not hold on much longer. I closed my eyes. I remembered what the Maharshi said - to dive deep into the Spiritual Heart. I summoned every faculty and all power within me and concentrated on the Heart. Suddenly I saw it, like a great light in my mind's eye. In the center I saw the Maharshi's face smiling at me. Instantly I felt calm. I turned and looked down. Far below I saw a man waving at me. I loosened one hand and held it over my head, then I waved back. The man began calling someone else. Another man ran to him. Swiftly they began to climb. They climbed expertly and fast but it seemed hours to me. Probably it took them about thirty-five minutes to reach me. One man had a rope. He tied it around my waist and gently stroked my face. He mumbled some words that I could not understand, but I knew they were kind words to encourage me. Between them, each one holding the rope as though we were mountain climbing, we began to descend. Eventually we reached the bottom safely. Some time after this I was told by an enlightened person that climbing the Great Pyramid was considered in ancient Egypt one of the "fear tests" which students had to pass in order to be initiated into the great religious mysteries. Aspirants were required to climb to the very top of the Pyramid, and if on reaching the top of it he or she could conquer fear, this particular test was won.

Bhagavan Ramana Maharshi died on April fourteenth, 1950. He had said, "I am going away? Where could I go? I am here." By the word "here" he did not imply any limitation. He meant rather, that the Self 'is'. There is no going, or coming, or changing in that which is changeless and Universal. I should not have regarded his death as a blow. How could I lose him? How can one lose anyone? How can one lose that which is Eternal? It is only in the first shock, and gripped in the illusion of death, that one grieves for the physical presence.

Yet, millions in India mourned the Maharshi. A long article about his death in the New York Times ended with, "Here in India, where thousands of so-called holy men claim close tune with the infinite, it is said that the most remarkable thing about Ramana Maharshi was that he never claimed anything remarkable for himself, yet became one of the most loved and respected of all."

In closing, the following again as seen in the Introduction:

As you have found out by now in reading excerpts from the above memoirs, de Acosta had a loose or at least somewhat more than passing relationship with the British author and playwright W. Somerset Maugham. Her holy man, the venerated Indian saint Bhagavan Maharshi Sri Ramana, had died in 1950 and Maugham at the very end of the year of 1965. All of her spiritual connections were dissapating, she was nearing the end of her years and still she had not obtained the level of Attainment she had always sought and knew personally could be reached. Using what was left of her society and Hollywood connections she began searching for leads to the only two remaining links in the scheme of things she could think of, the first being Guy Hague, discussed previously above in her memoirs, and secondly, the actual person Maugham used as the role model for Larry Darrell in The Razor's Edge. Nobody in India from the broader Sri Ramana circles had seen or heard of Hauge since his return to the states sometime around the start of World War II. As well, just as she began her search for the role model of the Darrell character, which she heard was living in the general Southern California area, albeit unrelated to her quest, he had absconded himself on one of the Channel Islands off the coast of California and was, for the most part, at the time, nowhere to be found. Later, as others heard about him, small numbers caught up with him here and there and he gained a small but lasting reputation as the "holy man of the Channel Islands." However, during the period we are talking about here he was unreachable. The trail led de Acosta to an obscure American Zen master living not far from her by the name of Alfred Pulyan (d. 1966). Pulyan had only just finished having the only person remotely left in the loop, the Wanderling, visit his wooded country compound during the summer of 1965 for study-practice. The real-life person Somerset Maugham had used as a role model for the Darrell character had become the Wanderling's Mentor some years earlier and it was he that sent the Wanderling to Pulyan --- hence the connection. De Acosta was sure the Wanderling still maintained a working or spiritual relationship with his mentor and would be able to arrange a meeting. At the time de Acosta was in the process of searching down the Wanderling he was just nearing the end of the so-called twelve year rule and had not yet reached the Full Attainment that eventually befell him three years later as outlined in Dark Luminosity. He and de Acosta set a meeting at her place at 315 East 68th Street in Manhattan, New York City to figure out how she and his mentor could meet. However, on May 9, 1968, before the two were actually able to cross paths, Mercedes de Acosta died.

EXTRACTS

21- 22 November, 1938

583. Ganapati Sastri, known as well as Ganapathi Muni, showed Sri Bhagavan a letter from a Spanish lady, Mercedes De Acosta, saying she would be arriving here the next day. Sri Bhagavan remarked: "See the trouble to so many because I am here."

24 November, 1938

587. The Spanish lady and her lady friend sat in counsel with Sri Bhagavan asking of him several questions.

Both ladies then kneeled before Sri Bhagavan, one after another, and asked for blessings. Then they left for Pondicherry on their way to Colombo.

SEE:
THE RAZOR'S EDGE: TRUE OR FALSE?

SEE ALSO:

GERTRUDE STEIN

RITA DE ALBA DE ACOSTA LYDIG

DARK LUMINOSITY: Smashing the Black Lacquer Barrel

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CONSUELO:

De Acosta's traveling companion for most of the trip was a woman mentioned by De Acosta only by her first name, Consuelo. Consuelo was married at the time to Alfredo Sides, cohort of Rene Gimpel, one of the foremost art dealers in Paris during the time between the two World Wars. Sides and Gimpel dealt primarily only in Rembrandts, medieval tapestries, and so-called newcomers such as Picasso and Matisse and no doubt both Gimpel and Sides were well known to W. Somerset Maugham AND Elliott Templeton.

Before marrying Alfredo Sides Conseuelo was the former Consuelo Hatmaker, she was the widow of the infamous French World War I flying ace Charles Nungesser. They had married May 25, 1923 in New York state. Three years later, in May, 1927, Nungesser tried to fly west over the Atlantic at the same time that Lindbergh flew east but was lost on the flight.(see)

Consuelo was a follower of Sri Meher Baba and intended to stay in India several years under his auspices, but when Alfredo came to the station to see them off, he told De Acosta: "Don't let Consuelo do anything foolish," the implication being, if at all possible, not to allow Consuelo to hook up with Meher Baba.

De Acosta had met Meher Baba in California and for some time carried what seemed to be considerable respect for him. However, her faith in him waned prior to her arrival in India, and once there, it all but dissipated. At Meher Baba's request---one of the few she consented to---De Acosta first made a tour of India, delaying her visit to the Maharshi.

As written above, after the stay with Sri Ramana, Consuelo was in Ceylon with De Acosta. Together they "sailed on the S.S. Victoria from Colombo," the same ship they arrived in India on. Two days later the ship docked in Bombay. Consuelo was unable make up her mind if she should get off and stay in India a "few weeks" or go back to Europe. At the last minute she got off and De Acosta sailed back to Europe without her. Little is recorded formally of her after that, and for the most part she sort of just disappears from the pages of history. However it is reported that she DID spend considerable time with Meher Baba as well as another well known Bombay based guru Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, who was a follower of Shri Sadguru Siddharameshwar Maharaj.

CONSTANCE LOUNSBERY

Grace Constance Lounsbery, well-known expatriate American woman in France. Founded the first French Buddhist association Les amis du bouddhisme [Friends of Buddhism]. This association had a strong leaning for Theravada Buddhism, and in the 1930's organized a series of lectures on Buddhism at the Sorbonne University in Paris, as well as the publication of French books on Buddhism, among them some pioneering works on meditation. Close friend of Gertrude Stein.

FOOTNOTE [1]:

There is some discrepancy regarding HOW the flow of information was achieved between the Maharshi and De Acosta after she left the ashram and IF it was totally by "letters" or possibly by some other means --- say, if some of the information was actually delivered in person by Hague in the process of his transit through Europe on the way to the U.S., for example. True, there may have been letters involved and received by her, but not all of them delivered exclusively via the postal service. Some of the information seems to have been delivered by hand, possibly still in letter form to De Acosta, but on a face-to-face basis by Hague, then discussed at some length between the two personally.

De Acosta writes "Before leaving the ashram I wrote down several questions for Guy to ask Bhagavan..." She then writes "In Europe I got a letter from Guy saying he had discussed my question with Bhagavan. She writes "He wrote, 'Bhagavan told me to tell you...'" First she states I wrote down several questions and in the same paragraph she then writes he (Hague) had discussed my question with Bhagavan. In the narrative she goes from the plural SEVERAL questions to the singular MY QUESTION. Later on she writes, now back to the plural, "In another letter Guy answered my questions, which led to others. He wrote down my questions and Bhagavan's answers." She then says Guy added, "Bhagavan says to tell you that he sends you his blessings."

She starts out the subject with "Before leaving the ashram..." then goes into the whole question and answer thing, apparently of which, transpired in Europe. She also writes, "In another letter Guy answered my questions, which led to others. He wrote down my questions and Bhagavan's answers." At the end of the sequence she then seemingly jumps backward to having only just left India by saying "On my way back to Europe my boat stopped at Port Said."

The key to all of the above is, "Bhagavan told me to tell you..." and "Bhagavan says to tell you that he sends you his blessings." Although both quotes may have been in the letters in some context, most likely they were presented verbally to De Acosta by Hague in person while in Europe. Why she would write it the way she does in her book is not known. It could be no more than a writers gimick because it just makes the flow of the book go smoother. However, there is a big difference knowing and talking with a person in the atmosphere of a dusty ashram as a traveler on the cheap and coming in contact with the same person in say, Paris, for example, especially when possibly being re-emeshed back into a socialite role. Although, it must be said, De Acosta comes across more like a person that would show off a person like Hague rather than hide him. Plus, it seems, she really liked him --- and vice versa -- although nowhere does it come up that they remained friends or in contact over any period of time following the time frame reference we are talking about here. It seems pretty clear if you follow the thread in her writings that in the particular instance we are talking about here she is either leaving something out, making an end run around the topic, or simply ignoring the fact that she and Hague had met in Paris.

The S.S. VICTORIA was a 13,062 gross ton motorship, length 540ft with a beam of 70ft, two funnels, two masts, four screws and a speed of 20.5 knots. Built with accommodation for 239-1st, 245-2nd, 100-3rd and 82-4th class passengers and carried a crew of 254. Launched for Lloyd Triestino on 6th Dec.1930 by CR dell' Adriatico, Trieste, she started her maiden voyage from Trieste to Alexandria on 27th Jun.1931. On 24th Jan.1932 she commenced her first Genoa - Bombay sailing and in Oct.1936 switched to the Genoa - Shanghai service. Rebuilt to 13,098 gt in 1938, she became a troop transport in 1940. On 24th Jan.1942 she was attacked and sunk by British torpedo planes in the Gulf of Sidra while on voyage from Taranto to Tripoli and sank at position 33.30N 17.40E.

Great Passenger Ships of the World, vol.3 by Arnold Kludas, ISBN 0-85059-245-3 (contains excellent photo of the ship)