Spiritual Stories

Author(s): Raman Maharshi
Publisher: Ramanasramam Tiruvannamalai

Page 30

22
IN THE WORLD BUT NOT
OF THE WORLD
KADUVELI SIDDHAR WAS famed as a very austere hermit. He lived on the dry leaves fallen from trees. The king of the country heard of him and offered a reward to one who would prove this man's worth. A rich dasi agreed to do it. She began to live near the recluse and pretended to attend on him. She gently left pieces of pappadam along with the dry leaves picked by him. When he had eaten them she began to leave other kinds of tasty food along with the dry leaves. Eventually he took good tasty dishes supplied by her. They became intimate and a child was born to them. She reported the matter to the king.
The king wanted to know if she could prove their mutual relationship to the general public. She agreed and suggested a plan of action. Accordingly the king announced a public dancing performance by the dasi and invited the people to it. The crowd gathered and she also appeared, but not before she had given a dose of physic to the child and left it in charge of the saint at home.
As the dance was at its height, the child was crying at home for its mother. The father took the babe in his arms and went to the dancing performance. As she was dancing hilariously he could not approach her with the child. She noticed the man and the babe, and contrived to kick her legs in the dance, so as to unloose one of her anklets just as she approached the place where the saint was. She gently lifted her foot and he tied the anklet. The public shouted and laughed. But he remained unaffected. Yet to prove his worth, he sang a Tamil song meaning: