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Prabhakar

Prabhakar came to Bhagavan in 1949. The story of how he came to the Master is of absorbing interest. Prabhakar was a pure rationalist and was averse to anything spiritual. Though he had heard about SriBhagavan and seen His photos, he ignored Him. However, a total change in his life took place suddenly.

One night, Sri Bhagavan appeared in his dream. In that dream his boss pointed to Sri Bhagavan and asked him whether he knew Him. On replying in the negative, Prabhakar was told that he was none other than Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi and that he should go to Arunachala and have His darshan. Prabhakar proudly replied that he felt no such need and in any case he had no money to travel. His boss offered to give him the required money. He said: ‘I will need Rs. 60/-’.

At this, he woke up from his dream. He hesitated to narrate this dream to his boss, though he did to one of his close friends. Prabhakar was persuaded by his friend to approach his boss with his dream story.

One day he picked up courage and fully narrated his dream to his boss (avoiding the portion dealing with money). The boss was unmoved. He said: ‘Anyhow, pay more attention to your job and thus save some extra money to pay for your trip to your Sri Bhagavan’. Before Prabhakar tried to move away, there was a sudden change in his boss’s attitude and he hastened to add: ‘Do you yourself have a deep desire to visit Sri Bhagavan?’ On Prabhakar replying in the affirmative, his boss asked him how much money he would require. However, without waiting for an answer, he wrote a cheque for Rs.60/- and handed it over to Prabhakar! Receiving the exact amount indicated in the dream, Prabhakar saw that it was all Sri Bhagavan’s Grace and left at once for Tiruvannamalai.

More thrilling than all these happenings was the fact that Sri Bhagavan was looking intently at the entrance to the Hall as if waiting for someone to arrive and as soon as Prabhakar entered He gave a beaming smile and a welcoming nod! For the first time in his life, Prabhakar did sashtanga namaskar (full prostration) to a Great Man. At his very first glimpse of Sri Bhagavan he became a fullfledged bhakta! He asked Sri Bhagavan: “Did you summon me?” Sri Bhagavan nodded His head in assent. He repeated the question twice; Sri Bhagavan nodded each time. This stabilised Prabhakar’s bondage to Sri Bhagavan. During his stay he used to ask questions and Sri Bhagavan would reply to every one of them.

Once, Sri Bhagavan told him: “You say ‘I am Prabhakar’; who is this Prabhakar? Why do you accept that you are ‘Prabhakar’? Your parents called you so; you being a rationalist, why should you accept it? Who is this ‘Prabhakar’? Use your reasoning faculty and search for ‘Who you really ARE’. Then, the Prabhakar of this particular form and name will drop off and the Real Being alone will shine. The wrong ‘thought’ that you are the sufferer of all these troubles will cease once for all.”

Despite odds and obstacles, Prabhakar led a peace-filled life, because of his faith in and devotion to Sri Bhagavan. He composed Prapatti Satakam in Sanskrit, a language in which he was not well-versed. Many corrections were made and Sri Bhagavan had it included in the Collection of Poems Book preserved in the Ashram archives. It has a very moving beginning: “The fullness of my devotion to you, Oh Bhagavan, is due not to the excellence of my reasoning power or my spiritual maturity, but only to the lustre that You shed on me in such abundance!”