A SQUIRREL

3rd January, 1946
(20) A SQUIRREL
Do you know how much liberty our brother squirrel
has with Bhagavan (Ramana Maharshi)? Two or three years back, there used to
be one very active and mischievous fellow amongst the
squirrels. One day it so happened that when he came for
food, Bhagavan was reading and otherwise occupied and so
delayed a bit in giving him food. That mischievous fellow
would not eat anything unless Bhagavan himself held it to
his mouth. Perhaps because of his anger at the delay he
abruptly bit Bhagavan's finger, but Bhagavan still did not
offer him food.

Bhagavan was amused and said, " You are a naughty creature! You have bit my finger! I will no longer feed you. Go away!" So saying he stopped feeding the squirrel
for some days.
Would that fellow stay quiet? No, he began begging of
Bhagavan for forgiveness by crawling hither and thither.
Bhagavan put the nuts on the window sill and on the sofa
and told him to help himself. But no, he wouldn't even touch
them. Bhagavan pretended to be indifferent and not to notice.
But he would crawl up to Bhagavan's legs, jump on his body,
climb on his shoulders and do ever so many things to attract
attention.

Then Bhagavan told us all, "Look, this fellow is begging me to forgive him his mischief in biting my finger and to give up my refusal to feed him with my own hands."

He pushed the squirrel away for some days saying,
" Naughty creature! Why did you bite my finger? I won't feed you now. That is your punishment. Look, the nuts are there. Eat them all." The squirrel would not give up his
obstinacy either. Some days passed and Bhagavan had finally
to admit defeat because of his mercy towards devotees. It
then occurred to me that it was through pertinacity that
devotees attained salvation.
That squirrel did not stop at that. He gathered together
a number of his gang and began building a nest in the roof
of the hall exactly above the sofa. They began squeezing
into the beam bits of string, coconut fibre and the like.
Whenever there was wind, those things used to fall down; so
people got angry and began to drive them away. Bhagavan
however used to feel very grieved at the thought that there
was not sufficient room for the squirrels to build a nest and
that the people in the hall were driving them away. We have
only to see Bhagavan's face on such occasions to understand
the depth of his love and affection for such beings.

When I told Bhagavan that I had written to you about
the squirrels in my usual letter, he remarked with evident
pleasure: " There is a big story about these squirrels. Some time back they used to have a nest near the beam above me. They had children and then grand children and thus the members of their family grew very large. They used to play about on this sofa in whatever way they liked. When I went out for my usual walk, some little squirrels used to hide under the pillow and when on my return, I reclined on the pillow, they used to get crushed. We could not bear the sight of this, and so Madhava drove the squirrels out of the nest and sealed it by nailing some wooden boards over it. There are lots of incidents about them if one cared to write them."

See Letters and Books
(Madhava Swami was one of Bhagavan's attendants, More on his passing away is posted here under Letter 51, and is available in David Godman's book, Living by the words of Bhagavan. There is also an interesting link with the peacock Madhav who behaved exactly like Madhava Swami in the book)