Sri Gajapathi Aiyyer was a  distinguished lawyer and a devotee par excellence of theMaharshi. He came to Ramanasramam in the 1930s. He stayed for perhaps six months and kept meticulous diaries of the meetings in Bhagavan’s hall.

He is the author of the core of the manuscript known as Aham Sphurana. It seems in the 1950s his friend Swami Rajeshwarananda wanted to publish these notebooks. At that time the ashram didn’t have the necessary resources. Now some seventy years later a manuscript has appeared, Aham Sphurana, which appears to contain the material from Gajapathi Aiyyer’s Red Notebooks. It may well be other material has been added. It is a huge text of more than 2000 pages. The whole manuscript is available on Amazon as an ebook and a huge hardback book appearing like an ancient bible.

In December 1948 Sri Gajapathi Aiyyer and his friend Swami Rajeshwarananda took atrunk containing half a dozen notebooks to Ramanashram and it was unpacked in front of Bhagavan.

Gajapathi Aiyyer ran through the books patiently. They are hardbound notebooks, all of the same variety, done in beautiful red rexine. The pages are serially numbered from one to three hundred, in black ink; the pages opening on to the left-hand side have their number inscribed at the top left corner and those on the right-hand side at the top right corner. The pages are lined with bluish lines in narrow spacing, and filled with young Gajapathi’s meticulous note-making competencies, all written in pencil.

When he came to the record of his experiences at the Madurai Meenakshi Temple, “I was like that in Madurai, shedding tears of longing at the Meenakshi Temple, without having the slightest clue why…even the thought, ‘Why am I crying?’ did not occur.”
Bhagavan smiled and said, குழந்தை என்ன சமத்தாக எல்லாவற்றயும் எழுதிவைத்து கொண்டு இருக்கிறது பார்! (See, how nicely the child has written everything!)

Swami Rajeshwarananda remarked: Gajapathi feels that he has committed an offence by chronicling your words without having sought out your permission.
B.: பரவா இல்லை (Does not matter).

Gajapathi: I only wrote for my own recollection; if shown to others, will it not lead toconfusion? Bhagavan gives specific advice to individual persons on spiritual matters; ifshown to an unrelated person will that person not erronously think that the advice isapplicable to his own case also, and thus mislead himself, with unwarrantedconsequences? Yet Swami Rajeshwarananda wants to make it available for all in the Ashram to inspect.

Swami Rajeshwarananda: Bhagavan’s words are more solemn and sacred than the Upanishads even. Why opine they could mislead anyone?
B.: இந்த புத்தகங்களில் பதிவாகியிருக்கும் அதே சந்தேகங்கள் யாருக்குஆவது வரலாம்.(Somebody may have the same doubts as that of the  entries in these book) 

Gajapathi: But Bhagavan gives different responses to the same question to different persons, depending upon individual temprament!
B.: If the reply found is not satisfactory, the search continues! The earnest Sadhaka does not make himself content with the receipt of a response felt by him to be unsuitable, or only partially satisfactory. An intellect made subtler and subtler by repeated and prolonged submergence in Being, will automatically reject advice that directs it away from the Heart. Practising firm Inherence in the Heart strenghens the faculty of intuition to the extent that it seeks out, time and again, only those words that redirect its course toward the self-resplendant Heart; such discrimination is not a function of the fictitious sense of individual free will; rather, it is automatic and comes by God’s Grace to the sincere seeker.

Gajapathi was about to say something, but it was time for the veda parayanam to begin.

Bhagavan, reaching for his stick, remarked before leaving:-
“There is a destiny guiding the course of events. One need not fret about anything, imagining oneself to be personally responsible for it.”

Now the master is in the body no more, but Swami Rajeshwarananda and myself wish to  make the contents of these notebooks available to a wider audience. Swami Rajeshwarananda has discussed the idea with Gajapathi and he agreed to make a combined synopsis out of the notebooks, so that the Master’s teachings shining in them may be published as a convenient teaching reference.