Ramana Maharshi says If a Practice Is Natural We Feel Uncomfortable At Changing It

12th December, 1945

One morning, during the usual conversations the topic turned on Bhagavan’s mother coming away to live with him and on her manner of life, and Bhagavan spoke to us as
follows:

“Mother began coming here frequently and staying with me for long periods. You know I always address even beasts and birds in a respectful manner. In the same way, I used to address Mother also with the respectful form of speech. It then occurred to me that I was doing something hurtful. So I gave up the practice and began addressing her in the familiar way. If a practice is natural and has become habitual you feel uncomfortable at changing it. But anyway what do these bodily things matter?” He spoke with deep feeling and my eyes filled with tears.

Before the dawn of youth appeared on his face he had relinquished all worldly desires, and with Divine desire he hastened to the holy Arunachala where he reigns
in the Kingdom of Eternal Bliss. How can one speak of the enormous fortune of that mother, in having had the privilege of being called ‘Amma’ (mother) by such a son?

In the Vedas, the mother holds the first claim for worship: “Mathru devo bhava” (Let mother be your God). Even so,the beauty of it is that Bhagavan felt it unnatural for him to address her in the respectful form. If he addressed her so, would she not feel hurt? She felt satisfied only if he addressed her as “Mother.” Perhaps Bhagavan felt that he ought not to wound her feelings in so small a matter.

“When my Mother passed away I thought I had escaped bondage and could freely move from place to place and live in solitude in some cave or other, but in fact I have now an even greater bondage; I cannot even move out.” Bhagavan often speaks in this way. Mother he had only one, but children he has in thousands, so is not this greater bondage?

Source: Letters from Sri Ramanasramam VOLUMES I, II & Letters from and Recollections of Sri Ramanasramam By SURI NAGAMMA Translated by D. S. SASTRI