Letters from Sri Ramanasramam, by Suri Nagamma

Everything happens according to what we deserve. Why
worry in advance about it?”
He again asked, “Can I come whenever I have such a
desire at any time in the future? Or, should I suppress the
desire?”
“Things happen of their own accord, if you stop thinking
ahead to the future,” replied Bhagavan.

Question: “I am not able to suppress this desire even for
a moment. Is it a self-deception?”
Bhagavan looked at me with a smile, and said, “It seems
he came here some time ago, and again had a desire to come
here now, and so he came immediately. He is asking me
whether he may do so whenever he has such a desire in
future.”
The youth intervened and said, “Whenever I get the
desire to see Bhagavan, I am not able to control it even for a
moment. I am only asking whether it is mere mental
delusion.”
I said, “How can a desire to have darshan of a great
person be mere mental delusion? While there are so many
delusions of the mind to be controlled and suppressed, does
this desire alone appear to you to be a mental delusion?”
There was no further question.

There were some Andhra visitors in the hall who had
come there on pilgrimage. One of them got up and asked,
“Swamiji! How does the soul attain peace?” Bhagavan replied,
laughing, “What! What is peace for the soul?” “No, no! I
mean for the mind.” “Oh! for the mind! The mind attains
peace if the vasanas are suppressed. For that, one must
enquire and realise who one is. How can one get peace by
merely saying, ‘I want peace, I want peace!’ without first
enquiring what is peace? First make efforts to recognise and
realise what already exists.”
There was a Pandit among them. He asked, “Life itself
becomes extremely hard in some places. How is one to
perform sadhana in such places?”
Bhagavan replied, “The place is within you; you are
not in the place. When you are in all places, where is the
question of difficulties in some places, and not in others? All
are within yourself. How can they cause you difficulties?”
“But we get no peace of mind at all in some places,” he
protested and Bhagavan replied, “That which always exists
is peace. That is your natural state. You are not able to
recognise your natural state. You get deluded by aberrations
which are unreal and feel sorry that there is no peace. If you
realise your self, all places will become equally suitable for
sadhana.”