My close association and contact with Prof. M. Sivaramakrishna dates back to almost two decades. It was when he came to know about Matrusri Anasuya Devi, popularly known as Jillellamudi Amma through the two books in Telugu AMMA-AMMAVAKYALU & JEEVITHA MAHODADHI TARANGALU given to him by Sister Shanta his student. After going through these books he was deeply impressed by the simple pithy words expressed by Amma during her conversation with several of her devotees, though she never accepted the word devotee as she considered them as her children. Having gone through these books he sought to know more about Amma revealing her divinity on several occasions since her childhood. So he requested me to tell him more about Amma. I also shared with him many incidents of personal experience and also of several others. In this context it is worth sharing the information about his own profile and academic achievements.
Prof. Sivaramakrishna was a graduate from Andhra University from Bhimavaram College, West Godavari District, Andhra Pradesh, his native place and a post graduate in English from Banaras Hindu University. A Ph.D from Osmania, he joined the Osmania University and retired as a Professor and Head of the Department. He was closely associated with Ramakrishna Mutt and was initiated in his early days by a monk from the Ramakrishna Mutt. He was a voracious reader with phenomenal photographic memory and a prolific writer. He had contributed immensely both in the field of language and literature as well as in spiritual literature, specially Ramakrishna literature. He was a unique teacher whose razor sharp intellect cut through any text to reveal four to five levels of significance.
Having come to know of his academic background and penchant for matters spiritual, I wanted to seek his help and advice as associate editor for the Journal Mother Of All a bilingual quarterly journal dedicated to Jillellamudi Amma, published from Hyderabad on behalf of Viswajanani Trust. During our long association he also readily came forward to help me in several ways to this end. He used to make several suggestions and started contributing articles in English which we published as editorial notes in the beginning. Later I requested him to help us in bringing out in English a translation of the original book in Telugu AMMA-AMMATHO SAMBHASHANALU by Dr. Sripada Gopalakrishna Murthy Accepting my request he suggested that we could instead begin to translate topics taken from the book and publish them in successive issues of the journal and we could bring out a book in English on the completion of twenty or so of these articles. So we started publishing his translations selecting each topic taken from the book in Telugu. Though we completed twenty articles as initially thought, the intention of bringing out the book did not materialize for various reasons. Then it was his. suggestion that we bring out a reprint of the book TALKS WITH AMMA by Rodney Alexander Ams of NEW ZEALAND, published by Sterling Publishers, New Delhi on behalf of Viswajanani Trust through his help. Subsequently he took up a translation of the book in Telugu GEETHOPADESAM into English with the title DIVINE PLAY OF AMMA- INITIATION AS REVELATION, again through sterling publishers. It was a seminal contribution from him through the Viswajanani Trust. For the release of this book a function was held in Hyderabad in 2006. We were fortunate to have had the book released by Sriram Sir, a divine personality who blessed the occasion. A couple of pictures of this function are included here.
Later a function was held in Jillellamudi during 2007 to release two books in English, One the Asian edition of the book WOMEN OF POWER AND GRACE by Dr. Timothy Conway of US and the second THE LIFE AND TEACHINGS OF JILLELLAMUDI AMMA by Ekkirala Bharadwaja published by Stone Hill Foundation Publishing, Cochin, Kerala on behalf of Sri Viswajanani Parishat. Prof. Sivaramakrishna was kind enough to accompany us to Jillellamudi to attend this function. The Publishers of these two books were also present on that occasion. Dr. Timothy Conway who had a Phd in Spirituality visited India and Jillellamudi along with the Publishers specially for this purpose. We were happy to have the book of Dr. Timothy Conway released by Prof. Sivaramakrishna while that of Ekkirala Bharadwaja by Dr. Timothy Conway. It is worth mentioning here that we were fortunate to have Dr. Potturi Venkateswara Rao preside over both these functions. A few pictures of this function are also included. Prof. Sivaramakrishna has also authored a book MEDITATIONS ON THE MOTHER Published by Mudrana Press in 2011.
Apart from his contributions in English for the Viswajanani Parishat he wrote an exquisite foreword in telugu for the first part of the book AMMA JEEVITHA MAHODADHI. There were repeated requests and suggestions from our brothers in the US particularly from Mr. Carl Gordon Westerlund, to bring out a translation of the original book AMMA JEEVITHA MAHODADHI into English for the benefit of non-telugu readers around the world. So it was my intense desire to have this work done by Prof. Sivaramakrishna whom I felt was the right person. Towards this end I made a request to him several years ago. Accepting my request he wanted a corrected version of the book in telugu. I waited for this corrected version since then and it was only three years ago that this book was brought out. In the meantime unfortunately for us Prof. Sivaramakrishna fell ill. Alas! My wish did not materialize.
Finally we pay our homage and tribute to this legendary personality on my own behalf and on behalf of Sri Viswajanani Parishat and Viswajanani Trust.
Jayaho Mata.