Immediately he asked Him the question 'Who am I?'

In 1902 [Sivaprakasam Pillai] happened to visit Tiruvannamalai for the first time on some official duty, and there he heard of the saintly and ascetic life lived by a young boy on the Hill, whom all people referred to with great respect as Brahmana Swami. Sri Pillai at once climbed up the Hill to Guhainamasivayar temple, where the Brahmana Swami was then staying, and on seeing the divine lustre which shone in the face of the silent young ascetic, he felt strongly attracted to Him as a piece of iron to a magnet. Immediately he asked Him the question 'Who am I?' which had been haunting his mind for so many years. Little could he have known at that time, however, that the young Sage he saw seated quietly before him was born in this world with a divine mission to reveal the direct path of Self-enquiry, through which alone the true answer to the question 'Who am I?' could be experienced within the heart. Such is the working of divine Grace that the fit and worthy disciple had thus been automatically drawn to the proper Guru.

~ Michael James, The Mountain Path, Vol. 25, No. 1, January 1988