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Our Visit to
Sri Sathya Sai Baba
Ramala Centre U.K. (January
1999)David and
I had decided at the end of our last trip to see Sai Baba that we
would not be taking a group to Prashanti Nilayam on our next trip,
as there were always so many problems associated with people in
the group, which we had to sort out. They say that if you want to
make God laugh, tell him your plans! Well He must have had a good
laugh at our expense as throughout the year various friends and
strangers phoned and called, all asking to be a part of our group
when we next went to see Sai Baba. At first I kept on saying that
we were not taking a group, but then I slowly began to get the
message inside of me that that we should take a group and far from
being the six that I anticipated it would end up by consisting of
fifteen people.
Our trip started officially from
London's Heathrow Airport on January 25th. We had flown over from
Canada a week earlier to celebrate my daughter's l8th birthday in
Glastonbury and so we arranged to meet everyone at the airport.
The night before our flight we stayed at my sister's house in
Kingston on Thames, where my son, David Elliot, who was coming
with us on the trip, joined us. He is now a policeman in London.
We had to repack our bags as they were far too heavy and I kept
on putting extra items in my son's bags as he had wisely taken
much less than us. He was keeping a good eye on me as he said
that he did not want to get to the airport and have someone ask
him if he knew what was in his bags and then have to say "I don't
know, my mummy packed them for me!" Didi, as I shall refer to him
from now on, to differentiate him from his father, David, told me
of a dream that he had recently had. In his dream he had come
across some elephants, which were dying from a lack of water and
there were some people trying to save them. He immediately joined
in giving them water and all was going well until some music
suddenly started up and everyone walked off towards the music. He
asked them where they were going and they replied that it was time
for Sai Baba's darshan. Didi said "But what about the elephants?"
but it did not make any difference. They all went off and left
him alone and so he had to work twice as hard to save the
elephants by himself. Suddenly he looked up and noticed that
someone else was helping him. He looked around to see who it was.
It was Sai Baba, of course! Now I thought that that was a very
meaningful dream and I stored it away in my memory.
Our group was an international
group with people coming from Canada, America, England, France and
Australia. We experienced several dramas on the journey out. For
example, our plane was late into Frankfurt, where we were due to
change planes for the flight to Bombay, leaving us only thirty
minutes for the transfer. A couple of people in our group did not
realise that there was a one hour time change between London and
Frankfurt and thought that they had ninety minutes to spare
instead of thirty. So instead of rushing to the gate for the next
flight they went duty free shopping instead! Search parties were
desperately sent out with only minutes to spare and the stragglers
were rounded up just in time. On our arrival at Bombay the
airport hotel service desk phoned our hotel to come and collect us
and to confirm our reservation only to be told that the hotel had
never heard of either our booking or us for ten people and that
the hotel was full. Panic set in until we discovered that the
desk clerk at the airport had phoned the wrong hotel! These were
just the first of many lessons in patience, trust and equanimity.
Our spiritual journey to India had begun.
On reaching Puttaparthi everyone
soon settled down into the familiar ashram routine. I turned to
David on the first morning that we were there and told him that I
had woken up with my little inside voice, Atma Annie, as I call it,
telling me that this was going to be the best trip that we had
ever had. The group soon sorted out who was sharing rooms with
who, according to who liked to sleep with the fan on or who with
the fan off, and moving accordingly. In darshan on the very first
day Sai Baba walked up to David and asked him how many were in his
group and where did the group come from. David told him that it
was an international group and Sai Baba said in a very impressed
voice "Oh, international!" In the meantime I had been talking to
Gillian Wood, an old friend of ours who lives in the ashram
full-time, and she had been warning me about the effects of
Shivaratri, the festival that was due to be celebrated on the
night of February 14/15th. Now Shivaratri, which is the time when
the moon is not visible at all, when all sixteen phases merge with
God, is the time when the mind can be brought fully under control.
However the days that lead up to it is a time when all the
emotional and unresolved parts of our consciousness are stirred up
and brought to the surface to be dealt with positively. I was
sitting in darshan one morning, waiting for Sai Baba to come, and
was reading Sanathana Sarathi, the official ashram magazine. I
came across the following statement, which spoke volumes to me. "Give
the guru your mind as you would entrust gold to the goldsmith.
The guru may need to melt, mould or beat your mind, but do not
worry, as he will return to you a precious jewel. Do not say,
Swami, give me peace but don't give me pain, as Swami may need to
inflict pain before the process of purification is completed."
I wondered what kind of a trip this, my thirteenth trip to visit
Sai Baba, was going to be, since in my last two trips he had
definitely been weaning me off his form. Then I read in the same
magazine "God will never impose on you the ordeals which you
cannot bear. He tests his devotees in various ways. Test is the
taste of God. Never fear any test." So I decided to relax,
to try to live in the moment and just accept whatever happened to
me, after all, what else could I do?
I had some extra group scarves
made in the purple and gold Ramala colours and distributed them at
our first group meeting on the evening of the second day. It was
a good thing that I did as the very next morning Sai Baba spoke to
David and called the group in for an interview. There were twelve
of us in the group at that time and we were the only people that
he called that morning. Our interview lasted for over an hour. We
felt very blessed, especially when the King of Nepal, his wife and
entourage were called in for an interview that afternoon and they
only had half an hour! Now half of our group were newcomers to
Sai Baba and so it was quite an experience for them to be sitting
at Swami's feet so soon after arriving. Some of us had had to
wait many years for such a privilege. Sai Baba was in great form,
speaking very softly and sweetly to everyone. As he walked in to
the interview room he said to me "Your husband is very happy about
this." Then turning to David he said "Fast", meaning fast to have
an interview so soon and David "Yes, it was quick Swami" to which
Sai Baba responded "No, very quick!"
He began by looking at the little
rose brooch that I wear on my sari and then he moved his hand in
the familiar gesture and manifested for me a beautiful peacock
brooch made of gold with hundreds of tiny diamonds and jewels. It
was quite exquisite and I was thrilled. I wore it proudly on my
saris every day for the rest of the trip. I was later told that
not only is the peacock the national bird of India but that it is
the symbol of Subrahmanyam, who is the younger brother of Lord
Ganesh and the second son of Lord Shiva and Parvathi. The peacock
is a symbol of vanity but Subrahmanyam helps you to overcome it
and to rise to the highest. He then turned to my son Didi and
asked him how old he was. He seemed interested that he had
completed his 26th year and then he manifested a ring with three
large diamonds on it and gave it to him. He then began making
various comments on the state of the world, which were very
interesting. He was not very happy with America at the moment and
said that she was a dictator, imposing her will on the world, and
that she did not practise what she preached. He was concerned
with the hole in the ozone layer, which was getting larger and
causing a temperature rise on Mother Earth. He equated it to the
human body, where even a small temperature rise leads to a fever
and he told us that Mother earth is getting a fever which will
have serious consequences for us in terms of the weather and earth
events. He went on to say that the Earth is hollow, like a ball,
and that Man is taking so many minerals etc. out of the earth that
it is losing its balance and will topple and this too will have
severe effects. He said that Man was too busy working on worldly
things and was not spending enough time working on his divinity.
Sai Baba then told us first hand
about the accident that happened to him on his school's sports day
on January 11th, when he had taken on a serious accident in order
to save a student taking part in a dangerous demonstration on that
day from a broken spine. He described how he had had to sit on
his dais both watching and participating in the sports day
programme for five hours in intense pain with blood pouring down
his back. He told us how he had to take his consciousness to a
very high level so as to be able to not feel the pain. He also
said that when he had had to walk up some steps and turn his back
to the crowd he had willed that all the forty thousand people
present did not notice the blood on his gown. A full report of
this incident was eventually published in the February edition of
Sanathana Sarathi, but it was fascinating to hear the whole story
directly from Swami's own lips, giving his divine perspective on
the event. The root cause of the whole incident was that neither
the staff nor the boys at his school listened to Swami's warnings
on the days leading up to the event. So let this be a lesson for
us too. You don't ignore the warnings of the Avatar of the Age.
Sai Baba then went on to talk about the year 2000 and the Y2K
computer problem and said that there was going to be one. How bad
it was going to be he did not say, but he did say that after the
year 2000 people would begin to rely more on consciousness and
less on computers. The nature of human life is going to change. He
said that this year, 1999, is a dangerous year and is not
auspicious, but that from next year things will start to get
better. We tried to ask him about the men devotees being allowed
back to work in the western canteen from which they were banned
several months ago, if only because the women devotees were
finding it difficult to handle the big pots of food, but he
quickly said that that part of running the ashram was outside his
jurisdiction.
He then went on to speak to most
of the group individually and he told my son many personal things.
One that I can share with you was that Sai Baba said that he had
recently saved him from a very nasty car crash whilst on patrol in
London and then he added that that was not the first time. I had
some family photographs with me and he quickly looked through them
and when he came to the one of David on his new tractor mowing our
fields in Canada he referred to him as "motorcycle man" much to
David's amusement. I guess boys will be boys! David asked Swami
who cut his hair because it was looking so much better than last
year and he said that no one cuts his hair, it just grows
naturally by itself. Someone in our group then asked Sai Baba for
a ring and Swami rounded on them saying "Selfish man." He was not
pleased and then went on to say that it was better to be a fish
than be selfish. He said a fish swims through water and cleans
the water, but a selfish man lives in society and pollutes
society. I guess the moral of this story is always to wait until
he offers a ring, don't ask for one. Swami also commented on the
fact that Man's primary duty or service is not to harm others. He
then ushered us out of the interview room with the promise of more
interviews to come. We could not believe our ears.
In the darshans that
followed the men in our group basked in the glow of Swami's
attention, since almost every day he would walk up to them and
smile, take a letter or say something to them. On one occasion he
said to David, whilst looking at Didi, "Who is this boy?" and
David, as quick as a flash, had replied, "He is your son Swami."
At another time he came by with both his hands full of letters
that he had taken and he turned to them, made a gesture of
helplessness and said "My hands are full, what can I do?" David
said afterwards that he should have offered to carry the letters
for him, but he did not think of it at the time. On another
occasion he looked very deeply at Andrew, a dear friend of ours
from Australia, who had flown from Sydney especially to be with
our group even though it meant leaving his pregnant wife at home.
They had both decided that it was better not to expose the unborn
baby to the rigours of airline travel. It was the day of their
first wedding anniversary and Andrew was sitting in darshan
thinking of his wife. As Swami entered to give his darshan they
began playing the usual background darshan music, only this time
they started by playing the song that had been sung at their
wedding. Andrew could not believe his ears. He was really
impressed that the omnipresent Sai could arrange something like
this and he was even more impressed when Sai Baba walked up to him
and looked deeply into his eyes. We had to spend the rest of the
day pulling him down to Earth again by his ankles. On Sunday
mornings we used to go to the EHV Building to listen to a talk by
Anil Kumar, who is Sai Baba's interpreter. He is a charismatic
speaker who, being so close to Swami, is party to many
extraordinary experiences and has some wonderful stories to tell.
He has put some of them down in a small book, which has just been
published by the ashram press. One of my favourite stories is
when Anil goes to Swami and tells him that the school boys are
upset that Swami is not giving them enough attention and that they
are all going to go on a hunger strike unless he comes and talks
to them. Apparently Swami said "Good. Then they will all die and
I will be able to give them new bodies, only this time I will make
them more handsome!" One day Swami manifested a dozen watches at
the same time for some doctors. Anil said to Swami "How can you
hold them all in your hand Swami?" to which Swami replied "If I
can materialise them, I can hold them!" I recommend his book to
you.
In the March 1998 Newsletter
David talked about his visit to the seer who gave readings from
The Book of Brighu. It was therefore more than a coincidence when,
in darshan one day, the lady sitting next to me told me the story
of the origins of this book which is written on palm leaves. Apparently
there was a sage called Brighu Samhita who around about five
thousand years ago decided to find out who was the greatest of the
Gods. So he went to visit Lord Brahma, who ignored him. He then
went to see Lord Shiva, who had no time for him at all. So he
finally went to see Lord Vishnu, who was relaxing with his consort
Lakshmi, the Goddess of Wealth. The sage went up to Lord Vishnu
and kicked him hard on the chest. Lord Vishnu, surprised by his
action, turned to the sage and said "Dear sage, I hope that did
not hurt your foot as much as it hurt me. My chest feels like it
has been crushed by a stone." From this the sage surmised that
Lord Vishnu was the greatest of the Gods. However Lakshmi was
cross that the sage had hurt her husband and cursed him, saying
that she would never incarnate in his lineage. The sage said that
she could do what she wished but that he, as a great sage, would
write a book with the story of all the lives of all of his
descendants far into the future, so that they could earn a living
by giving readings from the book and that is how The Book of
Brighu came into being. What made me believe that The Book could
be authentic was that a friend of mine in the ashram said that she
and her husband went to have their reading but the present 'sage'
told them that they were not in the book and sent them away,
thereby losing any chance of earning the fee that he would have
charged them for a reading. So maybe there is something in it
after all. Who knows? I remain open minded but David, who had a
reading, is quite convinced that The Book is accurate.
I tried to go to morning
and afternoon bhajans in the temple as often as possible because
Sai Baba would come and sit on his golden throne there and would
either conduct or just listen to the bhajans. He would often give
his wonderful two-handed blessings and at times he seemed to drift
off into another world where he was aware of everyone and
everything on every level of existence. I used to sit with my
eyes glued to him, just drinking in that divine nectar and feeling
waves of energy flowing over me, transforming me on a deeper level.
I have felt these waves of energy transforming my body in the
past, but this time I could also feel them going through my head.
I hope that means progress! One day Sai Baba walked into the
temple before the bhajans had started. As was the custom all the
male students were on one side and the ladies were on the other. As
he walked down the aisle the students were all over him, touching
his robe, clinging to him, holding his hand with such an exchange
of love and devotion that it quite took my breath away. One young
student handed Swami a letter, which he immediately opened. It
contained two pieces of paper, one with writing on it and one
blank. Swami read the letter, talked to the student about its
contents and then handed him back the blank piece of paper telling
him not to waster paper! As Swami walked back to his chair he
suddenly stopped, standing right in front of me, and he smiled at
me, looked at the brooch that he had only recently given me and
then smiled again. I was over the moon with happiness. It was
such an intimate moment between us, and a sharing far deeper than
the outward experience. I felt mountains of karma shifting and my
doubting monkey mind slowly grinding to a halt. What is it about
Sai Baba that inspires such love and devotion? I think that one
of the reasons is the fact that he has this ability to love
everyone unconditionally.
Linda Bond was in the ashram with
a group from Bath and she invited David and I to her room one
morning to give a short talk to her group about our recent
interview. They were such a nice group and they presented us with
a box of my favourite chocolates as a thank you when we left. Now
the one thing that I miss most in India is my chocolate and here
was Sai Baba, through these lovely people, providing me with them.
He thinks of everything. I kept them in our fridge and made them
last the whole trip. We were also invited to attend a devotional
singing session one evening in an American devotees room with Sam
Podany, who produced the musical cassette 'Thank You Baba', and
who sings and plays country and western bhajans, leading the
singing. It was a wonderful evening, full of devotion, but there
were complaints from the neighbours about the noise. We attended
another session a few days later, singing very quietly, but again
there were complaints. The next thing that we heard was that the
American gentleman in whose room the singing had taken place was
rebuked by Sai Baba in darshan and within half an hour was being
escorted out of the ashram with all of his belongings. Now
obviously there was a much deeper significance to this whole
episode, because we were later told that the gentleman concerned
had spent several years in the ashram and had always said that he
would leave when Swami told him to. Well, Swami had told him now!
Nevertheless it was a sharp lesson for me. Although Sai Baba is
Shakti and can be sweetness itself, he is also Shiva and can be
very firm at times and will always act in a way that is for our
highest good, however unpleasant that might appear to be at the
time.
A few days after our group
interview Sai Baba called Didi in for an interview on his own
saying to David "He is leaving before you." Now this was true,
but the real reason for this, I think, was because Didi had
mentioned to some friends of ours that he did not want an
interview with his parents because he wanted to talk freely to Sai
Baba about certain aspects of his life about which he didn't want
us to hear! Whatever the reason, he went off on his own for an
interview together with a bishop and his prelate from the South of
France and a princess from Belgium. Most of the conversations
were private but Didi did share a little of what went on. Swami
manifested a beautiful Ganesh brooch with a watch hung underneath
it for the princess, gave several people some of the orange robes
that he wears and manifested another ring for Didi. This time it
had a green stone, an emerald, which represents peace or peace of
mind. Funnily enough that was the same ring that Daniel, my other
son, wanted Sai Baba to give him to take home for Didi when we had
an interview with him in Kodaikanal in 1993. So including the
original Shirdi Baba ring that Swami gave him in his first
interview in 1994 Didi now has had three rings given to him by Sai
Baba. He must have done something good in a past life to deserve
such treatment or else they are for protection in this life, since
he is a policeman and is often exposed to danger. Only Swami
knows the reason and he is not telling me! In the interview Swami
also described life as a video game. If you do good you win and
if you do bad you lose and to win is to get liberation at the end
of the game and to lose is to have to play the game again. He
also talked to some architects who were building a new school
somewhere and then he gave Didi a personal interview for fifteen
minutes. Some of what he said I will one day share with you, my
readers, but not until some of the predictions unfold in the
course of time.
One upset in our daily
routine occurred when David fell sick. He had a repeat attack of
the same problem as last year, because he does not drink enough
water and this causes his kidneys to go into spasm. He had a
warning pain one afternoon, took some electrolytes and drank a lot
of water and thought that he was cured, but by the next afternoon
he was rolling around in great deal of pain. I made him drink
lots of water and then set off for afternoon darshan. I had a
great seat in the darshan area and was sitting down to read and
meditate when I suddenly remembered Didi's dream of the elephants.
Now one of the nicknames for my husband is Jumbo Jevons because
he flew Jumbos, Boeing 747 planes, as a pilot. It flashed upon me
that my jumbo was sick from a lack of water and I had gone off to
darshan! I tried to dismiss the thought as silly, if only because
I had got a great seat and ? ! I talked to the lady sitting
beside me and she suggested that I went up to the local hospital
for advice. I followed her advice, walked to the hospital and met
a charming young Indian doctor, who trained in Swami's college and
was extremely efficient. He suggested that I bring David to him
immediately as he could not prescribe any medicine without seeing
him as the pain could be caused by the liver or by some other
organ. So I went back to the ashram and asked if I could take a
rickshaw inside the ashram with me to collect David and take him
to the hospital. They said that that was not possible and that I
should go and arrange for an ambulance to collect him. That being
the case I thought that I would first go back to our apartment and
tell David what was gong on. As I arrived outside our apartment
block I saw a brand new rickshaw waiting there with a young man
polishing it! I could not believe my eyes, especially since that
was the first time in ten years that I had ever seen one there. I
asked him if he was waiting for someone and he said that he was
free. So I quickly engaged him and went to get David. He dressed
and got ready to go to the hospital. As we went up the main
street of Puttaparthi in the rickshaw I noticed that on all sides
where photographs of Sai Baba, smiling and giving his blessings. Even
when we got to the hospital, and sat down in the waiting room,
there was a large photograph of Sai Baba looking down on us and so
I did not feel that I had missed darshan at all. The Doctor
quickly diagnosed David's problem as being renal colic, gave him a
prescription of ayurvedic medicine and told him to drink twenty
pints of liquid every day. Now for a man who normally has two
cups of tea each day, this seemed an impossibility, but at least
he got the message that when you are in the heat of India you have
to drink plenty of water. After I had got David home I went and
collected his medicine from a shop in the town. On the way back,
walking past the temple, I heard them singing English devotional
songs to Swami. I was just in time to see him leave the temple
and walk slowly up the long path to his house, so I did not miss
his physical darshan after all.
A few days later Sai Baba
called David, Didi and myself for an interview without the group.
"A family interview" he said. Sai Baba also called three
Americans, a group of seven Germans and, once again, the two
priests from the South of France. Now the bishop was an elderly
man and as soon as we were all inside the interview room Sai Baba
pointed at the curtain behind Didi and asked him to get a chair. Didi
did not understand what Sai Baba wanted him to do, until Sai Baba
walked past him and drew back the curtain to reveal the second
interview room and pointed to a chair in it, which Didi then
brought out for the old priest. Sai Baba turned to Didi and said
"What's the matter with you. Don't you understand English?" He
then manifested a two stone diamond ring for one of the Americans
and a pearl bracelet for one of the German ladies and told her
that she could use it as a japamala by just counting the pearls on
it four times around. He looked at the peacock brooch that he had
only recently given me and said, "Who gave you that?" as if he did
not know. I said, "God did." Sai Baba responded by saying, "Where
is God?" I replied, "God is everywhere." Sai Baba then said, "If
God is everywhere, he is in London, isn't he?" to which I replied
"Yes". Sai Baba then said "So what are you doing here?" and I
replied, " Swami, I still love to be close to the form." He just
shrugged his shoulders in a helpless gesture to everyone, as if to
say, "What can I do?" He is a wonderful showman as well as being
a teacher and many lessons are taught through little exchanges of
conversation such as this.
Sai Baba then talked about there
being three types of teachers. There is the teacher who inspires,
there is the teacher who explains and then there is the teacher
who complains. When I asked him how we could help him, as he
seemed to work so hard all day, every day, Sai Baba said that he
did not need any help and that what he did was Sai work. He is
such an example to us all. We come and go to and from his ashram
every year and find just three weeks an intense experience from
which we need a rest and yet he is there every day of the year
serving, inspiring, helping, working and sharing, with never a
moments rest, with never a day off, with never any privacy. That
is the real miracle of Sai Baba. He told an overweight German
lady to control her tongue, as she was too fat, a comment that was
a little too close for comfort. He also mentioned that David was
a god, oops, sorry, that was a Freudian slip, a good speaker. He
then turned to me and said that I was a good talker! I hope that
that was a compliment. He then looked at David's manuscript for
his book and told him that he would sign it when it was finished
but that there was still a little more writing to do. Little did
we understand why at that time. He liked the size of the book,
though, not too short and not too long. He also signed three
photographs for us, two for our children who weren't there and one
for a devotee in Canada who comes to our devotional group meetings
in Langley. I was massaging both his feet at this time and he
looked down and asked me if I had finished polishing them yet. I
replied that to be sitting at the feet of one's guru and to be
holding those feet was bliss personified for a devotee.
He then took the family into the
private interview room and talked to us for a long time about
Daniel, my other son, and Diana, my daughter, as well as
clarifying previous advice given to Didi. Diana is taking her A
level exams this year and is having problems with chemistry. Sai
Baba looked at me and said, "She doesn't understand chemistry." How
true that is! He also said that it did not matter and that
biology was more important to her. Actually she has decided to
study philosophy and theology instead of the sciences at
university, and when I told Swami this he was not too keen on
philosophy. He said that the philosophy of the west was
inaccurate. Diana has an offer to go to Oxford University as well
as several offers from other good universities, but we will just
have to wait and see what grades she gets for her A levels and
what God has decided for her destiny. Basically, though, he
seemed very pleased with the three children and the fact that
David and I are supporting Sai Baba Centres in England and Canada,
and are talking and writing about him. He seems to take a great
interest in families and makes a special effort to encourage young
people. To be with him as a family is such a sacred moment. You
feel blessed beyond words and never want the experience to end,
and yet end it must and soon he was ushering us out of the
interview room, back into the world again.
One day I went to darshan after
peeling potatoes in the Western Canteen. I found that by helping
for half an hour in the early morning, from 4.30 is to 5.00am, my
ashram seva was done and then I had the afternoon free for a short
nap. The thirteen-hour time change between Langley and India
really knocked me out for quite some time. On this particular day
I was very aware of Lord Shiva and I wanted to ask Him for help in
destroying my attachment or obsession with horses. Before I left
for India this trip I had been contemplating building an indoor
riding ring on our Canadian property. Much as I love the West
Coast of Canada it is very wet in winter and you just cannot ride
at all for weeks at a time unless you ride under cover. As I was
trying to come to terms with my desire and justify such a large
expense a little voice inside of me said "You had better take care
not to die on this trip!" When I asked "Why?" the reply came back
"Because if you did, you would almost certainly come back as an
indoor riding ring!" I should perhaps explain here that there is
this understanding that whatever you are attached to in life or
are thinking of when you die is the focus for your next rebirth. Now
although this might seem funny to you, my readers, there was a
deadly ring of truth in it for me. So I went into the temple for
bhajans and as Sai Baba passed by where I was sitting and looked
at me, I fervently offered up to him, as the living incarnation of
Shiva, all my negativity and addictions especially to horses and
indoor riding rings. He looked straight at me and did his
familiar hand movements in the air as if he was rewriting karma.
I hope so. I really don't want to be attached to anyone, to any
place or to anything. That is a big order, I know, but to
identify it is at least a start. You can do anything that you set
your mind to, but you cannot do it alone. You need God to help
you achieve it.
Ashram life can be
experienced on many levels. Whilst on one level you see kings,
princes and very high powered people like the Home Minister of
India coming to see Sai Baba very openly for his darshan, there is
also a very private and intimate level going on which if you were
not there to witness you would never hear about it. I was
privileged to be there for one such occasion. The ladies had gone
into the temple in preparation for morning bhajans. The students
had not yet been admitted and so there were only women there. Sai
Baba silently entered and walked down the aisle, very slowly and
very relaxed. As he came to where I was sitting he asked me how I
was. I replied "Very happy, Swami." He then said "Only very
happy, not very, very happy?" So I responded "Yes, Swami, very,
very happy." He then very playfully said "Not very, very, very,
happy?" Everyone around me laughed and he then pointed to an old
lady sitting behind us, in a corner of the temple. I was later
told that she was ninety-eight years old and she looked just like
a little crumpled dead leaf. Sai Baba told me that she was blind
and deaf. He then asked us to move aside and he walked through
the rows of women and went up to the old lady and tapped her
firmly on her head and said in a very clear voice "Swami is here."
He did this three times. On the third occasion she held up her
little thin arm and Sai Baba took her hand, bent down and talked
to her in her ear and stroked her face with his hand. Her
wrinkled old face lit up like the sun and the woman next to me
told me that she had been waiting for some time for Sai Baba to
come to her and that now she would have moksha or liberation. He
then went to the front of the temple and blessed the huge new gold
statue of Krishna with a cow and a calf standing beside him and
also the large Hanuman statue and the other statues on the altar.
Sai Baba then picked up a serpent
or lingam flower from the altar and took it over to the Belgium
princess and opened it, showing her how deep inside the flower
were one hundred and nine anthers and a little lingam resting
amongst them. He then quietly glided out and left us all
contemplating the meaning of what we had just witnessed. It was
obviously a rite of passage for this old woman with only women
present as witnesses. My friend Gillian Wood who lives in the
ashram on a permanent basis gave me her interpretation of the
events on the very next day, which I thought was pretty accurate.
First Sai Baba makes you happy, then he makes you deaf and blind
to the things of the world and then he reveals the inner secrets
of the universe. Another wonderful experience with women was when
the girl students from his college in Anantapur came to visit one
Thursday. There was a huge block of them in the Mandir all
prettily dressed in the same coloured saris. They had brought
their musical instruments with them and they sang to Swami. They
sang several songs in English and one of them was the theme song
from the film 'Titanic'. They sang it so beautifully with a few
words changed to make it applicable to Swami, who just stood there,
surrounded by all the girls, swaying gently in rhythm with the
music. All of us who were watching had tears in our eyes and felt
so blessed to be there for such a special moment. I might add
that this little ceremony took place in the time between afternoon
darshan and bhajans and illustrates why it always pays to stay in
the Mandir when Swami is there and not go off for tea! On a
lighter note, David had a book by John Hislop that he had been
reading and making notes in stolen when he was in darshan. He
placed it beside his seat when Swami came in and the person behind
him must have taken it. He was annoyed at the time but soon
forgot about it. Three days later Didi or P.C. Jevons walked into
our apartment with the book. Being a policeman he had observed
and remembered the face of the person who had done it and when he
saw them walking around the ashram he had apprehended them and
recovered the stolen book and returned it to its rightful owner.
David was tickled pink by this, not only at getting his beloved
book back but at Didi demonstrating his awareness of the situation
and using his newly acquired skills!
I awoke one morning with the
words of the bhajan 'It gets sweeter and sweeter, as the days go
by, Oh what a love between my Sai and I' going round inside my
head. This certainly proved to be true that day. I chose row one
in the cosmic lottery to get into the temple for morning bhajans
and for the first time that visit David, unbeknownst to me, did so
as well. It is very difficult for the men to get into the temple
because the students take up much of the space and so only a few
devotees ever get in. Moreover they only allow six small lines
for the cosmic lottery that decided who goes in and unless you are
very quick and are sitting close to where the lines form you never
get a chance to even get in the lines, let alone get in to the
temple. That morning David had managed to get into an illegal
seventh line that had somehow formed and amazingly the seva dals
allowed it to stay. That seventh line became line one in the
cosmic lottery and so David was amongst the first to get into the
temple. I was sitting right up in the front of the temple and I
suddenly looked across and right opposite me, on the other side of
the aisle that separates the men and the women, was David. I was
so thrilled that he had managed to get in, and then I looked up to
see Sai Baba walking towards us. He talked to several people and
on the way back, when he stopped near me, I pointed to David and
said "Swami, my husband is here" to which Swami replied "Yes, I
know" in a voice which said you don't have to tell me that! He
then turned and spoke to David and asked him how Didi was. David
replied that Didi was leaving for England that very day and that
he was very happy. The whole incident was like a little private
interview and left us both glowing. Situations like this can only
be organised by the omnipresent aspect of God. With upwards of
twenty thousand people there, what are the mathematical odds of us
both winding up sitting beside each other, at the same time, in
the same place, and with Swami coming in and talking to us? Astronomically
high, I would say. It is incidents like this that help to deepen
my faith in the omnipresent God.
Shivaratri was just a couple of
days away now and the moon was getting smaller and smaller every
night. I had given up reading for a few days and was trying to
slow my mind down in preparation for the big night. Several of us
had been helping with the drying up in the Western Canteen in the
evenings. One night, it was around 8.30pm, as we walked along the
path to the Canteen the biggest snake that I have ever seen
slithered across right in front of us. I thought that it was a
python. It must have been over eight feet long and could have
eaten a skinny devotee for breakfast! I don't mind snakes at all
and I felt that it was a very auspicious sign, especially when I
was told the next day that it was a cobra. Apparently it lives in
a hole close to the canteen and so I suggested that they gave it
some milk on Shivaratri. That night I dreamed of Sai Baba for the
first time in a year. He was walking to give darshan only he had
a carpenter's saw and tools under his arm and he was obviously
setting off to repair something - namely us. Later on in the
dream we were sitting in a kind of amphitheatre and we were all
singing bhajans, only we were all singing out of tune, clapping
out of rhythm and generally making a terrible sound. Sai Baba had
his hands over his head and was shaking his head and was saying "What
a mess, what a mess." Then I woke up. Now Sai Baba has predicted
that this year, 1999, will be dangerous and not very auspicious
but that after his birthday next year things will begin to get
much better. In fact the Golden Age is meant to begin after his
75th birthday on November 23rd 2000.
The day of Shivaratri dawned. It
was February 14th. As usual it was warm and balmy. The ashram
was full but not as crowded as on a birthday. Morning darshan was
different. Sai Baba sat on a chair in front of the temple and the
students chanted mantras and sang bhajans to him all about Lord
Shiva. I had taken the lingam to darshan that Sai Baba had
manifested and given to me several years earlier, just so that it
could be there for the occasion. When the students sang the shiva
lingam song, Lingashtakam, it fairly jumped up and down in the
little box in which I keep it! The Italian devotees had made a
huge decorated lingam which was full of sweets and which they
wheeled onto the verandah. Sai Baba opened it and prasad was
distributed to everyone. In the afternoon Sai Baba gave a long
talk just before the twelve-hour bhajan session began and then he
left. He alluded to the possibility of a lingam coming and so,
whilst normally half the people would leave after a few hours,
that night the place was packed. David stayed and sang the whole
night. He told me afterwards that he sat on his poor behind for a
total of nineteen hours! I came and went but after midnight I
settled in for the duration. We were leaving the ashram the next
morning and so I was concerned that I would never handle the long
journey home without a little sleep. Little did I know that by
staying awake all that night I was going to receive a great boon.
I was sitting with my back
against the wall by the first arch with a great view of the
verandah over the heads of everyone present. Sai Baba arrived at
6.00am and went and sat in his chair on the verandah in front of
the temple. He signalled for the microphones on the table in
front of him to be moved and immediately took a sip of water. A
few seconds later he took another sip of water and wiped his face
as if he was sweating. I immediately thought to myself that Sai
Baba does not sweat or drink water at 6.00am in the morning. Something
special was going on. I said to everyone around me "Watch
carefully, I think Swami is going to produce a lingam." Someone
said that they doubted that very much since he had not produced a
lingam in public for over 20 years. Nevertheless they all sat up
and took notice. Sure enough, after a few coughs and hunching
forward and more face wiping with his handkerchief, Sai Baba
suddenly produced this golden lingam. Even though it was about
the size of a duck's egg it shot out of his mouth in a huge arc. It
was so bright that it looked like the sun was shining on it. Sai
Baba caught it and held it up. Everyone rose to their feet and a
great roar went up from the crowd. A group of very tired and
sleepy people suddenly came to life in an electrified way. I held
up my lingam to let it see its new golden brother or sister.
After showing the lingam to everyone Sai Baba commenced to give a
talk and in the talk he mentioned the lingam and then he threw it
on the ground where it bounced. He said that the lingam, like God,
was indestructible. Anil Kumar, who was interpreting Sai Baba's
talk, chased after it and picked it up. I will always remember
the shocked look on his face as he watched the lingam bouncing off
the stone floor of the verandah! He said afterwards that the
lingam was very light in weight and so was apparently hollow like
the Earth. Sai Baba called it the Hiranyagarbha (meaning the
Principle of Divine Love) lingam and he said that everyone who was
there and saw the lingam would have definite benefit from the
experience, but that those people who had actually seen it emerge
from his mouth would have liberation at the end of this life and
would experience no rebirth. Interestingly enough David, who has
been told that he is coming back for one more life, to be with
Prema Sai Baba, was sitting behind a pillar and so missed the
actual sight of it emerging. I, on the other hand, saw it emerge
very clearly and I had been told several years ago by Sai Baba
that this would be my last life. It was also interesting to hear
who in our group was in the Mandir to witness this event, who saw
it emerge, who only saw the lingam when Sai Baba held it up. Everyone
was treated according to his or her individual karma. So although
thousands of people were there that does not mean that they all
automatically gained liberation. After Sai Baba's discourse was
over he then fed breakfast to every one of the thousands of people
who were there. It was just incredible. The students appeared
with pot after pot of warm food, which was individually served on
palm leaves. I'm ashamed to say that some of the Indian women
rushed forward and chaos ensued and so many of them were sent
outside the Mandir to be fed there. After the feeding of the
twenty thousand Sai Baba slowly walked back to his apartment in
the Poornachandra Hall. What a night it had been, truly, one that
I will remember forever.
We returned to our apartment,
packed our bags and a group of five of us set off for Puttaparthi
Airport to catch our flight to Bombay and begin our long journey
back home. David and I spent a week in England with Diana, as it
was her half term. We gave a talk to the Sai group in Glastonbury
about our visit and eventually returned home to Canada at the end
of February, to find the horses and the cat all in fine shape. We
discovered that we had missed nothing because it had rained almost
every day that we had been away, thanks to some freak weather
caused by La Nina, the sister of El Nino. Mount Baker had over
twenty-two feet of snow, a world record, and Victoria had over two
and a half times its normal rainfall in February. So I had plenty
of opportunity to stay inside and type this report and wait for
Spring to come and entice me back outdoors. I suddenly realised
what Sai Baba could have meant when he said that he would walk on
air. We had hardly got home when the story of Shivaratri and
photographs of the manifestation of the lingam began to appear on
the Internet for anyone to download. Sai Baba is walking the
airways of the world every second of the day, every day of the
year, through the Internet. He is truly going global now. Everyone
is able to hear about him and to know what he is doing.
What else can I say? It was the
best trip ever, but I always come back from seeing Sai Baba and
say that. The experiences may be similar each time, but as I grow
and mature on a spiritual level I seem to be able to go deeper and
to understand more. I truly believe that Sai Baba can only be
experienced. He cannot be analysed. Either you trust him totally
or you don't. There is no halfway position. If you do trust and
believe in him, then, there is no more to be said. When we will
visit him again and what will happen then only God knows, but I'm
sure that He will tell us when we need to know. In the meantime I
have a book to write and a very happy and exciting life to live. May
God grant me his grace and may all the beings in all the worlds be
happy.
Source: Ramala Centre Newsletter,
March 1999,
http://www.ramalacentre.com/newsletter03_99_02.htm
Visit Ramala Centre Website:
http://www.ramalacentre.com
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