The
Call and the Echo (continued b)
(in 2 parts: (a)
continued
b)
A
Book and a Journey
Baba says, "No
one can come to Prasanthi Nilayam unless I call
him." The dream is one of the means He uses to
draw people towards Himself.
Lawrence
Galante from New York writes, "I enrolled at
Hoftra University to study more of my
profession, Tai Chi, and the related
philosophy. Then I awoke one morning from a
vivid dream. In this dream the title of a book
was clearly visible to me with the cover layout.
It was entitled, 'Sai Baba: Contemporary
Mystic, Master and God'. Then it dawned upon
me, 'Why not? Why not write my thesis on
contemporary mysticism and use Sai Baba as my
subject?' I cleared it with the university... I
decided that I could not write about Him unless
I first saw Him and confirmed these miracles for
myself. I also realised that I might just go to
Him and find out that He was a fake. If so, I
had reasoned, I could still write a thesis to
expose a colossal fraud. That would also do.
(Baba says, 'Come,
see, experience, examine and then
believe').
But how do I get to India? My bank account was
nil. I turned to Sai Baba and addressed Him
saying, 'If you want me to write this, then you
must provide the money for me to get to India,
because I am broke. ' Within 48 hours, I
received a cheque in the mail for a thousand
dollars from the city of New York, a sum that
was owed me for several years and which I had
been trying in vain for some time to
collect...
I remained
with Sai Baba for two months. Daily I observed
him attending to the multitudes that came to Him
- healing the sick and materialising objects and
giving them away as gifts to devotees.
Everything that Baba taught me was good and all
of His endeavours were beneficial. He also gave
me permission to write about Him which is what I
am doing now. Sai Baba does not work in secrecy.
His activities are an open book for all to
witness and draw their own conclusions from.
Baba often says 'My
Life is My
Message.'
I pray, that I may receive more and more His
message."
Baba has
declared very often that He wills the dream as a
means of communication with the dreamer, in
order to grant him courage, confidence and
clarity of thought.
Miss Occah
Seapaul of Trinidad has also been directed by
Baba to publish in a book, her talks on His
message to several groups of devotees on that
West Indian island. Receiving His counsel in a
dream is as mandatory as a personal command.
According to Aurobindo, "The avatar, or
divinity, acts according to another
consciousness - the consciousness of the truth
above and the Leela below." Baba told Dr.
M.S. Ramakrishna Rao of Vishakhapatnam, when he
enquired about the authenticity of a dream in
which Baba had rendered him the clarification of
a spiritual problem,
"When
I appear in a dream, it is to communicate
something to the individual. It is not a mere
dream as is generally known. Do not think
that these incidents you experienced in your
dream are stretches of your imagination. I
was giving answers thereby to all your
doubts."
H. Narayana
Rao, while in bed in the intensive care cardiac
unit at the K.E.M. Hospital in Bombay, awaiting
implantation of an artificial pace-maker, dreamt
that visitors were streaming into the ward.
Among them was Baba, who stopped near his bed
and spoke in His soft, reassuring voice,
"My
son! I know how much you are worried about the
artificial pace-maker and the operation. Do not
worry in the least. From now on your pulse will
gradually improve. Count the days from today,
and on the eleventh day, which will be Saturday
the 17th, you can go
home."
And in spite of the doctors putting forward
various other proposals, he was discharged
exactly on the 17th, with his heart quite
normal.
Proper-ties
When I read a
letter from Professor Kausal of
Kurukshetra
in which he had mentioned that he had resigned
his job after being advised by Baba in a dream
to do so, I was reminded of another devotee who
withdrew a petition he had filed in a civil
court. His claim to some property was so strong
that he fought his rival through all the
labyrinths of law, in spite of all the tension
involved and the massive sums of money he had to
spend. The suit had possessed him and he was
refusing to reconsider. But Baba appeared in his
dream and ordered him to give up his mislaid
attachment. "Properties
are not
proper-ties,"
said Baba with a strange emphasis. Kausal
writes, "The dreams are effective, vivid,
personal and peace-giving. I cannot brush them
aside, especially since Baba later confirms them
and continues the advice He vouchsafes during
the dream-session."
Baba urges
people by means of dream-appearances to come to
His presence. He smoothens the difficulties that
deter them from undertaking the journey and
encourages them to enter the spiritual path
towards self-realisation. We have already seen
this stratagem of His love in the accounts given
by Willie Ansah of Accra and Lawrence Galante of
New York.
Dr. Sandweiss
writes of another interesting instance of Baba's
compassion: "Lila and I were discussing Sai
Baba, and she became intrigued. She read a book
about Him and began to consider the possibility
of meeting Him herself. She was then deeply in
debt and there seemed to be no feasible way for
her to get the money to go to India. Her
husband, Homer, an inventor, had no steady
income at that time and had not been able to
sell an invention in over five years. Yet, as
highly unrealistic as the trip did seem, she
made plans to go and obtained her vaccination
certificate and passport. Then some strange
things began to happen. One day, feeling
particularly depressed, she had an unusual dream
in which Baba appeared, His eyes twinkling with
fun. Soon afterwards, Homer hit upon an
invention. After a swift and improbable chain of
events, some people became interested in it and
his financial position suddenly and quite
unexpectedly improved - the first time in years
that this had happened. Lila now had enough
money for the trip just a week before takeoff,
and being completely prepared, she found herself
jubilantly boarding the plane with
us."
It is beyond
doubt that Baba plans, designs and structures
the dreams through which He initiates or deepens
His impact on people. Ponder over another
incident related by Dr. Sandweiss, involving
Jeff from California.
Dr. Sandweiss
writes, "In the interview room where we all sat,
Baba was smiling and rocking back and forth
blissfully. He turned to Jeff, the fellow next
to me, and said casually,
'I've
come to you twice in
dreams.'
Now, as a psychiatrist, I have certainly never
heard of a colleague talking this way to a
patient. Psychiatrists deal with dreams all the
time; but to say, 'I've come to you twice in
dream' would be somewhat disconcerting for the
average patient... Baba began to describe and
interpret one of Jeff's dreams and it became
quite evident to me that He had in some way
fashioned the psychic experience of this man,
had actually created dreams for him and visited
him in another dimension of reality. Everything
that Baba said was confirmed by Jeff. Here was
the greatest psychiatrist I had ever
seen!"
Sri Jaganhesan
once asked Baba towards the end of an interview
with Him, "Bhagavan! Why don't you ever come in
my dreams?" "Baba", he writes, "bent down
lovingly and replied, 'Okay from now on I will
come in your dreams on Wednesdays.' I regard
Tuesday as a holy day because a
Vibhuti-materialization
from His picture in my house first occurred on
Tuesday, 8th June 1976. Recognising this, Baba
laughed, and without my asking amended His
statement the next moment. 'No, No! Tuesdays,
eh?' " And on Tuesdays the dream brings Baba
into his view as an unfailing gift of
grace.
Once, during a
visit to Brindavan (Whitefield) along with Dr.
Sandweiss, Elsie Cowan excitedly knocked at his
room very early one morning saying, "I am
feeling very close to Walter this morning." When
Walter had cast off his mortal coil at Tustin,
California, Baba had telegraphed to Elsie,
"Walter arrived here in good shape." Elsie told
Sandweiss, "I feel that Baba and Walter have
paid me a special visit. I have been wide awake
since six o'clock and full of energy." When both
of them reached Prasanthi Nilayam that evening,
Baba called them in along with a few others and,
in the midst of the conversation, He suddenly
said to Elsie, "Walter and I paid you a visit
this morning." "Yes, Yes!" said Elsie, "At six
o'clock I felt so filled." "No, five minutes to
six!" He corrected her. And Sandweiss adds, "I
began to see Baba less as an omnipresent
controller of great forces than as a
manifestation of pure love. Clearly, His love
for His devotees motivates His
actions."
Baba has often
said that being in this body, as distinct from
the 'Shirdi' body, He feels it is not enough if
a few needy humans get spiritual guidance from
Him:
"It
is necessary to draw all and sundry and
provide them with succor and sustenance. I
must give them what they want until they
begin to want what the Avatar has come to
give."
Shirdi Baba
appeared in dreams to give warnings and counsel;
He spoke in symbols and veiled phrases; He
helped solve mundane problems and personal
tangles; He invited to Dwarakamai, through
mysterious intimations,
Sadhakas
and service-oriented souls, suffering and
suspicion-afflicted persons, and awakened their
latent, inner urge towards self-realization by a
mere look, a touch, a smile or a pinch of sacred
ash. This same strategy is unfolding on an even
grander scale in the Sathya Sai era. Now the
world has to be awakened and shaken out of its
arrogance and schizophrenia by revelations of
truth and declarations of love. While in
'Shirdi'
form, the declaration of being an
avatar
was made in the comparative privacy of
conversation. In the Sathya Sai manifestation,
the declaration that He is all the names and
forms through which mankind has adored God down
the centuries, was made at a World Conference in
Bombay before twenty-five thousand listeners,
and many times subsequently, when hundreds of
thousands were present. Through films, tapes,
books and oral testimony, the uniqueness of this
Divine Phenomenon and His wisdom, power, love
and compassion are drawing increasing love and
adoration, which has united millions into one
ever-growing family of mankind.
Pride
Punished
Arthur Osborne
once said that Shirdi Sai Baba, was
'incredible'. Dr. S. Bhagavantham announced that
Sathya Sai Baba is 'inexplicable'. I have to
conclude that He is 'inscrutable', for He is the
very embodiment of the Divinity described in the
following story from the Upanishads,
revealing Its glory and power.
The
Universal Absolute, Brahman, conferred
victory on the gods in their war against the
demons. The gods were saved from thraldom and
became mighty once again. But in their pride
they ascribed their success to themselves;
they traced it to their own prowess. To make
them aware of their dependence on the Source
of all power and wisdom, it appeared before
them as a pillar of light, even while they
were celebrating their victory in drink and
dance, revelry and rejoicing. Noticing this
strange Phenomenon, the gods were curious to
know what it was and why it was interrupting
their noisy spree. They sent the god of fire,
Agni,
to investigate it and report. The Phenomenon
accosted the god who replied, "I am Agni. I
can burn all things that come in contact with
me." The Phenomenon invited him to burn a
tiny stalk of dry grass which It placed
before him. But however forcefully and
gigantically he fell upon it, he could not
burn it. So he returned to the gathering of
gods, crestfallen and humiliated. The god of
wind, Vayu,
next ventured to challenge the Phenomenon to
reveal its identity and its intentions. He,
too, had to eat his boastful words, foiled by
the blade of grass. Indra,
the lord of the gods, was incensed by the
overwhelming powers of this column of light,
but he, too, had to swallow his pride and
realise that a god as feeble as he had no
right to confront that mighty Source of
Glory.
Baba had
declared even in His teens,
"Not
only today, but at any time hereafter, it
will be beyond the capacity of anyone,
however hard he may try and by whatever
means, to assess My true
nature."
Critics and
commentators do not realise that in the realm of
the sacred, any explanation is a limitation, a
hesitation, desecration.
The
Halo
Scholars and
scientists, isolated in their conceit, have for
over four decades set out to expose Him as a
fraud, a juggler and a trickster, but failed to
tarnish even the hem of His robe. In this age,
when the senses are the final criteria of
knowledge, when passion rules the brain and
prejudice pollutes the mind, a phenomenon
shedding light, showering love and embodying
truth automatically becomes a target for doubt,
suspicion and denigration. Every wayward
preacher comes to find in Him a challenge that
he is powerless to understand and accept. He is
an unpleasant and unwelcome reminder to the
half-baked persons who are disembogued by modern
universities, of the inadequacy of the intellect
and the infirmity of the senses. How else are we
to interpret the presumptuous assertion that the
"halo around Baba rests entirely on the
miraculous production of material objects which
appeal to, and excite the wonder of, credulous
people"?
Let Shri M.
Rasgotra explain to us what that halo rests on:
"We all emerge from the encounter with Baba
in interview, exalted and radiant, as if Baba
has stripped us of our motley cloaks full of
patches, and fitted us out in love's pure
raiment for a fresh journey towards a new
destination. The transformation begins almost at
the first moment of contact, and the process of
ceaseless and irresistible uplift never slackens
thereafter."
Shri B.
Ramanand, while describing a wedding that was
celebrated at Prasanthi Nilayam during which he
had witnessed Baba for the first time, writes,
"In five minutes we felt He was one of us; He
talked to us as if He had known us intimately
all along. This intense humanness, this
wonderful camaraderie He has for all persons
whom He meets, this remarkable quality of being
one with the people around Him, this
superabundance of good humor, joy, love and
affection to all, made a powerful impact on
me."
Baba says that
His much-debated miracles are as insignificant
before His true purpose as a mosquito when
compared to the mighty elephant. We pay homage
to Baba recognizing the waves of gratitude that
surge around His feet from hearts reinforced by
the impact of His love, minds cleansed by the
splendor of His grace, intellects made healthy
and wholesome by imbibing His wisdom and bodies
strengthened and straightened by the inflow of
His compassion.
Richard Bock
of Los Angeles, who was advised by Ravi Shanker
and Indira Devi to approach Baba in the spirit
of a pupil going to a guru, writes, "I remember
going through a period when I wore a
Japamala
(rosary) with 108 beads, as a sort of badge.
Baba came over to me, looked at it and said,
'It's
heavy for Om.'
He meant that I was showing off. So, I realized,
it was nonsense. Like everybody else I did
Namaste
when Baba came into the room. He came over and
hit my hands, saying,
'jhootha
bhakti'.
When I found out later that it meant
'false
devotion',
I realized that I didn't know what I was doing.
What He was getting across was that until you
feel it in your heart, don't go through a
ritual. The next thing was that everybody wanted
to touch His feet, so I figured that was
something I, too, should do. When I tried to
touch His feet, He said, 'No'. I realised, then,
that I was doing it because every body else was
doing it, that I myself didn't have any inner
motivation at that moment to touch His
feet."
I
Want You
Like the
Upanishadic
god of fire, Arnold Schulman, too, belittled the
Sai Phenomenon, in spite of a tour of India that
included a visit to Brindavan and a few minutes
with Baba. That experience was enough for him to
conclude - and be happy in the discovery - that
mystics in India were clever exploiters, and
their disciples ordinary 'psychopathic
compulsives'. Baba has
declared,
"Those
who deny Me are blinded by ignorance or
pride, so they need even more compassion and
grace. Those who stay away, or stray away, I
shall beckon back."
Baba, from
Whom nothing can be hidden and for Whom nobody
is distant, became aware of this blinkered
tourist's belief. Schulman was mysteriously
'possessed' by an idea - to write a book on Baba
- which he tried his best to explain away,
circumvent, rationalize and deny; still it would
not leave him alone. He told himself that it was
insane, impracticable and impossible, but it
refused to loosen its hold on him, persisting in
its emphasis. Three months later, when he was
able to secure an interview, Baba told him,
"I
asked you to write the book not because I wanted
your book. The book is publicity. I don't need
publicity. I wanted you, you,
you!"
And He sent him back to America, wiser and
happier, the veil of supercilious ignorance
regarding mystics and their disciples removed
from his now clearer vision.
Like the
Upanishadic
god of wind, Samuel H. Sandweiss, M.D., renowned
psychiatrist, proceeded towards the Phenomenon
in full confidence that he could easily prick
the bubble of its bombastic magnificence. He
writes, "I would go as a scientist to study and
understand the psychological realities of a
situation shrouded in mysticism, only to prove
that miracles do not exist." Sandweiss
approached the Sai Phenomenon and soon returned
like the god Vayu, to his companions who were
drinking and dancing, unaware of the reality
which was directing their destiny. Sandweiss had
decided to meet Baba when he heard extraordinary
stories about Him from Indra Devi, to whom he
had gone for consultations regarding Yoga. Baba,
even when physically present at Prasanthi
Nilayam or Brindavan, arouses ardour and
yearning, awakens curiosity and interest,
stimulates thirst and restlessness, assures
comfort and cure and alerts and admonishes in
dreams and through visions. Each one who moves
to His presence with hope and confidence, has a
story to tell, each more fascinating and
reassuring than the other.
Pardon me if I
present myself as the insolent Indra who, in
1948, (see: N.
Kasturi)
was too impertinent to put up with the
'miracles' of Baba, yet was too curious to
tolerate Him without a personal examination. I
was then famous in the Kannada-speaking region
of India - the state of Karnataka - as a humor
writer, and I had a large reading public
admiring me as the Stephen Leacock of that
language. I then aimed my humor at Baba, 'the
Phenomenon'. The word Sai in Kannada means 'die'
- it is expletive, a command to extinguish life.
"How can a person calling on us to address him
as Sai be adored in Karnataka?" I quipped.
Besides, I had gulped, without discerning, the
dictum spread by the monks of the Ramakrishna
Mission that the performance of miracles is a
very unspiritual exercise which drags the
Sadhaka
into the depths of worldliness. So I hastened
towards Baba in the hope that he could be
exposed and explained. Like Indra, I returned
after the encounter with my prejudices
corrected, my myopia cured and my pride
pulverized. I am engaged ever since in enthusing
all people to follow the message of Baba and in
adoring Him as the savior of mankind. Those who
venture to defy or deny Him, ultimately return
to remain in His presence with folded hands and
supple minds, meditating on His form, reciting
His name and elevating themselves to
divinity.
The
Documentary
When Arnold
Schulman heard himself ask Baba, "Are you
God?" Baba replied,
"How
can an ant measure the depth of the ocean or a
fish discover the truth of the
sky?"
This answer stuns our reason dumb. But every act
of Baba does the same.
After
thirty-one years of having known Him, I feel
that to doubt the authenticity of the following
experience of Indira Devi is a sacrilege to Sai:
"I looked up at the picture of Bhagavan and
prayed, 'Bhagavan, please take me to Puttaparthi
for your birthday.' Two days later, a young man
who had come to the Sai Centre at Tecate,
phoned, 'Mataji,
could you go to India tomorrow if Warner Bros.
pay your trip? They want Baba's permission to
make a documentary film on His life.' " She was
met at the airport by someone from the company.
When she came to Prasanthi Nilayam with the
proposal, I felt elated at the prospect of the
film. She was very much there during the
Birthday festival and she carried Baba's
response to the request back home. But when she
contracted Warner Bros., who had arranged and
paid for her trip, "No one knew me there," she
writes, "nor about the trip, nor the film, nor
Bhagavan. The red-faced executive told me that
he would investigate and let me know. Years have
passed and I am still waiting to hear what he
has to tell me from his inquiry!"
Muriel Engle
writes from San Diego on the Pacific Coast:
"Ruth has a teaching job in Mexico. She is busy
going back and forth. She attends
Bhajans
on Thursdays at Santa Barbara, but is still a
sceptic. Her health problems have been
tormenting her since long. She has bouts of
extreme pain for several days at a stretch. One
evening in her little room she suffered from
terrible pain, and in her desperate agony she
was crying out, 'Oh is there someone to help me?
Anyone? Why am I suffering this? What shall I
do? Oh, help!' "
Suddenly she
felt a gentle touch on her arm. She stopped
shouting and, as she turned, there stood Baba
beside her bed, "Don't shout so," He said, "I am
always here." Then, He disappeared. And along
with Him the pain, too, had gone. This is
another instance of His omnipresence. Baba
says,
"There
is only one God and He is omnipresent. He has
no favourite dwelling place or chosen
followers or special groups of devotees. Call
- He answers, He manifests, He
blesses."
Letters
to Him
Professor S.
Bashiruddin of the Osmania University, while
driving down with Baba from Ooty, in the Nilgiri
Hills, asked, "Swami, if a devotee sends a
letter or a telegram to Your Bangalore address
but You happen to be at Ooty, Bombay or any
other place, would it be redirected to You if it
is marked 'Urgent'?" Baba answered,
"A
letter or a telegram is a mere carbon copy. If
the thought in the letter or telegram is
sincere, it need not be delivered to Me. The
moment the thought is shaped in a devotee's mind
it reaches Me, and the necessary guidance is
transmitted."
When a few
university men belonging to a blatantly
propagandist and rationalist association, wrote
to Baba insisting on an examination of His
credentials, Baba said,
"Sai
is not a subject for a university examination;
He is an object for
universal
examination."
Joel Roydon
had no respect for Baba, who was worshipped by
his wife. So he astonished his friends when he
announced that he was flying to India with her
to meet 'the wild-haired character'. When asked
what he proposed to ask Baba for, he jocularly
replied that he would ask for a rainbow in the
sky. "No magician can ever pull a rainbow out of
his sleeves," he jested. When he reached
Puttaparthi and sat on a rock atop the hill to
enjoy a smoke, "We saw a rainbow go straight up
the eastern sky," Joel writes, "never curving,
and within seconds it had reached its peak. As
quickly as it grew, it dissolved itself, from
the bottom up!" Next, when he was called by Baba
for an interview, the question with which Joel
was greeted was, "So,
how did you like the
rainbow?"
Aldous
Huxley says, "The divine mind may choose to
communicate with finite minds either by
manipulating the world of men and things in ways
which the particular mind to be reached at that
moment will find meaningful, or else there may
be direct communication by something resembling
thought transference." Denise (Saivahini)
Eversole wrote in the daily paper,
Movement, in California, about her visit
to a Sathya Sai Baba shrine in South India:
"Vibhuti
pours
from Baba's photographs, and two small, enamel
medallions of Baba exude a jasmine-scented sweet
nectar called Amrita.
A large jar daily fills up with this syrup, and
the photographs are scraped clear. [See
also: Gifts
of Grace]
Both these manifestations of Baba's grace are
given freely to all visitors. We received large
containers of each, and watched carefully as
more, and yet more,
Vibhuti
and
Amrita
formed and poured from the blessed objects...
Nearby the Kauveri river, a short walk from the
temple leads one to a pair of stone feet. From
the feet oozes an oil with the most enchanting
fragrance. This we wiped on our scarves and
kerchiefs and whatever else we had, and watched
as more oil oozed up from between the toes. It
was my fourth visit to this shrine, but I never
tire of witnessing these evidences of God's
omnipotence." [photo: nectar dripping from a
Sai-photo]
Since
Coming Back
In April 1972,
Elsie and Walter Cowan returned from India to
California. To a Sai group Elsie announced,
"We have come back from India, my husband and I,
brimful of the most astounding news that can
happen to anyone. It is so fantastic that many
of you may doubt it, because hardly any of us
can imagine the great importance and the
tremendous power of this great, high god, who
not only walks the earth, but cares for all the
planes from earth to eternity. Walter died at
Madras; Sai Baba resurrected him!" A few
months later, Walter Cowan wrote to me, "I am
really feeling fine. Would you believe that I
have gained about thirty pounds since 'coming
back'?" Inscrutable, but true.
Examiner
and Examinee
Here
is another story from Mexico: "A dozen families
live on our hill in Mexico which slopes down to
the Pacific Ocean, about 300 feet below. Most of
the people are retired Americans. There are one
or two Mexican families also. The hill itself is
not of solid rock, but is sedimentary
ocean-floor uplift, comprising a mass of sand,
boulders, clay, seashells, etc. A recent
vertical cut for a new highway weakened the
hill. In September 1976, it started sliding
towards the ocean. Before long, two houses had
fallen and other houses broke into half. The
authorities ordered all remaining houses to be
evacuated, because government geologists had
declared that all the houses would be destroyed
by the earth movement. At this critical juncture
I was scheduled to leave on a tour of Sathya Sai
Baba centres. We prayed to Baba to save the
houses of our small community.
"Throughout
the tour I remained anxious about this
occurrence, but on my return was relieved to
find all the remaining houses intact as before.
The geologists were measuring the hill each day
and were unable to discover why part of the hill
was stationary and had not moved even a fraction
of an inch. Of course, they did not know about
the prayer nor that we had affixed a picture of
Bhagavan to a window directly facing the ocean
side."
John Hislop,
who wrote me this letter, has published a book
entitled, 'Conversations with Bhagavan Sri
Sathya Sai Baba'. Baba tells
Hislop,
"It
is perfectly all right to ask all these
questions and clear all your doubts. You are
examining Swami and Swami is giving the
answers. But when all this is finished and
the next time you come around, Swami will be
the examiner and you will have to be ready
with the right answers in your mind and
heart."
"Before going
to Sai Baba, I told Indira Devi that everything
but the miracles I can accept," writes Richard
Bock. "Those bothered me because I had read the
Ramakrishna
Kathamrita,
which says that you have to be aware of
Siddhis
(ascetically acquired powers), for they can lead
you astray. So I felt that showing off this
power was somehow egotistical and was not the
highest level of expression. Therefore, I had
doubts as to His motives in displaying them. But
when I got closer and began to experience them,
I realized that they were so natural to Him, and
the reason behind them so sound, that I could
see He was coming from a different space. He was
not becoming something - that He already was -
so there was nothing that could spoil Him... For
a Westerner, it usually takes something to blow
his mind off the material world that he is
entrapped in and the idea that everything can be
figured out scientifically. So Baba creates
something out of time, breaking what usually
look like scientific natural laws, and creates a
so-called miracle.
"The thing
that blew my mind was what happened when Indira
Devi asked Him if she could have some more of
the 'healing ash', because she had given away
all of her first supply to people. He said 'yes'
and, as I was watching, he moved His hand in a
circle and then held up both hands, as if to
receive something. Then an urn, about four
inches high, appeared in mid-air and plopped
into His hands. I saw this and said, 'That's not
sleight of hand, that's not up His sleeve,
that's something else.' He took off the top and
spilled all the ash onto a piece of paper. Then
He poured again, and another urnful of ash
poured out, so that in total He had poured out
double the amount of ash that the urn could
possibly hold. Next, He put half of it back in
the urn and distributed some to the people near
by. What was left He put in a little
handkerchief bag and gave it to Indira. He
touched it and said, 'Now this will be an
inexhaustible supply and you won't run out of
it.' Well, she has had it for ten years now and
it is still flowing. And she has given it to
thousands of people. After that experience with
Baba, whether or not God exists is no longer a
question in my mind." This is what Richard Bock
related to an interviewer from the
Movement, in September 1979.
Baba is so
compassionate that He designs a new strategy for
every individual He decides to reform or
transform. At one and the same time, in all
parts of the world, increasing numbers of people
experience His grace by means of an 'inner
voice' or intuition, during silent spells or
amidst the clank of crowds, or through His
direct manifestation in physical form -
conveying warnings, revitalizing faith and
clearing doubts. A telegram which in fact was
never transmitted, a letter which was never
posted or a phone call which was never dialled,
can reveal His affection and awaken, assure or
advise a person struggling in the dark,
ultimately revealing the hand of God beckoning
him to
Prasanthi
Nilayam.
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