God Is a Good-Hearted Friend
I first heard about Baba on an aircraft on my way back from England via Pakistan. An Englishman sitting next to me on the plane noticed that I was a vegetarian and a teetotaler. He started a conversation, which to me appeared more and more bizarre. Amongst many strange stories, he gave me an account of Walter Cowan’s revival from death. I gradually convinced myself that the man was crazy. I declared in no uncertain terms that this was impossible. I then added that I should know better since I was a surgeon and the head of an internationally renowned medical research unit. “Death is irreversible,” I said. “Once a person begins to decompose, there is no way to restore the corpse to life.” I received the reply, “So, you believe there are limits to God’s capacity?”
Introduction to spirituality
I had never thought about this issue until that moment. I was confused by his questions, and I suspected his sanity. He talked about an Avatar on the earth. Very puzzled, I asked him, “Why should an Avatar come on the earth at this time? What is wrong?” He must now, in turn, have thought I was equally crazy and unaware. He made many disturbingly penetrating observations. He told me about Sai Baba and His miracles. But I was not entirely sure of his sanity, and with me he carried little credibility although we had spoken for many hours.
As I was getting off in Karachi he took a plastic packet of some powdery material and with tears in his eyes pressed it on me saying, “This will bring you good luck,” and then he added, “You owe it to yourself to go and see Baba in India.” I remember saying to myself, “How crazy is this guy! He expects me to go chasing after some strange guru in India!” I looked at him, suspicious that the packet he was offering might contain drugs. I was afraid that I might be caught with drugs by the Pakistan customs officials. Out of politeness, I reluctantly accepted it. Little did I know then that this ‘chance meeting’ was my introduction to genuine spirituality.
I was born and brought up in Kenya and educated in England. I had grown up with the Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads. Through living in western countries, I had become familiar with the writings of the Christian mystics. My marriage with Tehseen, a Muslim from Pakistan, had given me some knowledge of Sufi thinking. But all this knowledge had not prepared me for a direct experience of an Avatar. I had two parallel lives—an inner spiritual life and an external worldly life. My approach to spirituality had been to try to bring God within the realm of my understanding. But now I know that He is neither measurable nor understandable with the human mind. He is beyond any known physical laws and nothing is impossible for Him.
Within a few weeks of my return, my wife and I embarked on an exciting journey of discovery. We found books about Baba and met devotees and heard more about Him. Tehseen, my wife, and I wondered why we had not heard of Him before. Many ‘coincidences’ and surprising experiences led us to make many trips to Puttaparthi, sometimes alone and sometimes with our children. Gradually all our life became more and more focused on Baba.
Understanding miracles
For me the greatest challenge was to bring Him within the realm of my understanding as a scientist. But this has been a hopeless task. Baba seems to arrange events in my life in such a way that I have to confront repeatedly the rigid programming of my rational and scientific mind. During interviews I have seen Him create vibhuti [holy ash]. On another occasion, He filled the cupped palms of a student with fresh, hot laddu bundi [sweet confection] that poured out from His fingers. I was intrigued how all this was happening. On another occasion, He materialized a gold ring with the symbol of a cross on it. This He handed to me to pass around to others after my inspection. When the ring had done the full circle, He held it under my full view and blew on it. In an instant the cross changed to the symbol Om. He looked with a smile straight into my eyes and said, “See, My workers are very fast.” As a scientist I had the greatest difficulty comprehending what I had just witnessed.
Gradually, I have begun to understand that, in fact, miracles are happening every moment of our lives. Is it not a miracle that a plant can turn the soil into flower petals and fragrance? Is it not a miracle that the rice and dal [lentils] we eat turn into the crystal of our eye or into our blood and thoughts? Yet we become insensitive to the wonder and mystery of life and begin to take these ‘miracles’ for granted. We fail to note the beauty and the mystery in which we are immersed. The rocks, the grass, the air, the sunshine, the rain, the whole creation is full of magic and miracle, but we do not connect with it. Baba’s miracles show us the way to connect with these miracles of creation in which we are immersed.
Divine play & manifestations
We feel Baba’s omnipresence most forcefully through His manifestations that occur in our homes 1000s of miles away from Puttaparthi. During darshan [sight of a holy man], I see Swami moving around pretending sometimes not even to understand what the devotee says to Him. I wonder how He plays with our limited minds and how we fail to comprehend the true measure of God. In the first major manifestation in our home, a number of pictures showed splashes of vibhuti over several days. Prior to that when a little vibhuti appeared on a plastic picture of Baba in our son’s room, we had wondered how it could remain stuck to such a smooth plastic surface. The `coincidence’ of vibhuti or streaks of amrita [nectar] on what are significant days to us is especially intriguing.
Such manifestation lends an air of special-ness to different members of our family, e.g., a streak of vibhuti on Tehseen’s birthday, a drop of amrita when I was ill and unable to go to bhajan on Diwali [Hindu festival of light], vibhuti in the form of love, heart-shaped, in our daughter’s wallet, vibhuti in the shape of a smiling face on the roller skates given as a gift to our daughter, Shamash, on her birthday, a streak of amrita from Krishna’s flute when I started to learn to play the flute. There are occasions of His grace with no apparent reason— a streak of amrita from Baba’s picture or Shirdi Sai’s foot on odd occasions make our daily life very exciting and joyous.
Divine savior and protector
Baba has become a divine protector for us. On one occasion, when Shammah was going skiing for the first time, I had a feeling that she might hurt herself. That night I saw Baba in a dream. He conveyed to me that Shammah may have a mishap. In my dream I pleaded with Him until He agreed that He would do something about this. On the ski slopes on the first day, Shammah kept falling and calling on Swami for help. When that night she saw Swami in her dream she complained to Him that He had not been helping her. He said to her, “If you want help, Shammah, you have to call Me from your heart. Remember this tomorrow.”
I may add that at an interview on a previous occasion He had put a medallion on a chain He materialized around her neck and said, “Keep this always close to your heart.” The next day, when Shammah was going downhill, she lost control. She did not know how to steer or stop. She was hurtling toward a tree at a steadily accelerating speed. She called on Swami in desperation from her heart. This time her cry for help was genuine.
Suddenly, from nowhere appeared another skier who came toward her at great speed and knocked her over away from the tree. She rolled in the snow uninjured and avoided hitting the tree. Later she could not find the skier—he had disappeared as mysteriously as he had appeared.
Craziness for God
Sometimes Baba teaches us in surprising manner that He knows what is happening in our innermost thoughts. Almost two years ago when I returned from a visit to Prasanthi and attended bhajans at our Sai center, I noticed a large spot of vibhuti on Swami’s forehead placed by a person who was fond of doing this. This practice is not acceptable in Australia as people from a variety of religions come to the Sai center. Although I felt agitated and could not concentrate on the bhajans, I was careful not to convey my disappointment to anyone.
The following Thursday we had bhajans at our home. Imagine my astonishment when I went to get the picture from our own shrine room and found fresh vibhuti on the forehead of Swami! I felt I had been needlessly critical in my mind of my friend. I needed to become more tolerant of others’ expressions of their devotion to Swami.
Baba says that the divine principle is present in and outside everything and that He can be experienced directly and indirectly. For me now God is not just a remote being to be contacted through rituals. He is the living presence. He is simultaneously both in Puttaparthi and everywhere else. We may choose to relate to Him at a physical level, but this is, in a way, His play. We may also relate to Him at other levels, mental, emotional, spiritual and supernatural. I see that while He is beyond my rational understanding, He is also very much with me, within me, and I am within Him.
I now understand that prayers are means of linking myself with God and not for seeking favors. As Baba says, tapas [sacrifice] is not giving up home and retiring to the forest but it is a continuous process of giving up bad qualities, so that God’s grace flows into our lives. He is Suhrid—a good-hearted friend who is ever with us. Nothing is a coincidence or a matter of chance. Every event, happy or unhappy, is a part of the divine plan.
I consider myself very fortunate that I met this ‘crazy’ Englishman in the plane some 12 years ago. What would my life be like without Swami? I only wish I could meet once again this fellow traveler in the plane and tell him that I have also become crazy like him. As Swami says, we are all crazy, some are crazy for money, some for worldly recognition, and others for God. The best craziness is for God, and those who are crazy for God are the fortunate ones.
Source: Sanathana Sarathi, March 2000
