He Called Me!
The following story by Professor Kasturi, one of Swami’s closest devotees, sheds light on Bhagavan’s unfathomable magnificence.
Baba uses the media of His devotees’ dreams to give them darshan [sight of a holy person]. Through such dreams He helps them with timely suggestions and advice; cures them of physical and mental illnesses, and He gives vibhuti [holy ash] or other curative materials. He even teaches them hymns and songs, which they sing later at Prasanthi Nilayam. Baba Himself remembers these dreams that His devotees have had, and He reminds the ‘dreamer’ later about the ‘dreams’ He had granted and enacted!
This is something beyond the ken of psychologists and is possible only in the case of an omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent Avatar. It is suggested in that article that the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad [an Indian scripture] attempts to give the nearest possible explanation of this type of divine manifestation.
In this article, we are publishing a letter we received wherein is revealed another facet of the Lord’s leela [sport], mysterious, divine, and inexplicable from our plane. Baba has His own miraculous methods of communication with those whom He wants to call toward Him.
“I have been waiting long,” says Sri P. S. Menon, “to write this letter; an opportunity has now presented itself! Bhagavan Sathya Sai Baba took me under His care in very mysterious circumstances. On Thursday, February 27th, I went to visit a friend of mine and found him engaged in bhajan [devotional singing]. I sat through the bhajan, and later when he explained to me that the photograph on the wall was that of Sri Sathya Sai Baba and related some examples illustrating His glory, I expressed a desire to have a darshan of Baba.
“On Friday, March 7th, scarcely nine days later, just as I entered my office at 9 a.m. the telephone rang. It appeared as if someone had been waiting for me to step into the room to speak to me. My entry and the call were synchronized to that extent!
“An unfamiliar voice asked me whether I was P. S. Menon. I said, ‘Yes’ and asked for the name of the caller. The voice said, ‘Puttaparthi’ and directed me to come to Osborne House, Thousand Lights, before 5 p. m., or if it was later than 7 p. m., then to an address at Pithapurnagar! I was so puzzled and nervous at the word Puttaparthi and at the commanding but gracious style of the message that I forgot to ask the date on which I was to go to those places! I had, however, sufficient courage to ask the voice again, ‘Please tell me your name. You say Puttaparthi only.’ But, the reply I got was, ‘Are you not P. S. Menon? Did you not express a desire to see Me?’
“Only then it dawned on me that the voice was that of Bhagavan Sathya Sai Baba Himself!! Imagine my joy and exhilaration! Imagine, also, my sorrow when the telephone was put down at the other end and I was left alone in my room with that voice resounding in my heart.
“He called me! He commanded me to come. But on what day?… I ran up to Thousand Lights, to Osborne House, but I found that Bhagavan was actually in Bangalore. He was not in Madras! I had no doubt He had spoken to me. We had talked to each other in Tamil, and His speech sounded slightly non-Tamilian.
“Inquiries at the telephone exchange were still more puzzling! The operator at the exchange was adamant that she had not connected my phone to anyone since dawn that day, not even for a long distance call from Bangalore or anywhere else!
“At 5 p. m. the same day, a telephone call was made from Osborne House at my insistence to the Kumara Raja who was attending a function that Baba was inaugurating in Bangalore. He replied that Bhagavan Sathya Sai Baba had not used a telephone the entire day; much less made a long distance call! Besides, no one in Bangalore with the exception of the all-knowing Bhagavan had any idea of my existence, let alone my telephone and its number! To everyone in the Sai bhakta [devotee] circle, I was unknown.
“Baba had evidently used my telephone as a vehicle for his asareeri [out of body] message! Mysterious, indeed, are His ways.”
We who are limited by maya [illusion] and the consequent confusion and conceit cannot grasp the miracle of His grace and the many-sided facets of His glory.
~N. Kasturi
Source: Sanathana Sarathi, Feb. 1959
