How the Lord Sees and Hears
“How often did you lose faith in God?
Or chide Him for not granting your desires?
How often did you silently meditate
On the supreme Lord and the supreme Goal of Life?
How often did you shed tears of real Love?
How often did you bow your head in devotion?
And fold your hands in prayerful surrender
And complete dedication to His Lotus Feet?”
This quotation was displayed on the bulletin board of our school, the Sri Sathya Sai Higher Secondary School, on January 1, 1990. All of us read it and pondered over it.
This took me back to the days when I was a fresh-man at the school, and it made me nostalgic. I had joined the school as a sixth-grader. On my birthday, I was taken to Swami for special blessings. The occasion made me homesick. Anyway, I sat in the front row. Swami came along and as He passed me, He said, “Happiness is union with God.” Such words were new to me.
However, that incident set me thinking. As the years passed, I grew both physically and mentally. When I was in the ninth grade, the school had classes only up to the 10th grade for girl students. Our prayers to continue through the 11th and 12th grades seemed a long-cherished dream. Soon, to everybody’s surprise, our wish was granted and the two grades were added.
Over the years, He encouraged and graced us many times. We had to appear for the Central Board examinations at the end of the 10th grade. It was a difficult year, and by the end we were exhausted and very nervous. As was customary, we had gone to get padanamaskar [touching the feet in salutation] from Swami. Some of us cried and requested that He should talk to us. He just kept saying, “Be happy, I’ll help you.” “Good Batch.” To console us further, He gave us pens, not one, but two, for each and a whole lot of blessings. By His grace, we did pass the examination that year with flying colors.
After two years, when we were in the 12th grade, on the holy occasion of Vijayadashami [festival celebrated to worship the Divine Mother] Swami blessed the congregation by sprinkling holy water on everyone present. However, my class-mates and I did not get a single drop. It was disappointing, and we were all in tears wondering whether we were not fit for the blessed water.
But Bhagavan always compensates in His own way. After several months, on Janmashtami [Lord Krishna’s birthday], as we eagerly awaited Swami’s feeding the cows, He came along and broke the coconuts, one by one. The water from the coconut fell in such a way that all of us, the earlier unfortunate ones, got our share of Swami’s benediction.
We experienced yet another instance of Swami’s love on the 21st February that year when we went to get padanamaskar before the final examinations. Unfortunately, they were to be held on the same day as the awards ceremony. We sat in rows as usual and prayed. I told the girl next to me how I had read these lines that impressed me:
“He that formed the eye, would He not see?
He that planted the ear, would He not hear?”
We talked for a while about this and then quietly prayed. Swami came over and asked why we had come. We said “Swami! The Exam!” Our headmistress went on to tell Swami that the examinations and the awards ceremony clashed. As soon as He heard that, He said: “I know; I can see; I’m not dumb and deaf.” He meant that He could see our agony. He also thus showed that our little talk had reached His ears, confirming the truth of those lines. Thus, He wiped our tears and was like a rainbow in the storm of our lives. What more would one want?
The Lord has guided me through the years and guarded me as the eyelids guard the eyes. The years spent in Prasanthi Nilayam, in His presence, remain evergreen in my memory. A small prayer to my Lord: “That I want Thee, only Thee, let my heart repeat without end.”
~Geetanjali Gokarn
Source: Sanathana Sarathi, Oct. 1990
