Mahamahima Manusha Vigraha
My first encounter with the glorious Sai phenomenon goes back to the early sixties. It was by sheer accident that I ended up on a Mahashivaratri day at Prasanthi Nilayam during a visit to a very close relative I had not met for a long period. The first impact was made by Swami’s speech on that occasion explaining the profound significance of that night and the emergence of the Shivalinga. It is an unforgettable experience to watch at very close quarters, the emergence of a couple of transparent Shivalinga’s from Swami’s mouth.
It was another mind-boggling experience to witness at very close quarters, a virtual vibhuti [sacred ash] storm which spread on to the entire stage covering my clothes too. The unending flow of sacred ash from an upturned empty vessel held by Kasturiji [the first editor of Sanathana Sarathi] over the idol of Shirdi Sai Baba at the mere turn of Swami’s hand was an extraordinary event.
A couple of days later, I was also fortunate to witness a different type of miracle. A dozen or so young boys were sitting for the investiture of the sacred thread called Upanayana, and a prerequisite for this samskar is the piercing of the ears that normally takes place at a very young age of the child. Several boys did not have the pierced ears. Swami came along, spotted precisely those boys whose ears were not pierced, touched their earlobes, and lo and behold, there were holes in the lobes. Swami then graciously materialized earrings that He Himself inserted in the ear lobes. The highlight of this ceremony was the materialization of the “sacred threads” by Himself. Swami gave them to the parents of the boys since it is customary for the parents to invest their child with the sacred thread.
That Swami is omniscient has been attested to by a number of great scholars. It would suffice here to give two experiences, one in the realm of traditional Vedic lore and the other in the field of modern physical sciences.
I was once present when some of the most learned Vedic scholars gathered at Prasanthi Nilayam. Two adepts had differences over the complex procedure of the performance of the Vedic Somayaga sacrifice as to the exact configuration or arrangement of the sanctified bricks in the construction of the main altar. They confronted Swami with their respective viewpoints and doubts backed by citations of authoritative shrota texts. Apparently, even the great ascetic heads of the ‘Math’s [spiritual learning centers] are themselves not familiar with purified practices of the elaborate yagnas. They are more familiar with Vedantic and philosophical subjects than with complex ritual sacrifices.
Perhaps these pundits came to test Swami in a remote area of Vedic knowledge. This is an area of Vedic knowledge that has been the preserve of only a handful of traditionally trained specialized scholars. But to their astonishment, Swami specified and demonstrated the correct configuration of the sanctified and ritual place. Swami’s procedure did not coincide with the expert view of either of the two pundits. They later checked their palm-leaf shrota texts to confirm whether what Swami had elaborated was exactly the same for that particular sacrifice. The assembled scholars were greatly amazed and some of them returned humbled as well as greatly impressed by Swami’s knowledge in the Vedic field.
The writer can also provide from his own experience [testimony of] Swami’s omniscience in respect to specialized geosciences matter. Swami once asked me jokingly, I thought, what kind of energy I was dealing with as the Head of the Energy Department of the United Nations in New York. He wanted me to indicate the various primary sources of energy. Having headed the Energy Department at the world level for over a decade and a half, I thought I could answer Swami’s question easily.
I listed practically all the traditional and modern primary sources of energy. Swami kept repeating that there were still other sources, when I came to the end of the list after His constant promptings. Swami took over to tell me that I forgot to mention “geo pressured energy.” He explained in clear terms, briefly, its character, nature, the occurrence, the fact of its being a vast hydraulic source of power deep in the bowels of the earth with a vast amount of gas dissolved in it in a compressed form as it were. He mentioned that it is a triple source of energy: hydraulic, natural gas, and geothermal. Swami’s description recalled to me in a flash this frontier source of energy, which is known to only a few specialists in the world, and which is yet to be exploited.
Swami’s knowledge of Vedic learning and modern sciences is indeed astounding as attested to by a number of scholars and scientists. That Swami is a virtual encyclopedia of Vedic learning has been confirmed by my father Sri G. Subramanya Sastry, a Vedic scholar of repute in Andhra Pradesh [Southern India]. I remember having once challenged my father who believed that Swami could be traced to the Vedas and that, in fact, Swami is the embodiment of Vedic knowledge. My father’s understanding of Vedas and devotion to Swami was such that he used to tell me that whenever he listened to Swami’s immortal teaching, the corresponding passage inevitably flashed across his mind. I recall one incident:
The postman delivered Sanathana Sarathi [monthly magazine] and I immediately opened it and asked my father to convince me right then that whatever Swami spoke is Vedic in origin. He took up the challenge with a smile right then and there, and immediately gave me sentence by sentence the exact Vedic quotes corresponding to Swami’s words. I was flabbergasted by this evidence of Swami’s encyclopedic Vedic knowledge.
The writer has experienced in his family numerous extraordinary miraculous cures performed by Swami over a long span of association with the Sai phenomenon. The most astounding medical miracle of Swami was with respect to my third son, who suffered intense fever and pains due to the perforation of the Ileum at the end of the small intestine.
Over a period of seven months, when he was hospitalized several times for emergencies, the most eminent specialists in three New York hospitals attended to him. He was subsisting only on semi-solids and non-fibrous baby foods. The specialists in New York could not cure him and recommended a major surgery after which the young man would have to wear a permanent pouch. At this stage we decided to fly to Swami at Brindavan.
We were waiting for along time under the Sai Ram shed [darshan area in those days]. Amazingly, Swami came straight to us and called us inside for an interview. He materialized Vibhuti, which He Himself put in the mouth of my son and swept His soft Divine hand over the abdomen. Then Swami declared that the boy was cured as of that moment and could eat spicy hot Andhra food to his heart’s content. Hail to Swami’s glory!
That same evening happened to be Christmas eve. Swami gave a dinner for all the foreign devotees, and we, too, were invited. I cautioned my son not to start eating the feast spread for us. We had brought from New York his special foods, including water for his drinking use. But he wisely ignored my warning, literally took courage in his hand, and ate the food to his heart’s content as Swami had said. We returned to New York and the doctors there were astonished and called it an unbelievable medical miracle.
That Swami can make the impossible possible is illustrated by the miraculous birth of my grandson. For 17 years my eldest son’s family continued to be childless. Eminent doctors in United States and Europe diagnosed it to be a near impossible situation for the couple to have children. My son and daughter-in-law came to Brindavan unannounced. Swami spotted them among the hundreds gathered there. He came to Trayee Brindavan and surprised me by telling me that my son and daughter-in-law had just arrived. He asked me to bring them for a joint interview.
When the couple prostrated, He blessed them, materialized a special type of finely granulated, fragrant holy vibhuti, and declared before me and several other devotees that Sathya Sai was now guaranteeing the birth of a Vamsha vardhan [an heir] in the Gandikota family. He instructed my son that he should inform me as soon as the pregnancy of my daughter-in-law was confirmed after a few months.
One day when I was sitting on the veranda of the Prasanthi Nilayam Mandir, a cable from my son in the United States was delivered to me stating that the doctors twice confirmed the pregnancy of my daughter-in-law. I immediately showed the cable to Swami and remarked that I believed that the pregnancy was due to Swami’s grace. Swami quickly retorted in the hearing of the people in the veranda, “It is not at all a question of your belief. When Sathya Sai guaranteed a few months before, that a grandson would be born, it would have to….” I then realized that my words to Swami should have been phrased better.
Just a day prior to the birth of our grandson, Swami chided my wife for sitting around when we should be at New York helping with the delivery of our first grandson. He then materialized sugar candy, instructing my wife that the candy should be put in the mouth of my daughter-in-law when the first labor pain started. It was a near miracle that we could leave for Bombay in the evening, arriving the next day at Kennedy airport in New York to be received by our son and the pregnant daughter-in-law. That same night the first labor pain started and the sugar candy was given to my daughter-in-law. A son was born in the night —a comfortable and normal delivery. Within 12 hours of the birth, Swami sent a telephonic message to me that we should name the boy Jayavardhan, the first grandson in the family.
In our country we consider Lord Rama as maya manusha vigraha—the embodiment of maya [illusion] concealing His Divine identity. We call Lord Krishna leela manusha vigraha—the embodiment of divine play and drama. What should we call the present visible divine incarnation of Sri Sathya Sai, having witnessed over nearly a quarter century His unending, undepleted, and astounding miracles? I have come to the conclusion that it would be appropriate to call Him truly a maha mahima manusha vigraha—the embodiment of limitless plethora of powers and grace out of His boundless love for His children.
~Sri. G.V. Subba Rao
Source: Sathya Sai—The Eternal Charioteer
