Pranava Prasad

It was a holy time, the sacred week between Palm Sunday and Easter. It was also the  beginning of Holi, the Hindu festival. The Jewish Passover was within a day or two. For me, it meant an opportunity to reach deep into my heart with renewed prayers that my own life would cease all its human will and fall utterly and completely into alignment with God’s perfect design. I had lit special candles and spent precious time in prayer.

I was about to have a special lunch. I was going to eat a simple, hearty meal at one of the canteen facilities provided by the Sai organization. I had heard that the volunteers working in the kitchen regularly chanted the Gayatri mantra, which Baba extols as a source of enormous spiritual light and strength. That meant a great deal to me.

When my son Sathya was four years old, our Sai Baba Center took up the avid study and learning of the Gayatri. All members of the center began chanting enthusiastically and humbly. We carefully read all of Baba’s words about this sacred mantra in Vision of the Divine. So from the age of four, Sathya had known and felt its uplifting healing power. When he was eleven, we decided he should recite it thrice daily. He became so deeply aware of its special goodness that he would not eat food no matter what the occasion or how early the hour until his morning Gayatri was completed. I often sat with him as he recited the deep prayer and felt an especially calm beauty. Even at the age of four, through constant exposure to Baba’s teachings, Sathya had begun to grasp the subtleties of God’s play. One day I had succumbed to a feeling of dejection. I sat on the floor moping when Sathya toddled around the corner. When he saw me, he stopped and leaned his pudgy little face down into my gaze. He patted me on the cheek and said softly, “Don’t forget, Mommy, you are the immortal atma.”

Now, on this special day of prayer, I thought of my son and felt deeply grateful that he was a student in a school blessed by Baba. He was learning the rich tradition of sanathana dharma, Vedic morals and trust in God. Knowing that my son had eaten heartily of Mother Gayatri’s sacred meal of the uplifting, I felt a kinship of protection for him as I walked to my own meal prepared in its holy light.

I was almost the last person to enter the canteen. I quickly asked for, and was graciously served, two chapattis. Suddenly, I saw the lovely outline of an OM; it looked almost as if it had been drawn by a thick crayon. It was a toasty dark brown color and was vividly clear. (Later, when I cut the chapatti in half, the OM looked perfectly centered in its raised puff of dough.) How beautiful, I thought. I tip‑toed into the kitchen to show it to the workers. How lovely it had been for all of us to see the sacred symbol drawn so perfectly in the food we were about to eat. One woman said she had felt particular guidance from Baba that morning to recite the Gayatri as the chapattis were rolled. Previously they had recited it while chopping vegetables.

The Gayatri’s meaning, Baba tells us, is the affirmation of God in everything. He says it draws down enormous spiritual benefits upon us. All I could think, when all of us stood looking at the lovely chapatti OM was: Can we ever estimate the unseen value of the love and care we receive when we eat food prepared in a holy way and in a reverent environment? What prasad it is to receive food prepared by those who follow Baba’s intent and instructions.

One man volunteered to preserve the OM by taking a photograph of it. Shortly before, I had prayed to God that, though I did not have a camera, such a beautiful message from God should be saved. Imagine my surprise when someone stepped forward with a desire to photo-graph the precious symbol. The man with the camera mentioned that it was his son’s birthday. I thought again of the rebirth which the Gayatri affords, and of my own child’s basking in that light. Many of the people who saw the Chapatti OM felt special meaning in its manifestation. I think we all felt, most deeply of all, pure gratitude to Baba for letting us feel once again the precious efficacy and worth of sadhana [spiritul effort] done with love—a most precious food.

~Samrita (Mardee) Inglis
Source: Sanathana Sarathi, 1986