The Vibhuti Box

I received a letter from the Uttar Pradesh State Sai Samiti [center] President stating that I had been approved by Swami to be the teacher of the U. P. female students selected for the summer course at Brindavan [Sai Baba’s ashram in Whitefield, Bangalore] in 1978. Difficulties that would have made my participation in the summer course impossible were suddenly removed. We arrived at Whitefield two nights before the summer course commenced.

The balmy breezes of Brindavan roused us from our sleep in the early dawn of our first day, a Thursday.

We hurriedly took our seats among the crowd already assembled along the drive in the spacious grounds. Under the circular shed and a huge banyan tree stood a lovely idol of Lord Krishna under which Swami’s chair awaited His arrival. At a short distance a large idol of Goddess Saraswati [goddess of learning] added sanctity to the scene. A melodious bhajan [devotional song] session was already in full swing. The whole atmosphere was charged with divinity. Presently Swami’s ochre‑robed figure emerged. All eyes hungrily turned in His direction as everyone yearned to drink the nectar of the Divine vision. How full of grace was that first glimpse of the Master!

The summer course commenced the next day. The daily schedule consisted of three sessions of lectures on religious and spiritual subjects by eminent scholars. The morning session was for three hours and was preceded by suprabhatam [morning prayer], nagarsankirtan [walking around the ashram while singing devotional songs], Swami’s darshan [sight of a holy person] from the balcony of His residence, and breakfast.

The second was the one hour-long afternoon session followed by lunch and siesta. After tea, the third session began with a summary of the day’s lectures by students from different states, then bhajan singing by college students, and finally concluded with an illuminating discourse by Swami, more bhajans and arati [waving of the flame].

The morning session of the valedictory function started with Swami’s discourse on the ordeals of student life and ended with His exhorting students to lead a life of discipline, duty, and devotion. Then He graciously allowed all participants the most coveted opportunity of padanamaskar [touching the feet of a holy person as an expression of love and reverence], and gave them vibhuti [sacred ash] packets with His own hands.

When my turn came, I prostrated at His feet and touched them. As I stood up, I inadvertently uttered, “Swami. Please bless me so that I can translate your ‘Chinna Katha’ [small stories] in Urdu.” Swami looked at me closely for a moment and smiled. He graciously nodded and said, “Yes. Yes, do it.” Then He blessed me with eight packets of vibhuti. I was too overwhelmed with joy to remember how I walked back to my seat. Swami’s words and blessing gave me an inward sense of spiritual wealth. We returned to our dormitory and I carefully preserved the blessed vibhuti in an empty yellow tin box and tightly closed its lid.

The day after the summer course ended, we tearfully boarded the minibus, casting a last lingering look at the sanctuary of peace, the sacred residence of our Master that had been our abode of bliss for the past month. As the minibus left, we looked out of its windows yearning to have His darshan once again. The early morning breeze fanned the pangs of separation. We sobbed as the bus drove off.

We reached Bangalore railway station and settled in our seats. We closed the sliding door of the car from the inside, and attended to morning chores. The guard whistled and the train left Bangalore. After a short time it passed through Whitefield and once again we became sentimental as we spotted the lovely pink and blue building of Sri Sathya Sai College.

At about 9 a.m. I remembered it was time to take my morning dose of blood pressure medicine. I searched through my belongings, but could not find it. Evidently I had misplaced it while hastily packing the previous night. It was not in my box or my handbag or my purse. Perplexed, I sat down in my seat next to the window and tried to recall where I could have put it. Then the idea came to my mind that I might have kept it with Baba’s vibhuti.

I reached for the yellow tin in my box and opened the lid carefully, but the medicine was not there either. My next concern was to put the sacred vibhuti tin safely back into my box, but before I did that I had to first close the lid. The train had now picked up speed and its jerky motion made my hands too shaky to close the lid tightly. Thinking that I could close the lid if it was placed against a hard surface, I placed the tin on the window sill of the train and thumped hard on its lid. To my horror, it slipped from my hand and rolled out of the window, down the railway track and faded from view as the train moved on.

I was shocked. The world of bliss slipped from my grasp. I became frantic.  “My tin, my tin, my vibhuti tin. Oh, I have dropped it. I must get it back, I am going.” I shrieked, and rushed toward the sliding door. My frantic behavior frightened my students. They tried to stop me. “Where are you going? We will give you our vibhuti. Stop, please don’t go.” But I didn’t hear them. I had only one thought—I must get my vibhuti tin back. It was Swami’s gift. How could I leave it behind? No, I must find it, come what may. In this frenzy I forgot that the door had to be slid in order to be opened. Instead, I violently pushed it forward and when it would not open, I used all my strength to break it open.

To everyone’s horror, the hinges that held the door tight suddenly loosened and the door fell against the upper berth facing it. Fortunately it was unoccupied. But the gentleman on the lower berth was alarmed as he saw me emerging and frantically rushing toward the entrance door of the train. “What are you going to do?” he asked. I plunged out of the train before he could reach me. The train was traveling fast and I could have died, but miraculously I was unhurt. Barefoot, I started running on the pebbles between the railway lines in the direction from which the train had just come. I did not think that I was running barefoot, or that there was no certainty that I would find my precious vibhuti, or that having left my train, I had no way of returning, penniless as I was. I even forgot that I was a woman and had left my wards on the train and that I was not medically permitted to do hard physical activity. Here I was running fast, gasping for breath, each of which spoke only one prayer, “O Baba, please help me find my vibhuti.”

Back in the train, there was utter confusion. Most of the passengers thought I was mad to jump out of the train. Those who knew me were worried about my safety. Some tried to persuade the guard to stop the train. Unaware of this, I was running in the direction of my tin. The villagers on their way to the nearby fields were alarmed as they saw me running in the middle of the railway track and said, “Oh Amma [mother], do not run there. The train will be here any moment. Oh, you will be crushed to death. Have you no fear?”

Deaf to their cries I ran on. I was desperate when I inwardly spoke, “O Baba, what shall I do if I do not find my vibhuti? I shall return to Whitefield maybe on foot only to get vibhuti again from your hands. I will not go back to Kanpur without the vibhuti.” When I looked back, I found to my surprise that my train had travelled far and the growing distance made it look smaller and smaller. I then realized I was left miles behind, but was undaunted. I only wanted to retrieve my tin, so I ran on.

I arrived at a point where another railway track intersected the one I had been following. It was difficult to decide which of the two tracks had been the one on which my train had run, for that alone could lead me to the spot where the tin had fallen. One step on the wrong track would take me further away from it and if I missed it, this entire mad race would have been to no avail. “Won’t you show me the correct path O Baba?” I cried, as hot tears rolled down my cheeks. Next moment I was running again. Surely I had made the correct choice but where was it leading me? There was no going back and so on I ran. And lo, suddenly in the green bushes down the railway track, there glittered a small yellow circular thing. It was the vibhuti tin indeed. I had found it. I lunged and picked it up, pressed it against my heart, and touched it to my head. Overwhelmed with joy, I found myself crying again—but now the tears were of gratitude.

I wanted to run back to my train to share my joy with the Sai devotees aboard it. I looked back, but where was the train? With the distance between us, it appeared like a small toy train. Like one possessed, I started running toward it. The return race was an ordeal. My feet seemed to be out of gear. I was panting with fatigue but I had no choice. Presently the train began to look larger. Had it come to a standstill or had I covered the gaping distance? In the next few moments I was close to it. There was no railway station, and yet the train had stopped, as if only to collect me! How could this be? But before I could think I almost collapsed. A doctor and some others helped me get into the train. They laid me on my berth and gave me vibhuti dissolved in water to drink and also applied some of it on my forehead. Soon I recovered. I needed no more medicine.

~Nand Kishori Saxena, Kanpur
Source: Sanathana Sarathi, Dec. 1980