Who is Richard?

One thing can be stated categorically about Sai Baba’s miracles and that is, they are never without purpose. He might “only” be demonstrating His omnipresence, but sooner or later most devotees learn that there is always a good, sometimes even profound, reason for His divine play.

An important lesson was brought dramatically home to me with a phenomena that started at His 70th Birthday celebration, which I was fortunate enough to have attended in Prashanti Nilayam. One day while walking by the mandir (temple) I heard someone say my name, as if the speaker were trying to get my attention. Quite clearly and quite distinctly, I heard, Richard. But when I looked around, l saw only the hordes of people who had come to the birthday celebration. Not one of them seemed to have the slightest interest in making my acquaintance. I scoured the area in all directions for someone making their way through the crowd to talk to me. But there was absolutely no one.

So, I continued on my way, chalking it up one of those ashrams synchronicities and quickly put it out of my mind. But just a short while later, I heard it again, Richard. This was no angelic, ethereal-sounding voice. It was just as if someone whom I knew (or who knew me), but whose voice l did not recognize, was calling my name. Again, I looked around and again I saw mostly Indians, who probably never even heard the name Richard before.

This started happening regularly. And each time I would look, there would be no one there. At first, I did not know what to make of it. I thought, “This is just how Baba keeps your stay at the ashram interesting.” But then Ladies Day came. This year was the first that Swami had designated an entire day to be devoted to acknowledging the role of women in society. Somehow, I was in the crowd of men who were literally shoved into the Poornachandra Auditorium for the commencement of the day’s festivities. I also found myself in the first or second row watching Sai Baba, on stage, as everyone waited for the hall to fill, and for the various technical matters (such as the sound system) to be made ready.

While we were waiting, Swami decided to come down off the stage and give darshan to those who already seated. As He approached me, Swami stopped in fruit of a young Indian man seated just to my right, and bending slightly forward, said to the young man—Richard.

Hearing my name at the ashram continued, but that was just the start. Only after I returned home did it really begin to take shape. I continued hearing my name at regular intervals, with no one being there. ln addition, little children would run in front of me and l would hear their mother yell, “Richard, you come back here!” and moments later l would be sitting outside at a restaurant having lunch with my family and a plane would write “P. C. Richards” in the sky. I would go into completely empty art gallery and hear the owner talking to his secretary about one of the artists named Richard. When a manager at my company was physically assaulted, I drove to a well-known Labor and Employment law firm in New Jersey without an appointment. The lawyer who appeared for the initial consultation was named Richard.

Once while on vacation at an inn in Maine, I found myself in the dining room, speaking with a gentleman who had come up from Louisiana for a wedding. The waitress came into the room and said that there was a phone call for “Rick.” I thought this strange because hardly anyone even knew I was there, and none of them knew me as “Rick.” But before I could say anything, the other fellow, whose name I had never inquired about, got up and took the phone call. “Another Richard leela,” l thought. At least Baba was being consistent. But as if this wasn’t enough, as a lark I asked the waitress what her name was. I was certain it couldn’t have been Richard. She smiled and said, “Ricki.’… We were the only three people in that entire room.

Then came the license plates. This might sound a little silly, but I really thought I was starting to notice my initials (RM) on an awful lot of different kinds of vehicles, particularly at auspicious and was wondering whether this was really happening. (I said earlier that Baba was getting “creative.”) But as bizarre as this might sound—while I was walking one day and asking this very question, even daring to wonder if Baba could really pull something like this off, I looked up and—at that moment—saw a car double-parked right in front of me with custom plates that read RIC MAR, the three letters beginning my first and last names respectively. And on a trip to Hawaii recently, I attended Baba’s services at a beautiful old church. On that occasion, the first person to greet me, of the five people attending on the distant island of Maui, was named (you guessed it) “‘Richard”.

These instances represent just a partial list. So, I started to think that, perhaps, Swami was trying to tell me something. But what? It seemed that if He was trying to remind me of His divinity, of His omnipresence, that He would have had me hear and see His name everywhere. Why then, my name?

After doing some real soul searching, I had to admit that these phenomena were all happening at a time when I believed myself to be (as they used to say in the ’60s) out of touch with myself, and here was the primary way in which Baba was healing me. What better reminder could I have of His presence than seeing and hearing my name everywhere? But while that idea may have explained it in part, there seemed to be something more. After all, He certainly was going to great lengths just to make His point. I started to gradually understand that it, perhaps, had something to do with the ultimate realization which is, of course, self-realization. Then, just recently, I started to get some actual confirmation of that I had begun to feel truly integrated—in touch with myself—to a greater extent than I had experienced in quite some time. I was becoming me. But Swami is always, of course, at least ten steps ahead of us. So, Baba added a significant new twist to the ongoing Richard leela (play).

I was taking a bus back to Hoboken after services in New York on Thursday night. Sitting directly across the aisle from me were two young couples traveling together. I really didn’t pay much attention to them except to notice that they were attractive, in their mid-to-late-twenties and nicely dressed in the typically hip Hoboken fashion. All of a sudden, one of the women, who had apparently been telling a story, yelled, “Who is Richard?” and again, very loudly, “Who is Richard?” And then “Where is Richard?” “Where’s Richard?” This outburst, of course, was apropos the story she was relating to her friends, but it was apparently the only part intended for me to hear.

Now this sounded quite like the fundamental question Swami is always asking us to pose to ourselves—the self-inquiry that Baba says is “75% of sadhana (spiritual practice),” the question “Who am I?” to which the answer is, ultimately and finally, “I am He.”

So, my own little Richard leela came full circle. Swami made it abundantly clear that He will go to any extent to make a point, if He feels the point is worth making, and that He will do it in a way we cannot help but pay attention to. In the process, he brings us closer to that which He says He has come to give us liberation.

~Richard Margolin
New York, USA