It Always Works
Once a month, the Sai Baba Center of Manhattan takes responsibility for the soup kitchen at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City and feeds nearly 300 people. Our fearless leader, June, manages the proceedings with great aplomb. Since I started coming a couple of years ago, there have never been any incidents or noteworthy events of any kind, except for our feeding last month.
It was nearing the end of the day. Our service had gone smoothly. People at the second sitting were finishing their meal and about ready to leave when some generous donor brought additional quantities of food into the kitchen. It was chicken with rice and gravy. The quantity wasn’t enough for everybody, but we did not want it to go to Waste. We decided to pack individual servings in styrofoam containers with the intention of handing them out to some of the people as they departed.
We brought the food in containers to the main exit. It soon became apparent to the people that there were just a limited number of containers and not everyone was going to get one. The crowd congregating by the door started to get angry and the atmosphere was, to say the least, tense. The tension escalated and a fight broke out between two of the men. June and I were standing and watching from the entrance to the kitchen.
June, seemingly oblivious to my presence, started saying, slowly and deliberately, “Swami, disperse the crowd. Okay, Swami, disperse the crowd.” Before she had even finished the second plea, instantaneously, a thin mist of grace (a phenomenon I have often witnessed during darshan, in Puttaparthi, when Swami blesses devotees) descended on the crowd. The fight stopped, the tension disappeared and everyone Walked calmly and peacefully out the door.
I turned to June, expecting to see an expression of utter amazement (and, perhaps, a little pride) but she turned and walked into the kitchen to finish her chores as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
Since June has known Baba about 20 years, I thought, maybe she takes these things for granted. I am, however, still left dumbfounded by such incidents, having known Baba for only three years. And, sure enough, when I mentioned this incident to her the next time we met, she was rather amused that I was in such awe. She said, “It always works! If there is, say, a baby crying on the plane and it’s bothering me, I pray to Swami and send the child light. It always works!”
~Richard Margolin
