The Golden Age is Here
Sister Aparna Nistala, a third generation devotee from Hyderabad, India, is an active Young Adult at Manhattan Sai Center. Her Grandparents came to Swami in the late fifties. As a toddler in 1978, Aparna was blessed with her first darshan of Swami, but her personal journey in His fold started only in the mid-nineties. Over the years, Aparna and her family have been fortunate to experience Swami’s love in the form of numerous healings, manifestations, miracles, and messages.
Swami came into my life in my teenage years when my family and I needed Him very much. Even prior to coming into His path, He watched over me all through my life, right from my birth, although I was not aware of it at the time.
My spiritual journey (or, I must say, adventure) began with an admiration for Him for all the humanitarian efforts He undertook, including providing clean and safe drinking water to drought-prone villages, administering loving and free-of-cost healthcare to the needy, and giving value-based free education to children, to name a few. I accepted Him as my beloved guru and God as I witnessed many materializations and miracles first-hand that confirmed His omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence in the most testing times of my life. Over the years, He became everything to me as He lovingly started and has been patiently standing by me through my internal transformation process.
For the last 16 years, I have been fortunate enough to be involved in Sai activities in various cities including, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chicago, Urbana, Edison, and New York City. All these cities have very active Sai Centers that were started with the blessings of Swami.
These centers meet at least once every week and engage in spiritual, educational, and service activities. Spiritual activities include prayers from all religions, chanting, devotional singing, meditation, and study circles for discussing Sai literature. Educational activities include Sai spiritual education for children, newsletters, workshops, webinars, and talks on how to incorporate spirituality into our daily lives. Service activities include food service in various homeless shelters, assistance in nursing homes, medical camps, and relief efforts in the event of calamities, to name a few. All these activities are undertaken with a heart full of love and without any solicitation for funds.
By participating in the various center activities, I had the opportunity to meet and to know Sai brothers and sisters from various faiths, countries, ethnicities, and walks of life. Each of them has a wonderful story to share.
A Jewish Cantor came into Swami’s fold by reading a poem written about Him after He left His physical form. A Spanish student accepted Swami as his God just by hearing Swami’s name from his schoolteacher. A renowned Japanese musician felt inner peace by miraculously seeing Swami for the first time on TV in the middle of the night in his home in New York City. A Polish construction worker stumbled upon a book on Swami in a bookstore in Manhattan and knew it was his calling. An American digital media specialist visited the Sai Center in his city for the first time and became a devotee after Swami appeared in his dream and gave him the phone number of the Center. These stories are only a handful of the hundreds I have personally heard.
Although each of these people had a different journey to Swami, they all share the same love for Him and His message. With His name on their lips and His form in their hearts, they are marching forward tirelessly on His path of truth, righteousness, peace, love, and non-violence.
This is a testament to Swami’s words that He has come to lay the foundation for the Golden Age, a time when the consciousness of man is raised and the entire world will unite and live in peace, love, and harmony.
Samastha Loka Sukhino Bhavantu
