Realizing Supreme Beautitude (Pt.1)

Every devotee of Bhagavan Baba has his own connection with Him and the beauty is that in spite of so many millions trying to connect with Bhagavan, He has time for all. Most of them have had some experience of Bhagavan's Divinity. Not only is the experience a very personal one and very, very dear, but there is also the feeling that since it does not concern anyone else, the others may not be interested in hearing or knowing about it. But 75th Birthday Celebrations of Bhagavan is a joyous occasion and it is the joy of sharing that prompts me to write this piece. I will try and write to the best of my ability knowing fully well that no one can really do full justice to writing about Bhagavan.

Swami's Vision to my Mother

Since the day my mother got the vision of Bhagavan, my family has been a Sai devotee. Like any middle class family, we too believe in God and participate in all the festivals which are celebrated in the year. We have a small Mandir where idols of various Hindu gods are kept and prayers offered there daily by the family members.

However in 1970, things changed suddenly. My mother was in the kitchen and there she saw a vision of Swami on the wall. She was restless and wanted a picture of the vision, and so she immediately rushed out of the house and went to the newspaper vendor at the corner of the street who also kept pictures of various Hindu gods. She looked at the pictures one by one but could not find the picture of the vision that had appeared in front of her. She went further down to see if any other shop had the picture she was looking for. There was none, so she came back to the first one and requested him to have a look again, and lo and behold, there was a picture of Bhagavan with His hand raised in blessing exactly as she had the vision of. The newspaper vendor refused to take any payment saying that since he had not ordered the picture and had no idea how it got there, he would not accept any payment.

That photograph was put up in my bedroom, so that every morning when I woke up, my first glimpse was of Bhagavan. That photo could also be seen by any visitor to the house particularly if the bedroom door was open and I do believe that it was after seeing that picture of Bhagavan that my late father-in-law decided that his daughter's hand could be entrusted in mine. And when he passed away in May this year, his last action was to fold his hands in prayer to Bhagavan and his last words were "Sai Ram".

~ Sunil Gavaskar ~

(From "Experiences by Devotees of Sri Sathya Sai Baba)

(To be continued)