Our First Darshan of a Great Saint (April 1987)

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OUR FIRST DARSHAN OF A GREAT SAINT (April 1987)

I was chief inspector in a large public sector undertaking in Bangalore. By

then, by the grace of Sai my wife and I had become humble devotees of His. The

relations between me and the Officers in the department were extremely good.

They would often gather in my room and when the pressure of work was not heavy,

we often used to discuss about saints invariably. Very often, we would be

talking about Sai Baba and his wonderful miracles and devotees' experiences.

Srimathi Lalithamma was a devout lady inspector in my department and she was

held in great respect and esteem. She had often seen us talking about Sai Baba.

One day she informed me of the presence of a great saint in Sai Mandir in

Thiagaraja Nagar near Narasimharaja Colony in Bangalore and suggested that I,

with my wife, should take darshan of the Swamiji. It was my ill luck that I did

not heed her repeated suggestions to me in that regard for some time. She felt

exasperated and walking straight into my room one day, she said, 'Sir, one

should be lucky in life to get darshan of a saint, and though I have spoken to

you a number of times, you have not come. It is only your karma not to have

Swamiji's darshan. I can not tell you more than this.'

That was an admonition to me and I deserved it well. It did have its intended

effect on me almost immediately. I promised to visit her house with my wife on

the succeeding Sunday. She gave me the necessary details to locate her house

and promised to take us to Swamiji.

On the promised day, my wife and I went to the pious lady's house. It was around

10.30 in the morning. She was all kindness to us and treated us to good coffee

and insisted that we should lunch with her that day. I did not want her to take

any trouble on our account and therefore did not agree to her insistence. After

Swamiji's darshan, we wanted to return home.

She took us to Sai mandir which was close to her house and in the hall Swamiji

was alone. He welcomed us like a very loving father and before long we realised

that we were in the immediate presence of a great yogi. He spoke to us so kindly

that we felt completely at home with him, though it was only our first visit.

When he was talking to us, Smt. Lalithamma informed Swamiji that I had not

agreed to lunch with her that day and she was not happy about it. Swamiji

continued to talk to us as if he had not heard her. After a few minutes, he got

up and beckoned to me to accompany him, saying that the two ladies could be

there talking. Outside the hall, in the beautiful garden, Swamiji suddenly

asked me to tell him:-1) What would I lose if I and my wife lunched with Smt.

Lalithamma. 2) What would be my gain, if we did not lunch with the good lady?

The questions were straight, forceful and very purposeful and it became evident

later. I had no answers.

Then, Swamiji very kindly spoke to me and advised me to take our lunch with the

good lady and to meet him at 2.30 in the afternoon. While tendering that

advice, he spoke thus:-

''You have no right to make anyone in the world feel unhappy. Your duty is as

far as possible to make everybody you come in contact with due to rinanubandha,

feel happy. Then only God will be pleased with you."

This is in brief the teaching of all great saints and prophets of the world.

We obeyed him and lunched with the devout lady. In the afternoon, when we went

to mandir, he was again all kindness to us. He gave us the greatest treasure

and that he initiated us into Sri Vishnu sahasranama which has protected us

throughout ever since.

That day, we had met in our lives, the great saint Parama-poojya Sripadananda

Radhakrishna Swamiji, the great apostle of Sri Sai Baba. He became our Guru.

We are greatly indebted to the devout soul Smt. Lalithamma for showing us our Guru.

We have had our share of miraculous experiences of Sainath and the Swamiji as

well. By their Grace, I may, in due course, share them with the devotees

through the columns of Sri Sai Leela.

K. S. Ramaswamy,

Bangalore 560 003.

The experiences of Devotees as published in Shri Sai Leela Magazine, can be read

at www.saileelas.org/magazines/SAILEELA/exp.htm