Face To Face With Truth - MY FIRST VISIT TO SHIRDI- A DIVINE EXPERIENCE

[Guest guest]

Face To Face With Truth

 

MY FIRST VISIT TO SHIRDI- A DIVINE EXPERIENCE By Raghunath Reddy

 

Sai Baba often said, that let my man be at any distance, a thousand kos away

from me, he will be drawn to Shirdi, like a sparrow, with a thread, tied to its

feet. It proved in our case more emphatically as we were dragged to Shirdi

forcibly.

 

When I was a 12 year old, studying in the 8th standard in Nellore a district

capital town in AP, India, I started visiting an old Sai Temple very regularly

situated close to my house. I didn’t know anything in detail about Shri Sai

till we were pulled to Shirdi in 1992. A visit to Sai mandir was like a visit to

any other mandir. My uncle who has been an ardent Sai devotee brought the small

black and white photo of Sai Baba way back in 1950s and the same is still there

in our ancestral place in the village. My grandmother who was another sincere

devotee of Sai used to bring a jug full of coconut water from Sai Mandir every

Thursday during mid 70s. For about 5-6 years every Thursday I was getting Sai's

Prasad in the form of coconut water regularly.

 

Some time in June 1992, when I visited Nellore,a friend of mine advised me to do

Sai Satcharitra parayan and keep a picture of Sai in pooja mandir.

He took me to the temple and got a nice Baba's ashirvad picture, and then he

tried to get Satcharitra but couldn't find one. As a last resort he said, that

atleast he would borrow one from the library and give it to me, so that after

parayan the book could be returned. Even that he failed to do. As Sai decided to

present that Holy book, a small miracle happened, a few minutes before my

departure. One of my friend's friend, was there accidently and my friend told

him about how he tried to get Satcharitra for me which ended in vain. Then in a

flash he left for his place and returned with a copy of brand new Sai

Satcharitra. He told me to keep the book with me and wanted me to buy a few

copies when I visit Shirdi and distribute them to people. I left for Tirupati,

the place where I have settled down since 1988 with that beautiful picture of

Sai and a copy of Sai Satcharitra.

 

My wife was extremely pleased to keep that beautiful picture of Sai in our pooja

mandir immediately. The very next month another close friend of mine was leaving

for Gaborone to settle down there as a Financial Consultant. He wanted to visit

Shirdi with all his family members as he was leaving India once for all. He

invited us to join him for that Shirdi visit. I was actually in no position to

visit Shirdi. Apart from my official work I was pressed with other pre

occupations. I just couldn't oblige him. But he insisted that I should visit at

any cost. At last I told him to take my wife and 4 year old son, along with

them. He refused and told me very firmly that we should accompany him to Shirdi.

I was in a fix but he went ahead to make arrangements. At last I had to bow to

his wish and all of us left for Shirdi.

 

The day we stepped on the holy soil of Shirdi, turned out to be Gurupoornima. It

was a Thursday and Shirdi wore that festive look. It was virtually infested with

large number of devotees. The whole temple was marvelously decorated and one

could feel that divine energy emanating from the Samadhi Mandir. Truly it was a

remarkable spectacle indeed. Baba's pallaki seva was in progress when we entered

the temple. The whole place was reverberating with the sounds of drum beats and

other instruments. It was a frenziedatmosphere as devotees kept shouting

" victory to Shri Sainath Maharaj " . We have experienced such divine joy which we

have not tasted before at other places. After darshan we returned to the guest

house where we were accommodated.

 

At the stroke of midnight, while all others, were fast asleep I got up and took

bath and proceeded to Samadhi Mandir. The mandir was kept open as it was the day

of Gurupoornima.I went inside and sat opposite the statue of Sri Sai. Some of

the devotees were doing parikrama of the Samadhi. This was a sort of privilege

for the devotees on three days a year Sri Ramanavami, Gurupoornima and

Vijayadashmi only Samadhi mandir would be kept open through out the night and

devotees could go round the Samadhi (parikrama). Now due to ever surging crowds

to Shirdi this practice is done away with. So I was in a way fortunate to remain

inside the mandir till 5 A.M. I sat gazing at the idol of Shri Sai and was

shedding tears unknowingly. Baba had melted my heart and it was a kind of

unknown joy that I hadn't experienced before. After spending about two hours in

this fashion I started doing parikrama (pradikshina) of Samadhi. I did it for

another two hours and left the

mandir in a divine intoxicated state. Immediately I did parikrama at Gurusthan.

 

After the dawn I told my friend and others what happened the previous night. My

friend wanted to spend time in the mandir the next day but the mandir was

closed. Those days all the poor devotees and people from nearby villages used to

sleep on hired beds which were spread in the open area around Samadhi mandir. We

wanted to be amidst those common people and decided to spend the night there

instead of staying in the guest house. Both my friend and I took two beds paying

Rs. 4 and lay down in the open area. There were lot of innocent villagers and

beggers around. It just reminded us of those days of Shri Sai when He was

surrounded by such innocent folk all around. It was another pleasant experience

that Shri Sai provided us.

 

After spending three fruitful days at Shirdi we were returning to Tirupati.

There were old people and young children in our group and all of us comfortably,

without any problem spent the time there savouring the divine grace of Sai. On

the final day we were to catch Dadar express at Daund station. As per the

railway time it was 19-30 hours, which meant 7-30 PM. But both my friend and I

mistook it as 9-30 PM in the night. We left Shirdi thinking that we should reach

Daund around 8-30 PM so that we could finish our dinner and board the train.

 

We reached Ahmad Nagar around 4 p.m. and just missed the 4 p.m. bus to Daund.

The next bus was at 6 p.m. As the journey time was two and half hours from Nagar

to Daund we thought it would be okay. In the mean while, some of us started

enquiring whether there were any other modes of transport. The transporters

quoted three times more than the bus fare. We didn’t want to go by the car as

it was expensive. Suddenly one person approached us on his own and said that he

had a van and he would take all of us to Daund. He demanded exactly the bus

fare. It sounded good to us and the van was so huge that all the 21 members

could be accommodated comfortably. He was driving it at great speed. It was a

frightening sight. In between we wanted him to stop at a couple of places, but

he proceeded straight. We were wondering as to what was happening. He took us

straight to the station and it was 7-35 PM. One of the members, in our group,

didn't have the ticket so my

friend told me to settle the van bill while he proceeded straight to the ticket

counter. When he asked for the ticket, he was told that the train was already

there on the platform and was about to leave. He panicked as we were there on

the other side. We had to cross a huge overbridge covering so many tracks. He

was shouting while running towards us. Since there were old and small children

we couldn't walk so hastily. There was darkness all around and how we covered

the bridge with kids and luggage was a mystery. Though we took our own time to

reach the platform, the train didn't budge even an inch. We had time to

accommodate ourselves in our compartment and soon the train left the station.

 

All of us were moved by this incident. If not for the divine play of Sainath, we

would have been left stranded at the station. It would certainly have been a

horrible sight had we missed the train! All the money was exhausted and

reservations would be one problem and on top spending the night at the station

with kids and old people, it was unimaginable. We could visualize that, the

person who dropped us at the station, was none other than Sri Sai who wanted to

avert such an inconvenience to His Children. All of us gave up dinner that

night. Baba filled our heart with his divine leela.

 

After this visit, Shri Sai has become an inseparable part of our lives. With

every visit to Shirdi we started experiencing more and more of his divine

leelas. As one thinks of Him in right earnest, so He manifests to guide and show

the right path to His devotees.

 

Bow to Shri Sai and peace be to all.

 

By Raghunath Reddy