Fw: SAI SPIRITUAL SHOWERS – ISSUE 35

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After

many years of doing my best to be both mother and father to my son, Ralph

(not his real name), never feeling completely successful, I began the

spiritual practice of sending love from my heart to his in the form of a

beam of light. He is sixteen years old and seems to be infected with

teenage wildness. The experience of replacing parental anxiety with love

was beautiful. I felt my whole heart opening and expanding. I felt the

warmth of Baba's presence in my heart, and I seemed to be connected to the

whole universe. I am continuing that technique, sending him unconditional

love each time I sit in silence to perform my sadhana (spiritual

discipline). I also include his hyperactive friends and all the beings in

the world.

I had

the blessed privilege of going to Prasanthi Nilayam in 1986, and one reason

that I wanted to see Baba was to ask Him to help me with Ralph. We have a

hard time with each other. I try to control him so that he won't make all

the mistakes that I made and lose as much time as I lost trying to

extricate myself from the results of those mistakes. We are very different.

He is outgoing and social, while I am quieter and more introspective. He is

a typical teenager, interested in rock music, movies, TV, and sports, but

not much interested in books and homework. We have not been able to

communicate very well since he was two years old. He won't take direction

from anybody—especially not from me. His independence may be a

blessing in some ways, but it has also been a tremendous trial for me.

During the last two or three years I have prayed to Baba frequently to help

me know that my son is truly His son and to open the heart of His son to

receive His love. I have been able to get Ralph to participate in some

spiritual activity with me on Easter and Christmas, but otherwise he has

resisted my invitations and suggestions.

After

consciously placing him in a circle of love for the past four weeks, I was

feeling confident that some of that resistance has lessened. I wrote on my

calendar for Sunday night: "Ralph to go with me to the Sai Baba

Centre." I gave up my desire to convince him of anything, and just

wanted to exemplify Baba's love to the best of my ability. I also wanted

him to know what I was doing on Sunday nights. It was definitely all in

divine hands. He came along with very little fuss, and he enjoyed himself

tremendously. He loved the video on Baba, the stories and individual

experiences which were shared, the special atmosphere, and the love that

those in attendance showed for Baba and for each other. He even sang along

with us some of the devotional songs. On the way home in the car he asked

many excellent questions. He noticed so much and grasped so much so quickly

that it was a delight for me to talk with him. I'm sure you can imagine my

joy, since Baba is my favourite topic of conversation. Ralph took in so

many of the wonderful little tidbits that I told him. I wonder what will

happen when he hears about the great miracles? He volunteered that he would

like to go to the Centre again!

On

the way home from the meeting, as we moved along with the flow of traffic

on the freeway, I suddenly saw an unusually large, heavy ladder, taking up

three fourths of the left lane-the one in which I was travelling. I saw the

car in front of me swerve, and I swerved also. There was no time to look

into the rearview mirror; everything happened so quickly! I saw the car in

the centre lane swerve to avoid our car and the car in the right lane go

off on to the right shoulder into some bushes. In order to lessen the

danger to the other cars, I hit the ladder with my left front tyre-probably

at about fifty five miles per hour. With Baba's grace, I did not lose

control of the car. The ladder did not fly up and hit our windshield nor

get wedged underneath the car. I stopped the car as quickly as possible and

ran back to remove the ladder from the lane. There was not even a scratch

on our car. No one was hurt in any of the cars. We were all fine!

I

believe that this incident was orchestrated to show our son that Baba loves

him, and that He wants to draw him near. I feel sure that He gave us back

our healthy bodies and may be even our lives. I could so easily have lost

control of my light, very unstable car, and crashed. When we got home, we

went down on our knees together in front of our picture of Baba and

expressed our heartfelt gratitude for His love, protection, and constant

guidance. I feel that every prayer uttered over the past four years had

been brought to fruition in this climactic, peak experience. There is no

question but that Baba's grace is powerful, unpredictable, and always

inexorably leading us on to merge our sense of separateness into His

exemplification of divine unity. The instruments He used in this drama

included Baba Centre, the sadhana of love, and the driver who lost the

ladder. Truly, God works in mysterious ways to perform His wonders.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once when Buddha was going round for

alms as a mendicant, his father, Suddhodana called him and said:

‘Son! Why are you going about as a beggar? I am a king and you are

leading a life of a beggar. This is not proper at all.’ Buddha gave

him a fitting reply. “Sir, You are Brahmam and I am Brahmam too. You

are not father and I am not son. Both of us are Brahmam. In the phenomenal

world, you belong to the lineage of rulers. I belong to the lineage of

renunciants. All those who follow my ideals are all renunciants. Your

lineage is based on attachment (Raaga). My lineage is based on renunciation

(Viragya). To those who have attachment, it becomes a disease (Roga). To

the renunciant, detachment becomes the means of Nirvana.’ Buddha

taught his message in this way to his father, wife and son.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WITH A VISION THAT GUIDES AND A MISSION THAT

TRANSFORMS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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