Gifts
of Grace
At Shirdi, Baba gave
the Divine Panacea, the Ash, contacted by His Divine Hand, from the
Dhuni or Fire that was always lit and active in the masjid room where
He spent His days. Now, the Dhuni is in His own Hand, ever ready to
yield the precious gift; He has only to will and wave. Nor is it
essential that the ash or Vibhuthi as it is called in Sanskrit, should
be so created. Baba wills, but, does not wave His Hand. Yet, the
Vibhuthi flows, as the stream of Grace, where He wills, when He wills.
This is the greatest of contemporary miracles, this overflowing shower
of Divine Vibhuthi Grace!
The showers came,
silent and unannounced, like dew before the dawn on blossoms in the
fields. An anxious parent inquired whether the appearance of ash
clusters on the picture of Baba that he was worshipping boded ill: for,
he had met Baba a few weeks previously about a missing son, and the ash
for him was a reminder of cremation and death. Baba directed me to
write to the correspondent that Vibhuthi on and from His picture and
the pictures of other forms of God can never be so interpreted; it is a
sign of Grace! This happened in Tanjore District.
At Parmathi, in Salem
District, a person who had visited Prasanthi Nilayam and who had not
met Baba in person had a picture of Baba in his shrine. He writes,
"Since the 2nd of last month, Ash as well as
Amrith are falling in showers
from Baba's picture! I am collecting them and giving them to the people
who come. But I have extra stock with me, which is daily accumulating.
Advise me what I should do with these? Can I put them into the holy
Kaveri river that is near my place?" Another correspondent from Cochin
wrote about the same time, to the Editor of the Sanathana Sarathi.
"A few days back, I found that an oily fluid was flowing from one side
of the glass of the framed picture of Bhagavan. There are red dots of Kumkum and white dots
of Vibhuthi that have appeared on the glass. As I am not quite sure
what the above things relate to, I have not given any publicity to
this. I shall be highly grateful, if you can kindly enlighten me". What
could the puzzled editor, that is, what could I do, except
congratulating him on the unique proof he had before his eyes of the
majestic glory of Baba?
Or, I shall quote from
a letter about a happening in Calcutta. "I am a devotee of Baba for
several years; but, my brother's sons at Calcutta have not seen Baba.
So they are naturally upset. Vibhuthi appears and can be collected not
only from Baba's picture, but, from all the other ten pictures of Hindu
Gods! Vibhuthi is also originating from the photograph of my brother,
who died some 8 years ago! Of course, he was a very pious and simple
man, with a large heart. On the Ashtami Day, when our family deity at
Vaikom is taken out the Annual Procession, the Vibhuthi that showered
from Baba's Picture was the same, in texture, colour, taste, and
density, as the Ash given at Vaikom as Prasadam; Please
find out the significance of all this and let me know what I should
do".
K. Rajarama Rao from
Konaje, near Vittal, in South Kanara District, Mysore was afflicted
with doubt. He wrote to the Editor, "My youngest sister noted the
Vibhuthi at about 9.30 A.M. Immediately, a piece of paper was kept
beneath the photo and the showers were collected on it. Please write to
me, how we should use the Vibhuthi that has fallen and is falling". The
chief Chemist of an Explosives factory at Poona did not waste time in
asking questions and waiting for answers. He was too full of chemistry
for that. He examined the frame, the glass, the cardboard placed
behind, and wiped and turned it upside down; but, he could not discover
wherefrom and why fore the ash emanated! He came to Baba at Prasanthi
Nilayam. Baba called him in and after the interview, when he left, He
said: "I am giving you udi
at home, at Poona, not here. Go". That was the confirmation, the
benediction, the revelation!
A Circle Inspector
of Police (Retd.) quite accidentally came by two photograph portraits
of Baba on 27-11-65, had them framed and kept in his shrine. He and his
wife were inspired to hurry up to Prasanthi Nilayam which they reached
on the 28th; they were called in and blessed by Baba on the 29th
itself. When they left, Baba patted him on the shoulder and said, "I
shall come there". How? When? ...he could not ask. Baba demonstrated to
him His arrival and Presence by showering Vibhuthi from His portraits.
That was fulfillment enough. And, to demonstrate that He was all the
manifestations of God known and unknown, it fell in continuous showers
from the portraits of all the manifestations, Krishna, Rama, Siva, Muruga, Krishna (as installed at
Guruvayoor) and Christ. Perhaps Baba had a special reason for willing
that the picture of Jesus shower the amazing new sign of Grace. For, on
the 24th day of February, a Christian who had gone for astray, was
brought to this house of wonder. He heard the
Bhajan from the verandah, he
peeped in through the window. He saw the picture of Christ. He trembled
before a vision of Sathya Sai Baba in awe and penitence (as he related
later) and he burst into a declaration, "I will correct myself; I shall
not drink any more." He has been saved and accepted as a child Baba's
abundant love.
That picture of the
shrine at Guruvayoor too has a special importance. At Guruvayoor, there
are big brass lamps fed on oil placed in the shrine; every picture of
the shrine has two of these depicted, on either side of the idol. The
shrine has been immortalized by the great poet-saint Narayana
Bhattathiripad, who cured himself of chronic rheumatism by worshipping
the idol through his inimitable rendering of the glory of Krishna, the
Narayaneeyam. Therefore, the oil from the lamps inside the shrine is
held as a specific for rheumatism, by people from all parts of the
land; they take it reverentially and use it with enormous faith. Baba
is the Form that is in the innermost shrine of all temples; so, He
willed that oil be given from the lamps in the pictures of that shrine!
This resulted in drops of oil falling from the edges of the painted
lamps in the printed picture of the Lord of Guruvayoor, in the shrine
room of the Circle Inspector of Police! It was collected and used for
the same curative purpose; it was seen and examined by priests
associated long with that temple, they declared that the oil was
indisputably genuine, identical with that available at the original
shrine!
And, not in the homes
of individual Bhakthas only, Baba wills that His Grace be showered in
this Form in prayer halls too! A. Nataraja Pillai of Muvattupuzha in
Kerala writes, "Vibhuthi and Kumkum are to be seen on all the pictures
of the Gods placed in the Bhajana Hall. To our extreme joy, it is very
interesting to note that butter has emanated and is found in heaps, in
the palm of baby Krishna, pictured on a calendar hung on the wall. The
picture depicts Yasoda, the mother, threatening her Divine Child with a
stick, for stealing butter.
Baba characterizes the
miracle of creating vibhuthi in the palm of the hand as 'My visiting
card'; He has visiting cards of various types and sizes revealing more
and more facets of His Personality. They serve to announce the arrival
of the Avathar, the glad tidings of the advent of the saviour of
civilization, from being degraded into a death-trap for humanity. The
showers of auspicious articles from the portraits of Baba and His
manifold forms are only streamers, banners, headlines, that serve to
announce the same comforting news. No consecrated image has so far
given such patent proof that it is saturated with Divinity, such daily
dramatic evidence that One Universal Will does direct the multifarious
forces in the world!
In the Bhagavad Githa, [see Bhagavad Gîtâ, Chapter 11] after awarding Arjuna a vision of Himself
as that Universal Will that is motivating all creation, Krishna says,
"Arjuna! This is but a fraction of My Vibhuthi; My Vibhuthi is endless!
"Vibhuthi means power, might, splendour, glory, majesty". In the case
of Baba, the Vibhuthi (ash) that Baba gives, either Himself directly,
or through His portraits indirectly, or through the portraits of His
other Forms that are revered by man, is endless in its vibhuthi
(splendour).
P.V. Natarajan from
Kugalur wrote to the Editor "Vibhuthi is showered from the raised palm
of Baba in the picture; this assures me that He is ever with me and
that I need never be afraid". In the village of Samphgaon, Dharwar Dt.,
vibhuthi is falling from Baba's photograph in the houses of many
devotees. Sri. S.B. Kadakola wrote, "Seeing all this excitement,
Dandayyaswami Rachayyaswami Salamath spoke challengingly 'All this must
be false and faked. How can bhasma or vibhuthi fall like this of its
own accord? I too have a photo of Baba in my shrine room. Why does this
vibhuthi not fall from that?' And, the same day, vibhuthi was found all
over that photo, sticking to it and showering from it! This continued
for 3 days. A friend of Salamath came to his house during that period
and said, "How can vibhuthi be produced on this glass? The whole
village is being misled by some type of mischief". He wiped the glass
clean with a wet towel, and squatted before it, declaring, "Now, let me
see what you call the Mahima (glory) of this Baba of yours. Let the
shower of Vibhuthi fall". Within 15 minutes, the shower reappeared; the
quantity sticking to the glass was the double the previous quantity!
The critic fell prostrate before the picture.
A mechanic in a sugar
factory found that the vibhuthi that showered from about four or five
pictures of Baba in his house was extraordinarily sweet, because he
found the ants swarmed to eat it! He hastened to Baba to pray that the
sweetness might be taken away; but, Baba assured him that the ants will
be kept away... and, from the next day, the ants stayed away! There are
some houses where the pictures shower vibhuthi on Thursday only, some
where more is showered on Festival days when there are more to share
it; some where the vibhuthi that is granted from each picture is
different in taste and texture from that granted from the rest. If it
is rather dark grey and grainy, they call it Shirdi Vibhuthi; if it is
soft and fragrant, they call it Parthi Vibhuthi and so on. So too, the
Kumkum can be of varied hues, the Amrith of different consistencies,
taste and fragance. A Saurashtra devotee wrote that the liquid that the
portrait (or rather Baba in the portrait) granted on the last day of
Sravan, when they finished their month-long vow of abstinence from
salt, was (strange, indeed, are His ways) salt water(!) with which they
could resume their pre-vow life.
Thus shines this saga
of the Sovereignty of Baba over Time and Space, over Matter and
Spirit.
At Akola, from the
photograph of Sri Bhagavan Sathya Sai Baba, in our house, Vibhuthi,
Kumkum and Haldi powder (turmeric powder, considered as auspicious)
have been showering since two months", writes an advocate. At Rajkot,
on Vaikunta Ekadasi Day, vibhuthi appeared. At Jamnagar, on
Mahasivarathri, "to our great surprise, we saw 'Om' and 'Sri' written
on the glasses of four big portraits hung in the hall. It was written
in some oily liquid, which we could smell as Amrith". A doctor from
Palghat writes, "I prescribed the vibhuthi of Baba more than drugs;
Baba is giving me a regular supply from the pictures in my house". Dr.
Bailur in Santa Cruz is also in that happy situation. Advocate Saxena
of Rampur gets vibhuthi like this; many devotees in Kharagpur,
Jamshedpur, Calcutta, Trivandrum, Madras, Trichinapally and other towns
and villages between the Himalayas and the Cape are granted these
auspicious signs of Grace in this amazingly convincing manner, by
Baba.
When I prayed to Baba
for permission to publish some of these incidents illustrating His
Majesty and Glory, He remarked that it may be misinterpreted easily as
'propaganda'! But, the miracle is so widespread, so obvious, so easily
liable to be examined and confirmed, that the misinterpretation will be
quickly acknowledged by the critics as due to ignorance. At Salem, the
vibhuthi is falling from the pictures in the house of the Professor of
Physics of the local College! When he shows the pictures to visitors,
he cannot be accused of propaganda. I myself have sat on the floor of
the house of Vimalananda in Shimoga, watching the piling up of
Vibhuthi, grain by grain, second by second, dropping from the
picture-frame's edge. I have seen at Mangalore, vibhuthi grains
dropping from the left foot of Shirdi Baba's idol (the foot that is
kept on the left knee) and forming a pile underneath! I have been most
pleasantly surprised when hundreds of Amrith drops appeared suddenly
over the big portrait of Baba at Devi Vilas, College Road, Palghat,
just when I finished Arathi, after a talk on Baba's Glory, on the holy day of Sravan
celebrated throughout Kerala, as 'Onam.'
The second objection
that Baba raised when such incidents were to be published was, that it
will make the person so blessed very 'conceited', and lead to his
spiritual ruin. This is the reason why Baba is against undue publicity
being given to any Grace that one receives from Him; it is a gift that
one should hold dear in the recesses of ones heart, that one should
ruminate over, in the silence of one's own deepest meditation. It is a
secret sign of Love from one's dearest Beloved. Some have been led
astray, however, for the ego raises its poisonous hood; they start
advertising their spiritual superiority, they challenge others in the
village to win such Grace from Baba; they compare and cavil, they
compete and condemn! They inaugurate a chain of evil, which robs them
of their blessedness! Anxious to establish that they too are devotees
of equal intensity, weak men fake and all are tarred by the same brush,
when the trick is laid bare, for, Truth must triumph and quickly.
Let us leave such
tricksters to the retribution in store for them and pay attention to
the genuine votaries on whom Baba has conferred these and other signs
of His incredible Mahima. The Nadaswaram Vidwan who used to come every
Dasara and Sivarathri to play music at the Nilayam had an uncle of his
as an accompanist, on the drum. His name is Ganesh. He writes, "When I
took leave of Baba after the Birthday Festival (1965), He graciously
assured me, 'You will have no trouble any more; I am by your side,
always'. I went with my nephew to Thiruvannamalai Temple and after
playing the music there for the Ten-day Festival, returned home to find
showers of vibhuthi falling profusely from the pictures of Baba and
Shri Krishna, kept for worship in my house. I am overcome with joy. I
pray to Baba that the showers may increase, so that I can give it to
all who come."
As a matter of fact,
Baba has given an 'inexhaustible receptacle' of vibhuthi to devotees
who will not misuse the gift for their own aggrandizement. You have
only to shake it with the name of Baba on your tongue and it fills
itself! There was also a man who prayed to Baba that the vibhuthi
showers may stop! He did not have the patience that a poor goldsmith in
Bombay (Santa Cruz) has; for, the said smith whose work spot is under a
staircase on the ground floor has vibhuthi falling from a picture of
Baba; he interrupts his work, to receive the stream of visitors who
come to see this most 'unscientific phenomenon', of ash turning out
paper! This other person lives in a single room, with his wife and
three children, in a chawl [tenement] in Bombay. He writes, "Baba has
granted me the Grace of vibhuthi showers from His portraits in my house
or rather, room. As a result, hundreds from all the chawls around
stream into my room, from dawn to dusk and even far into the night. It
has become difficult for me to live in this place. Please ask Baba to
stop this vibhuthi"! This is a most pathetic letter, which no devotee
will ever make, unless his distress is unbearable. One can see that the
vibhuthi is as genuine as his grief at the publicity that it got.
Sri Vaidya of Navsari
came to me at Prasanthi Nilayam and gave me a report of the activities
of the Bhajan Society which he has built up. I found there an item,
"Visits to places of Sai Leela", which
drew my attention. He explained to me that in the village of Chinam,
there was a devotee in whose house vibhuthi and kumkum were showering
from Baba's pictures. "At Supa, when the Bhajans started, vibhuthi
showers started", he said. (This reminded me of an experience I had. In
the shrine of an old Brahmin lady, at Kalpathi there was a row of
glass-framed pictures of Baba. When Bhajan began, one of the pictures
began swinging from right to left, slow and quick, according to the
slowness of the beats. When the song ended, the picture came to a
halt!) Water that was kept before the picture of Baba as an offering to
slake His thirst turned in a moment into a fragrant flavoured drink,
which Bhakthas termed Amrith. (This happens in a number of places all
over India.) Moreover, Amrith flowed in a gush from the Divine Mouth in
the picture! (This reminds me of a certain Vaikunta Ekadasi Day, when
Baba sitting in the midst of a few hundred devotees signed for a
tumbler and poured Amrith into it - a glass full - from His Divine
Mouth!) "At Markapur, ten miles off, the party saw the same evidence of
Baba's omnipresence and overflowing Grace."
Baba grants Grace but,
never allows it to foster the ego in man. The vibhuthi stops or some
other harsh reminder is given when the ego raises its ugly head.
Hysteria - Baba calls it, when a person gets intoxicated with pride or
envy, as a result of this shower. One has to be constantly aware of
one's weakness and one has to be praying every moment for the faith
necessary to receive the Grace. Or else, one has no right to claim
kinship with the Sai Family.
Baba does not encourage
any one to demand or receive special reverence, as a sign that He has
bestowed upon a person some signal proof of His Grace. But, people find
it difficult to resist the temptation of offering and accepting the
reverence that will harm both receiver and giver. They slide down the
ego way into spiritual nihilism.
Baba told the gathering
at Kakinada, "There are some who came to you and say, "Sathya Sai Baba
likes me much; He has given me this, a thing which He seldom gives
except to those who are nearest to Him". And, then, they beg for help
or crave special attention, which is an insult to the Divine Principle
itself!" "To receive a mark of Grace from Me is a great responsibility;
it is a reminder that you should be humble, sweet in speech, truthful,
detached and ever aware of the Sai in all." But, there are some who
celebrate the anniversary of the first appearance of vibhuthi in a
grand manner, collecting donations for the same; yet others who
dispatch vibhuthi or amrith by post to correspondents and collect
donations - little knowing the injury they are causing to their own
progress!
There is another
series of happenings too, of which mention can be made here. Little
children or some times, even feeble-minded adults growing up in the
atmosphere of the unreasoning external worship are prone to suffer from
visions, to imagine that they hear voices, and to believe that they are
able to read messages that He writes or otherwise communicate with
Baba! When such cases are known to exist in one house, the neighbor's
child is most likely to be affected too. Thus, a regular mass hysteria
developed recently in Madras City, in East Godavari District and in
South Kanara District, as well as in Ceylon. Baba condemned this in
strong terms. At Amalapuram, on the 29th March, 1965, He said, "This
has become quite an infection. I am not laughing at any one or blaming
any one. But, the truth must be made known. There are quite a few
around Amalapuram who declare that I am coming upon them, possessing
them, and speaking through them. They wave their hands and sway and
shake and shiver, and people sitting around them assert that they are
under My influence! They answer questions and, their agents and brokers
claim that they are granting 'interviews', as I do! This deceitful
disease is spreading among simple people through schemers and cheats.
Whenever you see of hear about people suffering from this disease, nip
it in the bud; scotch the agents first; then, teach the child or the
feeble-minded adult to shut up and be normal. I never speak through
another. I never use another or possess another physical vehicle to
express Myself. I am not a ghost or spirit to do so, to need some
medium. I come direct, I speak direct, I come as I am or as I will to
come in fresh created Forms. I do not use weak vacillating human
vehicles; I confer boons straight and without any intermediary". At
Yelamanchili, He said, "Persons who claim to be possessed by Me have
appeared recently; order them out, wherever you meet them. Do not yield
to such morons and fakes, and lower your own dignity as devotees".
Devotees of Baba are advised by Him to be ever vigilant against the
subtle pulls of the sinister and the secret; when the
Avathar has come and is so
accessible and free with Grace, it is sheer stupidity to say the least
to lionize the diseased and the deliberate crooks.
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