First Darshan In The Ashram---India Trip

During our first darshan in the ashram, I was sitting and talking with my friend, Ki as we waited for Sathya Sai Baba to appear. A young-looking 40-year-old Indian lady was sitting close enough to overhear our conversation. I was catching Ki up on some of my activities of my life over the last few years since we last saw each other.

I was telling Ki that I got kicked out of the church that I have been a member of for almost 10 years. I was one of the infamous 12 that the minister kicked out of the church because we chose to disagree with her.

I went on to share with Ki that I realized that my anger with this person was way out of character for the situation that I found myself in even before she kicked me out of the church so I looked deeper inside of myself to see where my anger (I really should call it rage.) was coming from. Over a period of a year, I got information from a past life that I had shared with this lady and her husband of this life time. The first information that I got was of him as a river boat captain. In a meditation that he was leading at the church on a Sunday morning, I suddenly saw such a clear image of him in my mind. He had a handlebar mustache from the 1800's. He was in a uniform. A friend gave me the information that he was a river boat captain and that he was my husband in that life time. My inner voice confirmed the information. Over the next year, I received bits and pieces of information about this past life. The final piece came from a vision that I had of me being thrown overboard his ship. I drowned. With this last bit of information, I was able to say that I forgave all three of us for the parts that we played in that past life. I was no longer angry at either of them or at myself for the parts that we each played. My rage was gone almost from one thought to the next. It simply wasn't there. I know that I had probably fed some of her anger at me by my reactions to her.



The young Indian lady was avidly listening to my story as I shared it with Ki. When I finished my story, the Indian lady said that she had read the book Many Masters, Many Lives. I told her that I had also read it and it was written by Brian Weiss. She agreed. The book was written about his study of reincarnation.

The young Indian lady told us that she was at the ashram to enroll her 14-year-old son into Swami's School. She told us that when the Indian government would do nothing to help the area people get clean water, that Swami stepped in and got it done. I have read from other sources that Swami has helped to bring clean water, electricity, free education and free hospitals to parts of India when the government seemed helpless to do much.

The Indian lady told us that in July for two weeks she was very, very sick and in the hospital. She decided that she was going to die. She told us that there was a picture of Sathya Sai Baba high up on the wall at the foot of her hospital bed. She started talking to Swami's picture. He talked back to her and told her that it was not her time to die yet. The picture started making vibhuti (sacred ash which is a signature thing that articles tied to Sai Baba sometimes do, especially pictures). She said that almost overnight, she got well. The doctors did not understand how someone who was as sick as she was made such a quick recovery. She never questioned why. She knew.



The second wonderful story that this kind lady shared with us had to do with the birth of her son. She told us that her son has two birthdays. When she was pregnant with her son, her due date was on November 23 which is also Swami's birthday. Her husband told her that he would not be around on November 23 to take her to the hospital or to bring her home after the delivery on November 23 so she would need to have the baby either before or after that date. She was so upset and stressed by this news. She wanted her son to be born on Swami's birthday and she wanted her husband around for the birth and to take her home afterwards. She became very depressed over the situation. Her mother and aunt told her to write to Swami about the situation and her feelings about it. She did.

She told Swami, in the letter, that she wanted her son to be born on Swami's birthday but that her husband could not be there at that time. She asked if her son could be born on November 7 instead to suit her husband's schedule.

Well, on November 7, her son was born. On November 23, her son got very, very sick. The doctors thought that he would die and told her and her mother that there was nothing else that they could do. Her mother told her to pray to Swami and told the doctors to keep working on the little boy. I am not sure whether the baby actually died or not. In the crowd that we were sitting in, it was sometimes difficult to hear everything being said. What I did hear her say was that her son was born a second time on November 23. According to her, things happened exactly as she had asked Swami in her original letter written before the birth of her son. She told us that her son was born on November 7 and again a second time on November 23.



I thought this was such a wonderful story to be told on one of my first days at the ashram. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Some might even say these were miracles. These are just two examples of the kind of "miracles" that Sai Baba devotees from around the world report from their close association with Swami's love. If you are interested in more stories of this type, check out the list of books written about Sai Baba from my article found at http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com/2007/09/books-about-sathya-sai-baba-holy-man.html
Each book that I have read about Sai Baba is usually full of stories like the above.