Samparka

Most of us may have come across several instances of Swāmījī’s compassion, protectiveness and grace in our day-to-day life. Many such instances may have occurred without our knowledge. Swāmījī’s motherly concern about the wellbeing of His devotees can be interpreted in these instances. Even a thought about Swāmījī was/is enough to solve our problems. All these can be termed as miracles. I have experienced several such miracles in my life.

I can recall one instance when I experienced His protectiveness. Swāmījī was camping at Jñānānand Āshram at Kārlā in the late eighties. I had decided to visit His āshram every weekend. I used to reach there on Saturday evening, stay overnight and leave on Sunday evening. Once, after an overnight stay, I decided to leave for Bombāy after breakfast. I was worried about getting stranded at Lonāvalā as very heavy rains were forecast for that Sunday afternoon.

Around 11.00 am on that day, I went up to Swāmījī to take His leave. He was surprised to see me leave early and asked me the reason, though I was sure that Swāmījī had read my mind.  I told Him that I was worried about the rains and that it would be difficult to get buses from Lonāvalā. Swāmījī calmly told me that I should not get unduly worried and to have prasāda bhojana before leaving. However, I told Swāmījī that I had to reach Andherī by 4 pm. He then told Rājesh (Swāmījī’s driver) to drop me at the Lonāvalā bus stand.

Normally at Lonāvalā a lot of State Transport buses pass through at regular intervals as it is on the old Bombāy-Pūnā Highway. That particular Sunday, not a single bus going towards Bombāy arrived. I waited from 11.30 am onwards for nearly an hour. I panicked and went to the railway station. There too, not a single train was scheduled to arrive. Back at the bus stand, no one knew why buses from Pūnā were not arriving. One surprising thing being that there were no rains, not even overcast conditions. I was feeling hungry and tired. 

Then it struck me why Swāmījī didn’t want me to leave in the morning. I hurriedly went to the entrance of the bus depot and prayed to Swāmījī for forgiveness. To my wonderment, at about 1.30 pm, a half-empty bus from Hyderābād entered the bus stand. I eagerly got in with a parcel of vaḍā pāv-s and occupied a window seat. Then I came to know from the conductor that there was an accident on the highway near Kāmshet in the morning around 11am, and traffic was held up since then. Swāmījī being ‘Antaryāmī’ knew about the accident and had asked me to stay for the prasāda bhojana. Not only I had missed the prasāda bhojana but also ended up wasting a lot of time as well!