May 13, 2001 Sunday - Baba teaches her that the messages she gets in meditation are spiritually oriented although they may manifest in worldly context. As a part of the Hinduism class for children a very nice Havan got conducted with English explanations and not only the children but their parents partook in the Havan and a light meal
afterwards. Marvelous experiences occurred in the place where we did the Havan after every one left and we were told it is due to the invocation that occurred with so many of people praying.
Yesterday she heard the word Kootasth during the day. We looked up the meaning in Sanskrit dictionary and it meant Sthir (rooted). She had a calm and peaceful meditation today. As she was at the throat chakra she saw the usual light but then she experienced that the light was about to get bright and big. Before it got bigger it disappeared. She saw faintly written pages in red color with a fine tip pen. She saw a lot of those pages. A little later she heard the word Anjan. We looked for the meaning of Anjan in the dictionary.
There were multiple meanings to it like – anointing, blemish, stain, and stimulant. There was a Hindi meaning of Uddipan Karma also. We looked up the meaning for that
(Uddipan – invigorating medicine). We were discussing which one Baba meant. At that time Baba said “Messages you get in meditation are spirituality related. It might manifest in worldly situations, matters, and instruments but I am conveying it as it relates to spirituality.”
Later in the morning she came across a story in a book, which she read the day before also but in a different book. The story in the book was about Sage Bharadwaj where he prayed to Lord Indra for longer lease of life so that he can visualize the Vedas which were uttered in God‟s voice (Sruti). After three lives Lord Indra appeared to him and pointed him to a huge mountain peak and told him that what he understood is three handfuls of sand while Vedas were the mountain peaks.
She somehow related this story to seeing yesterday‟s Telugu written page and many pages written faintly in red today.
Upon Baba‟s guidance to do selfless service in the form of teaching the spiritual truths to the children, Shivangini has started two different classes since January of 2001, Hinduism and Human Values. For Hinduism class yesterday‟s topic was Havan. God‟s handiwork must be at play that a team of people who are proficient in conducting Havan, „Gayatri Pariwar‟ from Haridwar India, became interestingly available to conduct the Havan at the last minute. Today‟s class turned out to be more than just a regular class. Baba‟s
promptings and our efforts turned this class into a full fledged Havan ceremony followed with a meal for all the attendees. Havan turned out extremely well with proper invocation of gods; children enthusiastically performed the oblations into the fire while the Gayatri Pariwar volunteers uttered the Vedic mantras with English explanations. Shivangini and I had very positive feelings of the entire ceremony. After the children and their parents left, we had the chance to chat with the Gayatri Pariwar members.
Their interest in finding out how we got into spirituality and self less service, led us into briefly sharing our experiences about Sri Sathya Sai Baba. They were interested in more details so we ended up giving a copy of our “Inner Experiences” book to them.
After everyone left Shivangini and I went for a walk. Half way through our walk Baba asked us to turn back and said “You invoked the gods and there are divine vibrations.
Now go sit there and get the benefit.” We came right back and went to the basement where the Havan was conducted and sat there facing the deities pictures. After a little while, for the first time, she and I together observed the movement of Lord Shiva‟s eyes in the picture. While we were still looking, we observed a slight smile on his face. Then suddenly there was a very bright light (golden white effulgence) that shined out of the picture which only she could see. Then she observed reddish color light in the picture which was changing in intensity. Then she rolled her eyes down to Sri Sathya Sai Baba‟s picture and noticed a bluish aura surrounding the picture frame. This whole experience was so powerful that she held my arm tightly and exclaimed “Oh my god! Oh my god!”
She thought what is happening here? In response to her thought Lord Shiva‟s picture said
“No one else sits in front of me like you do.” From that she understood Lord Shiva was commenting on her attitude towards Him. Then in a short while we calmed down and felt peaceful, we just sat there with our eyes closed in a meditative mood.
As it was getting close to our bed time, we thought of getting up to go to our bedroom.
Then Baba said “Don‟t leave yet. I want to spend more time with you”. She was pleasantly flattered and laughingly said “You want to spend time with me!” At this he said “It is a special night. The benefit you can receive by being here tonight you cannot get that by years of Tapas (spiritual effort)”. So we decided and stayed there a little longer singing Bhajan, Guru Sthuthi, Linga ashtakam etc. As it was getting late we
thought of going to our bedroom. Again Baba said “This is a special night. You will be better off staying here all night, what you will get here tonight you will not be able to get by years of Tapas. I will fill you with divine powers.”
After finding out what Baba was saying to her, I insisted that we get our sleeping bags downstairs and spend the night in the basement. We brought our sleeping bags down and slept on the spot where Havan was performed. This indeed turned out to be a special night. Whole night she did not feel that she slept but experienced illumined visions as if she was seeing those in a dream.
First experience occurred right after switching the lights off to go to sleep; both of us observed strange flickering of the candle light which was left lit in front of the deities at the time of Havan during the afternoon. I commented perhaps the flame is about to extinguish and hence the flicker. But it did not extinguish and changed to normal steady light. After that we fell asleep. In the middle of the night I woke up due to Shivangini loudly “Wow, look at this!” Candle light was burning bright and basement was lit up with it.
She had a vision like dream where she saw herself in a car in the driver‟s seat with someone sitting next to her. She thought it was I, Gyani, next to her although she did not see my form. She was in a reclined position in her seat and the car was moving. In spite of the reclined position, she could see the road, which was unusually illumined, and there were trees on either side of it. She saw the road turning ahead and she tried to steer. Then she realized that her hands could not reach to the steering and she also could not reach the brakes. Yet she saw the car nicely turning with the road. This scene left her with a
pleasant secure feeling. This appears to be very symbolic of her present state in the spiritual journey and a beautiful reminder of the fact that it is the divine who is the real driver.
There were quite a few other visions:
Baba in white clothes was standing in a half open doorway and she saw him looking at him. She could only see right half of his body due to the half closed door blocking the left side of him.
She saw a white light hovering over the fruits in a basket. This was the same basket of fruit that we had offered to God during Havan ceremony.
She saw Baba standing and pouring some white sugar like material into clay Diya (lamp) which was on the floor next to His right foot. We understood that this could be symbolic of Baba‟s pouring something into the candle that made it burn for unusually long time. This candle is of type that burns for a few hours normally but on this day it kept burning for almost 24 hours which in itself is a miracle.
Homam for Bal Vikas in 2001
Baba comes to Bhajan as Light