In my moments of solitude I inadvertently slip into past and realise how fortunate I have been to have come into the Divine fold of our Bhagawan and to have been sustained by His Divine Grace and Love. 

I joined Swami’s school as an eleventh standard student in 1983. After passing out of school I joined the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning, Prasanthi Nilayam and continued to study till 1992 when I completed my post-graduation in Bio-sciences. In the period spanning almost a decade I realized that we students, without going through any rigorous spiritual practices or reading various gospels had God in our midst. This realization came to us through direct experience. The starting point was the strong conviction that “Swami knows everything” and “Swami can do anything”. 

My first awareness that Swami knows everything dawned upon me during my student days. Then on, there was no looking back and life became so easy despite facing various challenging and testing moments. When I was an undergraduate student, it was a golden era of getting to have Swami’s Padanamaskaram, the divine opportunity to touch His feet. Swami used to shower this Divine opportunity on me pretty often while being seated in the Mandir Portico during regular Darshan and Bhajan sessions. Once it so happened that I did not get to touch His feet for almost a week. One Sunday morning while seated on the Mandir portico I was brooding on this subject. I looked around and found that I was sitting in the centre of the students’ group far away from the coveted passage, which Swami was often expected to walk to and fro towards the men’s side. “Bad luck again today”, I thought. Just then Swami came out of the interview room and started to walk through the middle passage of the portico with intermittent pauses on the way down the aisle, collecting a letter or two, giving His autograph on a photograph, asking one boy about our hostel menu for that morning breakfast. As He reached the point in the line perpendicular to the spot where I was sitting, He turned, looked at me directly and gave me a wonderful smile and all of a sudden cut across the few students seated in the middle and came and stood in front of me with His Lotus Feet fully visible for me to take the opportunity I was longing for almost for a week. It is needless to say that I was fully convinced that day onwards that He will listen to every thought that passes through our mind…. leave alone the words and actions that may follow.

In fact I knew that “Swami can do anything,” much before I realized that “Swami knows Everything” and for this we need to go back to 1983 when Swami gave me a chance to study in His school. 

With an academic background in Tamil-medium until 10th std, there was no scope for me to step into the portals of His educational institutions because of the wide gap between my eligibility and my aspiration to join His English Medium (CBSE) institution at Prasanthi Nilayam. After submitting my application I remember being told that I was not eligible. Days went and every day, I would sit for Darshan on the sands with a letter in my hand written in Tamil praying Swami that I may be allowed to study in His school in Prasanthi Nilayam. Sometimes He took the letter and when He did, the same letter I would produce again the next day. I was desperate. Days went by. Finally it was the day when I was supposed to go back to my home town. Having heard nothing from Swami, I packed my bag with a heavy heart, came out of my room and was locking the door, when a senior Ashram functionary came huffing and puffing up the staircase of our Ashram accommodation. Without catching his breath he asked, “Are you Vaidyalingam.” “Yes”, I replied. “You are not going anywhere, put the bag back in the room, lock the door and come with me. I looked at him quizzically. Understanding my confusion, he answered. “Swami has instructed the Ashram authorities that before 10.00 am today you should be in the His school as a student. Now hurry up, we are running late” he said. 

This is SWAMI’S GRACE in capitals. 

I eventually went on to complete my Post-graduation from SSSIHL, Prasanthi Nilayam. Not only that, like the proverbial icing on the cake, Swami, in all His Divine Love, decided to include me into a group of six students hand-picked by Him to get trained at AIIMS, New Delhi so that I can serve Him in His Super Specialty Hospital at Prasanthigram. Now it is almost two and half decades since that day of my inclusion into the privileged group of a fortunate few.

All through this wonderful phase of being His student and then getting blessed to be His employee at His hospital to serve the patients, one thing is so evident that he works through the individual once there is a sincere and even a smallest intention to be His channel towards achieving something good and noble. It is to be like a flute through which His breath flows to manifest a magical music. And the fact remains that the sincerity of intention is also His Grace.

Every day when I enter the main gate of the hospital to begin my day, my eyes first fall not on the magnificent edifice of the hospital, but on the polished black stone slab bearing one of my favorite Swami saying “Educated man must realize that he has more obligations than privileges and more duties than rights”. And the duty here is not confined to just what the job description says, rather it is that innate duty that every human has for other fellow human beings.  

One day, in the middle of a busy day at the Cardiology OPD, a two and half year old child along with her mother and the grand mother walked into my room. Looking at them enquiringly, I tried to figure out who among the three was the patient. I stretched out my hand to ask for the relevant medical reports to look into admission formalities. The grand mother of that child started the conversing with me Telugu language. “Do you remember us sir? we are so indebted to you... only because of your encouraging words, my daughter agreed to go for proposed procedure while carrying this child in her womb during her last visit, almost 3 yrs ago,” she said. 

That was enough for me recollect what had happened during that visit. I smiled at them and pointed to Swami’s photo, behind me. It was He who had done it and of course not me. 

The mother of the young child had been a patient diagnosed as having severe mitral valve shrinkage and had been advised to undergo Balloon Mitral Valvuloplasty procedure, which dilates the mitral valve. Not undergoing the procedure would have created complications during the child birth due few months later. The patient was, however, not keen to undergo the procedure. After repeated attempts to convince her by me and few other staff of the Cardiology department failed, we had no choice but to write in the report that “Patient wishes to come later”. After the patient left, I just closed my eyes and told Swami, “Swami only you can help this patient to understand the advantages of BMV. Please do something”. 

The next day morning, the patient returned with her mother and told me that she was perfectly ready for the BMV procedure. With Swami it is that simple. 

She underwent the procedure had an uneventful recovery and few months later gave birth to a healthy baby. And here they were thanking me for everything. They simply had no clue that it was Swami’s invisible hand, which had brought them back the next day for the procedure.

This is how Swami works.   

 Jai Sai Ram