The God of small things
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This is a question that people are often asked when it is discovered that they have placed their faith in a contemporary ‘God’, a being who seems as human as any of them. The answers the issue forth range from a grateful silence to a verbose chatter where the devotee seems to credit everything in life to his/her ‘Swami’ (as Sri Sathya Sai Baba is called lovingly). For a ‘rational’ mind and heart that has not yet been touched by the divine alchemy, any answer seems incomplete. While the stories of cancers being healed miraculously raise interest and curiosity, the narratives of Swami’s hand in the day-to-day affairs of His devotees seem to just be brushed off as figments of the devout’s imagination.
But those little instances; those small things are what make Him the personal deity for millions. If I am allowed to modify the statement of Henry Royce, an English engineer who is believed to have said,
“Small things make perfection but perfection is no small thing”, I would say,
“Small things make Divinity but Divinity is no small thing.”
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| Henry Royce and his 'perfection' - the 1929 Rolls Royce Phantom |
Strength to brave a tsunami
The 26th of December, 2004 saw a major disaster strike several nations lying on the Indian ocean. The tsunami that hit the Sumatra-Andaman region was of such historic proportions that, as far as I remember, it was for the first time in my life that I heard the word ‘tsunami’! Though the ocean waves from the earthquake did not directly affect Mrs.Ratnam’s family house in Sri Lanka, the havoc wreaked all around was sufficient to cause a massive heart attack to her father.
It was at her home in Canada that she received the news of her father’s passing away. She was halfway across the globe and it was near impossible for her to be at her home in Sri Lanka for the funeral ceremony. But suddenly, she had a wishful thought.
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| Mrs.Poongody Ratnam at Prasanthi Nilayam July 2013 |
She regularly sent greeting cards to her father, and that too ones which she procured specially from Prasanthi NIlayam, bearing Swami’s picture and message on it. Since these cards had Swami on them, her father had preserved each and every one she had sent. She had sent a card on the 23rd of December, just 3 days before. Since it usually took the mailman at least 15-20 days for delivery, there was no way that the card had reached its destination.
“If only the card reaches my father, it could be given to him. That would be like an assurance that Swami is ‘traveling’ with him. That would also give me solace because, as a daughter, am not physically there for the ceremony.”
That was her wishful thought.
Since she had not used a courier service, there was no way to track the card or hurry it to its recipient. Mrs. Ratnam did the only thing she knew for such times - she prayed to her Swami,
“Swami, please reach in time for my father’s ‘journey’. And let me know that you have reached via this card!”
We not only pray to God to grant our desires, but also pray for the desires to be granted in a way want!
What happened was simply unbelievable according to her.
“Just as the ceremonies were completed and the coffin was being moved out of the home for the funeral, the mailman arrived at the door in Sri Lanka! He had just one post for that address that day - it was my card... Swami’s card rather! The card was placed beside my father before the final cremation rites.”
That ‘small’ act by Swami, gave her the strength to bear the force of the emotional tsunami that hit her when she lost her father. She knew, he was ‘safe, happy and peaceful with Swami’.
The mother’s journey
The 27th of April, 2013 saw Mrs.Ratnam facing another emotional storm in Canada as her beloved mother in Sri Lanka breathed her last. Once again, she was not in a position to make it for the final ceremonies. In fact, she told me that she was on her way to her ancestral home in Sri Lanka having had the darshan of her Lord at Puttaparthi.
“Whenever I travel, it is only to India, to Puttaparthi and to my parent’s place. I am at home at these places and that is why I always wish to be here. Few months before, when my mother passed away, I could not travel to Sri Lanka. I felt very bad about it.”
Once again, she just prayed to her God.
“Swami, you showed me that you are with my father. In some way, you have to show me that you are with my mother too. You must.”
This time, she gave freedom to Swami regarding the way to show the same!
Nothing happened for a week after the funeral but she held on. Her prayers did not cease, nor did her determination. On the morning of the 5th of May, she had a dream.
In the dream, she walked into her ancestral home and saw her mother lying down on a platform. She was ‘dying’. Then, before her eyes, her mother’s body vanished and it was Swami lying down there. He spoke to her and though she was seeing Swami, she was hearing her mother. Swami said,
“I have completed all my duties. I am happy and satisfied. I feel free and am ready to go.”
“Yes Swami”, she said because she was seeing Swami in her mother’s place.
Then, her mother told a strange thing. She pointed out to a bell in a temple and said,
“That is broken. Replace it.”
The dream concluded with that.
When Mrs.Ratnam woke up, she contacted her sister in Sri Lanka. She knew that her mother always worshipped the ‘Mother’ aspect of God in the nearby temple of a local goddess. She wanted her sister to go to the temple and see the bell in there. Though intrigued by this request, the sister did as she was asked nevertheless. She visited the temple and then called up her sister in Canada.
Mrs. Poon Ratnam just had tears in her eyes as she heard her sister say,
“I visited the temple. There is indeed a bell where you said it would be. It is broken.”
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| A broken bell at the temple indeed did ring bells for Mrs. Ratnam |
She managed to say,
“Please tell the concerned people there that I would be grateful for the opportunity to replace the bell.”
She had purchased a special brass bell from India and when she met me, she told that she would be taking it to that temple in Sri Lanka.
Thanking the God of small things for the small things
Well, replacing a bell in a small temple tucked away in a corner of Sri Lanka may not mean anything at all to the world. It definitely means a world to Mrs.Poon Ratnam. She did not stop with these incidents. She went on to narrate a few more. I too can go on writing about them.
However, that is not the intention of the post. The intention was to provoke in each and every one of us, memories of the many times when God showed that He was always there, taking care of us and loving us. Did we express our gratitude to Him/Her on all those occasions? If we start expressing our gratitude to God for every small thing that we are blessed with, will we ever have time in this life to complain? These ‘small things’ stand in good stead in our lives when we are faced with tough times. It will do us good to remember these ‘small things’ during the hard times.
After all, life is always made up of ups and downs. If it was a flat line, any doctor would call that as ‘death’ and not ‘life’!
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