Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Old is Gold

Wanted to share with you my conversations with a relative who is 83 years old and who is a "Bhagavathar" - carnatic music singer of olden days (old is gold)

I had a small book of Swami, Sri Sathya Sai Baba, titled "Become Me" and showed it to him when I first met him. I abruptly asked him if he knew about "Him". Then pat came a somewhat frustrated reply which meant something like "how can anyone not know Swami?". He went on to share some experiences Baba's devotees had. How a lady from Durban, who visits Puttaparthi in frequent intervals, was saved from some wicked men, and thus was blessed with Baba's Grace and how a child's mother was saved from the fire accident when he was in Baba's presence, and so on. Baba asked a 10th standard student to explain this sentence "I saw a saw to saw a tree, such a saw I never saw" it seems... this relative wondered to what detail Baba's knowledge seems to be.

I started another thread about Saint Thyagaraja ... and he even talked about how Thyagaraja reached Godhead and cast his body away.

Two nice incidents about Lord Rama were told by him. One is that Sri Guha was the only person who was granted the vision of the "Manthahasam" or bewitching smile of Sri Rama. He said that it seems when the Lord was about to climb on to Guha's boat by ascending on a piece of stone, Guha request Rama to take care lest the stone become another lady by contact with the Holy Feet, to which the Lord laughed. Even rishis crave for this sight, so it seems. I am not able to recount very well thanks to my limitations in using English. But it filled me with some inexplicable happiness to hear this.

Also, another incident is when Lord Rama sees Tataka as a mother and is unable to use the "astram". Vishwamitra goads Sri Rama to kill Tataka and when he sees the locks of hair falling on Lord Rama's forehead and His expression after that, he is simply transported to ecstasy (Samadhi).

The elderly relative recounted to me many incidents where "dead" people came back to life after being taken to other planets or should I say planes. It seems when a man died and went "up" he saw a bearded man, beard almost touching the floor who said "Visargaha" in Sanskrit and the dead man only remembs coming back into his body, this after 12 days of unmitigated fever and subsequent "death".

One other incident about Fate is worthy of recounting to you. The sage Vasishta's disciple was sad one day and when the sage enquired the reason for his despondence, the disciple admitted that he was destined to die at 10:30 am (time is concocted by me). Vasishta becomes "upset" and immediately goes to the abode of the Lord Yama and enquires the reason for his disciple's Fate. Yama declares that it is God's wish and requests Vasishta to check the annals ("ettu chuvadi" in Tamil). Yama also declares that whatever time mentioned in that record cannot be overridden by Yama Himself. Vasishta searches for tha annals and gets his disciple's record and finds written therein "When Vasishta reads this, his disciple will die". It is 10:30 am by the earthly standards that moment

What a fortune! This elderly person told me he sang before Sri Ramana Maharishi! I have invited him to our house to share his wonder-full experiences with us in the family. What a fortune!