Man proposes, God disposes. The Hand of God in the lives of men is not something unknown to us. And our elders have repeatedly emphasised to us that often it was His involvement that brought good to us.
But we do not very easily digest this morsel of wisdom. For, we are an impatient lot. We don’t understand the moves of God. His action of losing a pawn to capture the king has us wailing and complaining at the loss of the pawn, for we don’t see the chessboard on which He plays His game in its entirety. We miss the big picture. The trust that whatever happens to us is for our good is something we find very hard to cling to.
Often man at various stages of his life is confronted with uncertainties. What to do now? What if...? What will be my next step? Why am I doing this? A person who has steadfast faith in God will never face any uncertainty in his life for he has strong faith in his own destiny, confidence in his own efforts and belief in the Almighty. It is often quoted, “No snowflake ever falls on a wrong place.” The beauty of the quote, the insight of the composer and the inspiring quality that can come packed in a few words are all reflected in this quote. The very down-to-earth significance of the ethereal, flowery statement hit me and hit me hard.
During the last days of my stay in Brindavan, i.e. after the final examinations of the final year I had decided to stay back for a few days in the vague hope that once the holidays start, the number of boys will decrease and the probability of having an opportunity to speak to Swami will increase. And may be, He might by a nod or a simple gesture at least acknowledge that even I exist in this world of His. But unfortunately it looked as if this bright idea of mine also occurred to every third boy of the Hostel. So by the end of the week I had thrown in the towel and booked my ticket (with great difficulty, since getting reservation at that time of the season was very tough) and had packed my luggage ready to depart. I was supposed to go two days later, in the evening at 7:00 pm. I had selected that day or there was a chance for a Kavi Sammelan and I had hoped to perform in it. Little did I know that God had, in his inimitable style, already sent a ball rolling towards the nine pins of my carefully laid out plans.
The day of my departure came. There had been no Kavi Sammelan. In fact there was not even a single Trayee session. All the boys were downcast. At around 7:30 am I got a call from my mother. She wanted to know by which train I was coming so that they could receive me at the station. When I checked the ticket, I was shocked to note that my train was supposed to depart, not at 7:00 in the evening but 7:00 in the morning! (I had messed up in reading the time, which was in the 24 hour format) It so happened that a relative of my father who often uses that train had casually enquired about it with my mother and had asked her to check up if it was indeed the same train or another one. I realised that I would be stranded here for at least two more weeks since there was no way of my getting a reservation before that. I walked back to the room thoroughly depressed. None of my plans had worked out the way I had planned. I had not got a chance of interacting with Swami, there were no Trayee sessions, the Kavi Sammelan was not held and to top it all I had just missed my train.
I sat in the lines for afternoon Darshan. Once my friends came to know of my plight, they teased me often (true there were many sympathizers but mortals that we are, we tend to concentrate more on our pains). After Bhajans I mentally prepared myself for one more round of jokes aimed at me. But then God showed His hand. And boy! He had some aces up His sleeve! First, He granted us a Trayee session (and incidentally I managed to get a very good place in Trayee. Then He gave us all His robes and finally the next day we had the Kavi Sammelan in which I recited a poem and Swami looked at me, smiled and read the poem as I recited and the best of all - three days after that I did manage to go home because one boy decided to stay back and I bought the ticket from him. All this at once was too much to handle. After the rough patch, this shower of grace was truly manna from heaven. And it did teach me the very valuable lesson of trusting in God’s plan for us.
After this event I introspected on the significance that it portrayed. I realised that even my entry into this place was nothing short of a miracle. To trace it back I have to go to the time when we shifted our house. We had some of our relatives as our neighbours. It was my uncle who told us everything about Swami. Before I had never heard about Swami. He almost demanded that I apply for my undergraduate course here. My parents felt it was not worthwhile to come all the way just for a B.Sc. But my uncle insisted that this was a special place and that we should at least apply and try out.
When I came here the atmosphere of the place astounded me. Never did I imagine that an academic institution could survive in a spiritual environment and yet have modern teaching standards. Further I came to know that boys were willing to wait one to two years and take the examination again just to get into this place. I took the examination in which I did not do particularly well and was a little surprised at finding my name in the list of candidates short-listed for the interview. The interview, I messed up spectacularly. So much so that I remember coming out of the room and telling my father, “Though I managed to scrape past in the written exam, we can now pack our bags.” Before going back we had planned to visit the Brindavan Campus too. And when we were there, news came that my name was in the list of selected candidates. This caused me no little wonder. When my father asked me whether I wanted to join here, I myself was not sure what to do. Yes, it was true that on the insistence of my uncle I did come here and gave the examination, but did I really want to do a B.Sc here? At the end I don’t know what made me answer in the affirmative to my father. But on the first day when the Vice-chancellor spoke to us, my doubts were cleared. He said, “Don’t be under the impression that you have come here on the basis of your merit, nor have you come here to obtain a degree. You have been called by Him, you have been brought here by Him and now you have been selected by Him to do His work.”
And indeed my stay here has shown, many a time, that to trust Swami is the best route available to us. Whenever there is a crossroad of thought, trust Swami to come up with the proper answer, the best choice. In the events of personal crisis and tragedy we may feel tempted to question His moves but then we should always keep in mind that we are just pieces on the board and He alone sees the chess board as it is. But building up a faith as strong as that is not possible in a day’s time. The desire to believe in Him is the path to the foundation of faith, which can help us; in fact, this faith is essential for us to live our life purposefully and to be able to spread His message and do the task that is expected from us as students of Sai.
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