Devotee Experience – Renu

Om Sai Ram,

It is very known that Sai Baba takes care of each and every devotee who visits the Holy Land of Shirdi. Every devotee is given special treatment in the court of our beloved Baba. The below post also proves the same. Sai Devotee Family recently visited Shirdi and wants to share their experiences they had in Shirdi. The head of the family had lost his legs in an accident but Baba took every care to make all of them comfortable and made their trip as the most unforgettable one.

Sai ram Friends
Baba Sai should help me to give you all a complete account.

Really I don’t know where to start, let me try,
We started from Bangalore on the 5th Nov 2008. Our plan was to reach Mantralayam that evening, have Raghavendra Darshan, stay there & to start the next day early morning to shirdi, I tried through all possible means for a Hotel Booking in Mantralaya, but was not successful. When my sis Vasanthy called me up from Mumbai asking about our trip I told her clearly, looking at the Sai Murthy’s face in our Hall ‘See Vasanthy, we are not getting the rooms there. Because of Mohan’s problem, we cant just like that start, go there searching for rooms, Sai knows this completely well. He has clearly invited us to Shirdi through His answers & dreams, now let Him do this for us, let Him get us a Mutt room booked. I am no more breaking my head in this regard I said. See, it seems Shirdi is also very much crowded. They say generally January there is not much crowd. So if we do not get the room booked, we will be coming to Shirdi only in Jan’09. This is what I told her.

May be within the next 2 or 3 hours, Mohan’s friend called up casually, helped us in getting a cottage (belongs to the Raghavendra Mutt) booked, he had also arranged for a special Darshan for all of us through the P.A. of the present Swamiji.

Now our experiences/Sai Leelas:

1) We usually go to The Lord hanuman temple in Mahalakshmi Layout, very near our house, to get His blessings for a safe journey, whenever we travel. Same way this year too, we had stopped the car for His dharshan. When Mohan closed his eyes & stood before the Murthy, he could clearly see a wonderful Shiv ling, he was so excited. On our way, again & again we were coming across Shiv lings we thought may be this is the reason for Mohan’s vision.
2) Gopi Sir (who arranged for special darshan on recommendation by my Sai Devotee friend) told us that on his way to the Sai Mandir from his room, he was thinking like in this heavy crowd, will it be possible for him to arrange for the darshan. As he was thinking like this, suddenly he saw a paper on the ground with the photo of Radha Krishna Swami ji, a great devotee of Shirdi Sai who lived in Bangalore to spread Sai ism in the south. Sir said that in His unique way Sai has assured him that He knows about all his thoughts about us from Bangalore & that He would bless us today abundantly.
3) The security allowed me & Mohan from one gate & Charanya & Ashwini from another gate. They are sort of very delicate, not used to such big crowds, pushing, shouting, fighting etc. I was really worried. We had a very nice Dharshan & unusually no security pushed us out. Though they were shouting at all others, they would see us & smile. We could stand there for 25 minutes. Un believable in such a crowd. Gopi sir’s person only sent us in. Those people were different. That’s why we were surprised as to why they are not asking us to move out. I started searching for my daughters in the queue in the Samadhi mandir. I kept telling show me my kids Sai. You know they feel uncomfortable if some body touches/pushes them. Now show them to me Sai.
Then I realized my mistake (again & again mentioning my kids, my kids) & told just once, I know you love the kids. They are after all your kids. If you know their problem, let me see them now. Just turned & saw Ashu & Charanya in the queue. They also came to the front & joined us both. The security called all the 4 of us near the Samadhi, we had a nice, peaceful dharshan.

4) We had been to Sivanesan Swami ji’s Ashram, there Kashyap ji, Mr.Kind he is, a very nice gentle man greeted us & took us to all the places explaining each & every thing in detail. Such a wonderful place it is, very very silent, full of divine vibrations, very ideal for meditation & prayers.

5) I had taken a vow to do 108 pradhakshinams in Gurusthan. I could complete only 54 pradhakshinams in Gurusthan the previous day. I some how felt like doing the rest here & I did. Later when Kashyap ji was telling me that Sivanesan Swmaiji was advising every one to do Pradhakshinams for all problems & that he himself would be doing pradhakshinams in Gurustahna daily, even during mid nights one could see him doing pradhakshinams. I was happy that I finished my vow in the right place.

Let me tell you all 2 more experiences we had in Shirdi during this visit:

1) During our travel, we were singing Aarthi & other Sai bhajans & after that I wanted to recite Sree Sai Sthavana manjari, I could hardly finish 31 verses of it & we had to stop for Lunch, post lunch session also I couldn’t finish it since some discussions etc. were going on. I thought I would some how finish it in shirdi.

In Sivanesan Swami ji’s Ashram, I started reading it, completed it fully, prayed for all, thanked Zarina Mam ji for her excellent work. I was really happy that I was able to sit in her own place & read it.

Evening when we were talking to Gopi sir near the chavadi, Sir casually pointed out that it was Ekadasi that day. As we all know reading Stavana Manjari on Ekadasi day is really effective (as told by Das ganu himself). I was very happy & thanked Sai for this arrangement.

2) We have the habit of taking His permission before we could start from shirdi. This time too at 5.30 am me & Mohan went to Samadhi Mandir to take His permission. As we were standing in the queue, a security person came straight to a devotee standing in the queue & handed over a packet of sugar candy to him, that person said, don’t want, Lord Sai knows why. We couldn’t believe some one denying His Prasad in His Sannadhi. Immediately the security gave Mohan the Prasad. That devotee who denied it was looking real uncomfortable afterwards & kept looking at Mohan & the Prasad, I thought of offering him some from it, but was scared & didn’t give him anything. As we were nearing the Murthy, a priest offered a garland to Mohan, our joy knew no bounds. We took it as His blessings.

Then after dharshan, we came out. A lady there pulled my hand & asked me to stop. Though I was scared that the security persons would shout at us, we both stood there near the door. Suddenly 4 persons came & removed the glass shutter from the Samadhi.

(Previously, we were allowed to touch the Sai padhukas in the Samadhi, but now after the installation of the Golden throne they have completely covered it, we can not keep our head on the padhukas & touch the Samadhi as we used to do before. I was feeling very bad at this, I was again & again telling Sai, this throne has stopped us from touching your padhukas Sai, they have to some how allow us to touch it & get your blessings.

I would immediately say any ways you are looking so nice sitting on this throne Sai, you are sai Maharaj for us & all. But inner most I longed to touch the padukas & keep my head on it.)

That lady called us again asking us to touch the padhukas & take His blessings. We almost cried. We kept our head on the holy Padhukas, they have tied the pot of abhisheka theertham(warm weater) on the top of padhukas. The drops of Abhisheka theerth on our head, so close to sai, I could feel His warm wishes to us, we felt so satisfied.

Thank you Sai maa. We simply love you.
How He reads our inner most desires & fulfils them. He is just amazing.

Thank you for your time & patience
Love you all friends
Bow to Sri Sai peace be to all!

By Sai’s grace I would post more experiences later.

Sai Ram
Renu

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