My 1st Personal Experience of Bapu's Love for Me . . . !
|| Hari Om ||
My name is Yogeshsinh Dnyaneshwar Khebde, from Aniruddha Upasana Kendra - Airoli.
Today, I am going to share my First experience about how Bapu pulled me to him. How he got turned a Literal Scientific person to a Spiritual Scientific person. (By Literal Scientific I mean; a person who just believes in Science. or to say in other words – a person who believes Science and Spiritualism cannot be same / parallel)
I really am weak in my memorizing ability. I do not remember the exact day / date when it happened. But I will have it clarified later by some other ways.
It was a normal day of my life. After I lost my Father, I had started working as a hardware engineer in a proprietorship firm at Malad. My daily routine used to be to wake up at 05:30am and get ready and rush to report at office by 09:00am. Work on field at many in-house AMC Clients’ home or offices and I used to get my last assignment call for the day at around or after 6:30 pm (because my wicked boss wanted all of engineers to work until late).
My Mother was doing Dev-Puja; I also was getting ready for the daily routine and all by yelling at my sister-in-law and mother for being late in keeping my lunch box ready and so on and so forth. I got a call from my boss (this was a rarest thing to happen in a month) to check where I am, he told me to report at a Clients location at Nariman Point by 08:00am as it was a Foreign Bank. (Now the weirdest thing of my life happened) I told him I can’t report to work today as I am not keeping well. Very astonishingly, he also asked me to take rest without a single rebuttal. My Mother now got MAD AT ME… Firstly because I refused to go to work suddenly after all the Show business of yelling and arguing for delayed Lunch Box. And secondly because I didn’t tell any of them that I was not feeling well.
Here, I was shocked to hear from her that I said so; and also that my boss agreed and asked me to rest; I didn’t believe it because I was perfectly fit and healthy. I didn’t remember or know anything I said on the call. So I was about to call my boss and tell him that I’m fine and could report to work. My Mother now stopped me. She said, seldom does he (my boss) believe to what his employees say. If u tell him that you are well – he won’t believe it next time when you could really need rest. So I took the day as an opportunity given by GOD to take some rest.
At around 01:00pm when I had seen Mother preparing for going to ‘New English School’ for Aniruddha Bapu’s Pravachan – I got scared… I thought to myself - No Wonder I bluffed about my health to my boss and he agreed to it. After all it was ‘the day’ – A Thursday… That day when my mother has not missed to go to Aniruddha Bapu’s Pravachan since she started to follow ‘Him’ …
I didn’t want her to ask me and persuade me to come with her for that Pravachan as I didn’t believe in such Bapu’s and Buvas, I used to think it’s all as Money Making Business. So I quickly had my belly filled with little food and pretended to sleep. So that seeing me asleep; my mother wouldn’t ask me to accompany her. My Plan was working; I could make out by hearing, that she got ready – took her ‘baskar’ – a small sheet of jute to sit on the ground, put on her chappals and climb down the stairs. I was very happy. Just before I could pat my back for such a foolproof plan to avoid going to the Pravachan; She came back to take her purse that she had forgot. And she asked me if she could get my company to Pravachan seeing me up on my bed. ‘I SAID YES’…
And that’s it friends… I thought - what I just said. I agreed to go to Aniruddha Bapu’s Pravachan so willingly??? How is that possible? But any ways, since she was happy to have her son give her company while her way back; I did not say NO after that.. I went with her.
All the while on our way to New English School in the train – she kept on telling and reinforcing her view about ‘how Bapu is GOD’ to her and to all. I just believed in real GOD (like Ram – Krishna – Vitthal – Dattaguru – Hanuman – Lakshmi – Parvati and all of them known to the world as GODs) until then… All other people were merely just highly powerful ‘Siddhapurush’ if at all for me. So I was overhearing all her talks while I was ‘Making a plan of mine with alliance with the ‘Real GOD’ to knock off the figure whom my mother considered to be GOD. I was speaking to GOD in my Mind… ‘GOD, MY MOTHER SAYS THAT THIS BAPU IS GOD. AND THAT HE CAN ANSWER ANY GREAT QUESTION THAT WE ASK TO HIM. SO PLEASE O GOD, HELP ME THINK OF SUCH A QUESTION THAT WOULD BE ANSWERABLE TO HIM.’
And that’s it friends… I thought - what I just said. I agreed to go to Aniruddha Bapu’s Pravachan so willingly??? How is that possible? But any ways, since she was happy to have her son give her company while her way back; I did not say NO after that.. I went with her.
All the while on our way to New English School in the train – she kept on telling and reinforcing her view about ‘how Bapu is GOD’ to her and to all. I just believed in real GOD (like Ram – Krishna – Vitthal – Dattaguru – Hanuman – Lakshmi – Parvati and all of them known to the world as GODs) until then… All other people were merely just highly powerful ‘Siddhapurush’ if at all for me. So I was overhearing all her talks while I was ‘Making a plan of mine with alliance with the ‘Real GOD’ to knock off the figure whom my mother considered to be GOD. I was speaking to GOD in my Mind… ‘GOD, MY MOTHER SAYS THAT THIS BAPU IS GOD. AND THAT HE CAN ANSWER ANY GREAT QUESTION THAT WE ASK TO HIM. SO PLEASE O GOD, HELP ME THINK OF SUCH A QUESTION THAT WOULD BE ANSWERABLE TO HIM.’
That’s it… ever since that time till Bapu arrived at New English School I was struggling to think of such a question, but I couldn’t. Until Bapu arrived there I was thinking of it. But as soon as Bapu entered the premises of the School, I was mesmerized by just a look at his personality. I got magnetized and my eyes just stuck to see HIM walking, HIS gait , HIS Posture, HIS Smile, HIS eyes, HIS Hands, HIS Feet, HIS Moustache and last but not the least HIS large stomach. By each step HE took towards the Stage each of above physical aspects were becoming more and clearer to me and I was fondly seeing them. I had forgotten about the question that I was supposed to place in front of HIM. And automatically and unknowingly my palms came together to look like HE was accepted by my inner self and my body accustomed itself to pray and praise him.
This entire dilemma was unknown to me until Bapu went to his Room Backstage. Just then again I started to think of ‘THAT’ question … but to my dismay I couldn’t think of it, I was telling the REAL GOD to please hurry up as ‘WE’ as a team would lose if he didn’t give me a question to ask to this Bapu. And just a moment before Bapu was about to speak when he arrived and seated on HIS Seat, a Question struck my mind from nowhere – “Bapu, if you really are GOD, then tell me the meaning of my Name – I will not tell you my Name – you have to know it on your own. I know the literal meaning of of my name as per the Sanskrit meaning. Tell me something more about my name today.”
Here, i finished asking this question in my mind many meters away from him physically and there, Bapu while sitting on the stage and showering his graceful sight on his children – his bhaktas – his friends all of us; suddenly turned his sight towards me as if HE heard my question ‘ALOUD’ and nodded with a smile in acceptance to respond to it. Then I heard him Speaking.
Bapu’s words (not verbatim though – thanks to my weak memory) – “HARI OM. OM YOGENDRAYA NAMAH: VISHNUSHASTRANAMATLA AAJ JE NAAV APAN BAGNAR AAHOT TE HE AAHE. ITHE ALELYA MANDALIN PAIKI KAHINNA APLI SWATAHACHI OLAKH MAHIT NASTE, TYANNA AAPLYA NAVACHA RAHASYA SAMJUN GHAYCHE ASTEY. TAR AAJ APAN BAGHNAAR AAHOT KI YOGI, YOGINDRA, YOGENDRA, YOGESH ASHYA NAEK NAMANNI RUSHINNI TYA DEVALA OLKHAYCHA PRAYATNA KA KELA.”
And after that I was in a different world all together – where there was Bapu sitting at same distance physically far from me on the same stage and me at the very same place where I was on the ground. But now in this new world; there were just both of US – no body else around me. I couldn’t remember me hearing any thing else from him until HE Ended his Pravachan and said “HARI OM” again. All this while I could just hear HIM that HE is speaking – but couldn’t understand a word. JUST the scene; that ‘Bapu is speaking to me and I am listening to his words’ existed. It was all so pleasant to my eyes and so musical to my ears.
Alas my treat had come to an end. And I came out of it, but as soon as I came out of that scene my egoistic and materialistic mind also woke up again. Now the two were speaking – my Conscious and materialistic mind and my spiritually enlightened sub-conscious mind. Rather – they were fighting to prove themselves to be right for me. One was saying – Yogesh, don’t fall for such illusions – these babas and bapu’s have the ability to hypnotize oneself. Whereas the enlightened one was telling me calmly to follow the path of divine happiness I had experienced a few minutes back. Since I was a person who was born and brought up in a spiritual family of ‘Vaar-kari Sampradaay’; its Vitthal Bhakti Dominated my materialistic mind which believed in Science and wanted proofs for believing anything that was new to me. I chose a silver-line path to pacify me – and I said to myself – May be this Bapu is not GOD; but HE certainly is one such; who is a great person for sure. I know there are few good people who seem to posses good qualities in abundance and appear GOD-Like to us.
Thus my beloved Bapu, I can say literally – pulled me close to HIM. With none of my deeds qualifying even close to be able to be near HIM even in dreams. He had called me – I wasn’t Listening – So he had my mother take me to HIM. His Plan Succeeded and Mine Failed. And I’m happy about that Failure too. For it was HIS wish to keep me in the cool – calm – love-filled Shade of HIS Protection.
Like what Sai Baba often said - let His man (devotee) be at any distance, a thousand koss away from Him, he will be drawn to Shirdi like a sparrow with a thread tied to its feet; Bapu drew me to HIM.
AMBADNYA @ Bapu's Lotus Feet
