When Truth is Stranger than Fiction (September 1986) - PSR Ramaswami

[Guest guest]

WHEN TRUTH IS STRANGER THAN FICTION (September 1986)

 

Behold, it came to pass that the dumb spoke and the dead came back to life.

- The Bible

 

Yes, there He stood at the gate, with His serene indulgent face and

benevolent eyes, clothed in 'Kupni' with the cloth over the head falling

loosely over the shoulders, the 'Biksha-paatra' held in the right hand with

the left folded and resting over the right shoulder, exactly as in the

portrait facing P. 112 of the Satcharita (Eng. edn.). I was stunned with

amazement. It was INCREDIBLE!

 

Only a moment before, in my frenzied despair at the passing away of my

first-born son aged 10 years, I had denied Him, His Divinity and His

Omnipresence testified again and again by His devotees' experiences both

before and after His 'Mahaasama-adhi'. I had declared Him to be a false

deity and beseeched my wife to throw His portrait on the dung-hill. But,

here He stood to prove the TRUTH OF HIS ETERNAL EXISTENCE.

 

You see, the medicine I poured into the mouth of my semiconscious son

remained there. I shouted to him to swallow it but the mouth remained open.

I became frantic and tried to close it. No, the jaws had become rigid, I

checked the pulse. It too had stopped. It was then that I called out my wife

from the kitchen and spoke those blasphemous words. She just sat by the bed,

head bent and tears trickling down, as much hurt by my profanity no doubt as

by the bereavement.

 

I had come to the end of my tether spiritually. I was not myself for the

nonce. Thus I had the brutal impudence to ask my grieving wife whether she

had cooked adding, "He has anyway gone. I don't want to die, too- I shall go

and eat."

 

Imagine the father, however forlorn, to be so devoid of all feeling as to

put such an inhuman question to the mother just bereaved.

 

There is no limit to which human nature can sink though thank God it can

also soar to Elysian heights. Here I must say that my wife's faith unlike

mine has throughout been unflickering, standing 'foursquare to all the winds

that blow'. Whenever my mind harks back to that scene, I cannot help

wondering how I escaped her righteous indignation for my frenzied out-burst

Where else except in this land hallowed by Sita and Savitri, Damayanti and

Mandodhari, Nalaayini and Renuka Devi can one meet with such phenomenal

forbearance? It is not far fetched to say that it is for such paragons of

virtue that the Sun shines, it rains and Mother Earth continues to yield her

bounty. It has been said that the greatness of a man does not consist in

never falling but rising every time he falls. Indeed, it is by the magnetic

charm of their devotion the 'homo sapiens' are not completely debased.

 

(To be contd....)

 

The experiences of Devotees as published in Shri Sai Leela Magazine, can be

read at www.saileelas.org/magazines/SAILEELA/exp.htm