Shirdi Sai Baba Stories,Leelas and Teachings.: My Experience WIth Shirdi Sai Baba-Experience By S.Ramakrishna.

Dear all,
Sai devotee S.Ramakrishna Ji has shared series of Baba's leela from the time he came under Sai Baba's shelter till date to enhance the faith of all the devotees who so ever reads the experiences.The details of the experiences are written below. Jai Sai Ram .

My Experiences With Shri Shirdi Sai Baba.

Introduction:

I don’t remember when exactly Shri Shirdi Sai Baba came into my life. Many years back a small photograph of Baba was given to me by my uncle, who was a staunch devotee of Baba. I kept the photograph in the wall shelf designated the “Pooja Room” in my house.

I performed “Pooja” for the photograph with “Arshana”, “kumkum”, and “Akshate”, as usual, along with the other Deities. I was not particularly drawn towards Baba then. Over a period of time, the photograph deteriorated, and had to be disposed off. At that point, I did feel the need to have another photograph of Baba in place of the previous one.

I requested my mother-in-law to send me a laminated photograph of Baba, so that it wouldn’t deteriorate. She did get a nice laminated photograph of Baba, which I very happily kept in the “Pooja Shelf”. After some time my aunt at Mumbai, advised me (in a particular context), that I should recite “Om Sai Ram” at least ten times while doing “Pooja” daily. This, I followed sincerely, but rather mechanically.

Sometime later, I changed my job and shifted to Hospet in Karnataka. There is a very popular Baba temple in Hospet, but I never really felt like going there. Also, very near to my new work site, there is a Baba temple. I never visited this temple also for a very long time. After some months, our company bought the premises adjacent to the Baba temple. In the meanwhile, a new sub-ordinate joined me who is a devotee of Baba. Since the temple was adjacent to our work premises, I visited this Baba temple with him for the first time. Somehow, I felt drawn towards Baba, and may be, that was the beginning of my induction into Baba’s “Durbar of devotees”.

My first experience: Lost finger ring found.

My sub-ordinate (about whom I have made a mention earlier) is in the habit of chewing tobacco. One day, while we were going around together at the work site, he suddenly found that he had lost his gold finger ring which he was wearing. He was panicky; as the ring had fallen somewhere in the mines site and a whiff of strong wind could cover the finger ring in layers of dust, making it irretrievable. Even I thought that the ring was gone forever.

A flash occurred to me (half in jest), I thought that, since he claimed to be a devotee of Baba, why not he pray to Baba to get him back the lost ring and that, in turn, he would quit chewing tobacco for good. But I didn’t venture to make this suggestion to him for some reason. Just a minute or two after this flash occurred to me, one of our supervisors exclaimed in joy that he had found the ring. I was almost dumbfounded. Was it a coincidence? I wondered? Perhaps! it was Baba’s way of telling me “Yes! I can hear you”.

I was not very close to my sub-ordinate personally, at that time, and I didn’t reveal this to him (I did tell him about this much later on).

Rise in salary:

I was desperately trying to get some assignment abroad, and did appear for an interview. I got selected but was slightly unhappy with the salary offered. On my return, I visited the Baba temple near my work site and thanked him for getting me the job but confessed that I would be happier with a $ 200 rise in salary. The same evening (or may be a day or two later), when I called the HR agency to know about the salary hike that I had asked for – they confirmed to me that the $ 200 rise had been accepted. This came as a surprise as they were not relenting to even a $ 100 hike during my negotiations, with them. I was overjoyed and profusely thanked Baba for answering to my prayers so quickly.

A few days later, I was casually discussing with my wife that when the actual Appointment Order came, it would be great to have a surprise hike of $200 to $300 additional to the finalized and agreed upon salary with the expatriate company. When the Appointment Order came (much later), it was a miracle for me as my salary was hiked by another $300 which I had not even asked for.

Visit to Shirdi:

I now wanted to visit Shirdi. I casually made inquiries from friends and the purohit at the Baba temple about the easiest way to go to Shirdi. I was not keen on going by bus all the way from Hospet, and the train was booked months in advance. A few days later, I got a call from a very reputed company to attend the interview at Poona. Strangely, they were ready to pay the airfare up to Mumbai from my place and from thereon only taxi fare to Pune. I decided to make my Shirdi trip in the same taxi after attending the interview.

Surprisingly, I was the only candidate for the interview and the post they were considering me for, would become functional only in their future plans, and they were not sure if they wanted to take me at that point of time.I happily went to Shirdi after the interview, got Baba’s darshan twice in the night and was able to witness the last “aarthi” at 10:30 p.m.

On my way back, I sincerely thanked Baba for giving me his “darshan”.
It was only much later that I realized that the interview call was just an excuse created by Baba to arrange for my trip to Shirdi since I wished to have his darshan. Why should the company which was ready to bear the air fare upto Mumbai, insist on only taxi fare from Mumbai to Pune? Why was there no other candidate for the interview other than me? Why did I not hear from them at all after the interview?

My introduction to “Satcharita”:

I had come to know about the Sai Satcharitra Parayan by now, and wanted to undertake it. On a Wednesday evening, I wanted to somehow start the Parayan the next day morning (i.e. Thursday), but didn’t have the English copy of Shri Satcharita with me. Our family friend, who is a staunch devotee of Baba, was the only person (to our knowledge), who was likely to have the English copy of Satcharita.

Would she have it? Would she able to spare it at short notice? – These were the questions bogging me. Baba’s grace - she did have it and readily spared it upon our request to me, temporarily for the Sapthaahi. I was very happy and did my first Sapthaahi last year. This copy of Satcharita is a very old edition and I also got attached to it because it was given by another staunch Baba devotee. The kind lady, eventually permitted me to retain the book on permanent basis, and, it is now a treasured integral part of my life.

Disappointments and solace:

I was on an all time high in July 2008 - A confirmed lucrative assignment abroad (I was eagerly awaiting the Appointment Order, to cross the Indian soil), and my new-found Baba’s grace in my life. What more could one ask for in life?

In mid August 2008, a road mishap, suddenly threw my life out of gear. A misdiagnosed fracture at the time of accident led to further complications and I had to undergo a major surgery in February 2009. By then, I had lost my job and was not fit physically to take up the assignment abroad. So, even that slipped through my hands.

I was perplexed, clueless on the sudden turn of events which had led to my downslide.
I was also wondering for sometime as to what went wrong? Why all these calamities befell me despite all the good happenings?

I then started reading, at least one chapter from the Satcharita, daily. It took me quite sometime to come to terms with my state of affairs and Baba made me realized that, I must be repaying for my past karmas - of this, as well as my previous life. But the punya was - that I had become a Sai bhakta before the downfall, which gave me tremendous moral support to cope up with the bad patch of my life.

Baba’s Reassurance:

Eventually, after recuperating for almost 4 to 5 months, I started looking out for another job. The effort was not paying due to the recession hit industry. Also, I was praying to Baba to get me a job of my interest in a particular firm. Prolonged unemployment had drained away all my confidence. One day I almost cried before Baba saying that I wouldn’t be able to manage any interview. The same day my mother-in-law visited Baba temple, prayed for me and picked up a token, to know His message for me. And Lo! When she told me the message, I was dumb struck. The message was “Don’t have any inferiority complex; the person who will help you will be an ordinary man.” The message was exactly the reply to my severe loss of confidence that I was suffering from.

Somehow, this miracle of His, took my love, faith and devotion towards him, to another level altogether.

It was a turning point in my connect with Him. It was solid proof that he was aware of my shortcomings, was hearing to me, and was taking care of me. All these months of unemployment, He saw to it that my standard of living never came down a bit, kept finances trickling in for me from somewhere or the other to keep my household running, without getting into debt.

Help at my Door step:

In the last week of November 2009, I was still jobless and was at the fag end of my financial resources. I prayed to Him saying that further joblessness after December 2009 would put me into debt to run my household, and, only He should prevent me from getting into such a state.
It was a Thursday and I was very much compelled due to my anxiety to pull out a token and get his message for me in the Baba Temple.

The message for me was “Two people will come close together. Something big will happen very soon.”

The following Tuesday, suddenly my father-in-law told me that his close friend had spoken to the proprietor of one of the respectable firms about me and that we would be going in the evening to meet him. He also mentioned that his friend was very close to the proprietor personally. The proprietor and the senior management of the firm were extremely good and I was offered the job without any screening what so ever, just because I was referred personally by the close friend of the proprietor.

The next day I was told that, they would get back to me soon after finalizing my package at their end. How true and exact Baba’s words came out to be!!!! There are no words to describe the same.

Still I was foolishly slightly unhappy as I was craving for a desk job, but it did not materialize.
I also spoke to a great devotee of Baba (about whom I had come to know through one of the blogs) about my apprehensions of accepting the new job. The gentleman was extremely kind, reassuring and goaded me to trust Baba fully as it was Him who had given to job to me and it would be Him only who would see me through with it.

On 1st January 2010, I contacted the management and everything was finalized and I joined duty in a week.

Baba has also been kind to see to it that I was taken care of by my seniors and bosses, and, to be able to discharge my duties respectfully.

Each time I read the Satcharita, I pray to Baba to add on something to the values, that I am slowly imbibing by reading it. I also want to make “NISHTHA” and “SABURI” the pillars of my life. I am praying and want to completely surrender myself to Sainatha and want to remain connected to him all through my present and future life that I might be destined for.

I also am thankful for a forum and way to share my experiences with other Shirdi Sai Baba devotees - world wide and hope to further strengthen my bond earnestly, day-by- day with the all pervasive, timeless, and most importantly - all merciful Sainatha.

SRI SACHIDANANDA SADGURU SHRI SAINATH MAHARAJ KI JAI.

S.Ramakrishna,
Hospet,
India.

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