Gurucharanam Saranam
Mukundan P.R.
The man with the power of clairvoyance slowly opened his eyes and said: ‘When I observe your life, I see a bright light, which is very rare. It is the true light of God. I am able to see the essence of all souls who come to me. But I have never seen such a Blessed Light with any other people’. Shaji and his wife looked at each other in amazement when the clairvoyant said this.
The clairvoyant’s wife also was sitting with him in the small room with portraits of gods and goddesses. The couple had gained the power of clairvoyance after returning from a long pilgrimage to the famous Palani Hills, the temple town connected with Lord Subramanya. Apparently, during their long spiritual wanderings, the husband and wife had met some spiritual masters or had become possessed by spiritual entities who gave them the power of reading the minds of other people and their soul imprints. They performed their meditations and conveyed the extra sensory perceptions to the occasional visitors who came to them seeking special information or guidance for resolving perplexing problems. The middle-aged couple belonged to a farmer community and led a rustic life in a village near Kottayam in Kerala.
Shaji and his wife had made a few visits to this clairvoyant couple with the puzzling questions of their life. The couple would sit in the small prayer room and reveal everything about a family, its problems, the past and present and suggest suitable remedies and rituals. Shaji was a devotee of Subramanya, known also as Karthikeya, the son of Lord Siva. A chemical engineer, Shaji lived in Kottayam with his wife and small daughter. His brush with spirituality came when he was in service at Kozhikode.
One day Mata Amritanandamayi came to the city. Shaji joined hundreds of other people who went to see her. She hugged the assembled people and he also got a hug from her. He felt the spiritual vibration of the hug. At that time, spiritual curiosity was only in a budding state in him. So he had not taken to spirituality as a passion in life. However, a change occurred when an acquaintance brought him a few publications of Santhigiri Ashram. Normally, he would have just stashed them up somewhere. But these books caught his mind. He felt attracted to them. He read them again and again and felt a wish to visit Santhigiri Ashram at Thiruvananthapuram.
It was the calling of his spirit. Soon the opportunity came and he went to Santhigiri Ashram. His wife along with their little daughter accompanied him. His wife had delivered the child with an agonizing medical problem. She had the problem of fibrosis. The delivery took place after a nine-month medical confinement with the fear of risk factors. Somehow, the delivery took place and the doctors categorically ruled out the possibility of another child and advised removal of the uterus. The visit to Santhigiri Ashram had coincided with this period of trauma. Though Shaji was very inclined to follow the rituals and prayers at the ashram, his wife stayed back from all this. She refused to enter the Prayer Hall and just stared at him while he did his prayers. She said that she was not willing to take a human being as God.
In the meantime, arrangements were being made for the hysterectomy (operation to remove the uterus). Just when the date for the operation was being confirmed, Shaji mulled over the possibility of an Ayurvedic cure for fibrosis. He had heard that Ayurveda was effective for curing some diseases. So he decided to stall the operation and seek an Ayurvedic remedy. The desire for sons and daughters is an incurable problem with worldly people. Marriage is not an arrangement for mutual convenience in life, as it has become in Western societies and lately among married couples in India. In the frenzy of making the insecure life secure, for most of the working couples, the birth of a child has become the last priority. However, the trend is slowly reversing. People have begun to realize that they want children to inherit their hard-earned wealth and possessions. This is only a material aspect. Very few are really aware of the spiritual aspects behind the necessity of having progeny. A child birth is some sort of a bridge between the living souls and the dead, in the sense that it is linked with the genetic chain and astral fields of the living in the fulfillment of the life mission and aspirations of the chain of souls in a genetic tree.
Shaji was not prepared for a never-again situation about childbirth and therefore did not want his wife to undergo the operation as advised by doctors. He thought of undertaking another visit to the
Ashram. As usual, his wife sat outside the Prayer Hall while he prayed. Her mind was in a dilemma. It is the duty of a wife to follow the ways of the husband. It is her dharma to be of support to the husband in all his auspicious endeavors! But how could she compromise on her faith and rational beliefs?
After a few months of their return from the Ashram, Shaji’s wife conceived again. This time, she did not experience the problems associated with fibrosis. She felt normal throughout the pregnancy and in due course delivered a boy child. It was a stunning experience for the couple in view of the prognosis of the doctors and the traumatic experiences during the previous pregnancy.
Now the family visited the Ashram with the newborn. Shaji’s wife for the first time entered the Prayer Hall and prayed with her husband. There was piousness and sincerity in her approach. She prayed in front of the Guru – in the main Prayer Hall, in the Parnasala of Guru and in front of the only portrait of Guru at Sahakarana Mandiram kept for public worship in the Ashram. She bowed reverently in front of the Sishyapoojitha, the Gurusthaneeya (Guru Apparent), and sought her blessings for the newborn.
Shaji noticed the change in his wife. He thought it was probably due to her happiness at the birth of a boy, that too without any traumatic troubles like the last time. However, the truth was not that simple, as disclosed by his wife later. During their visit to the Ashram just before she conceived for the second time, his wife had made a prayerful resolve sitting outside the Prayer Hall. She had taken an oath on that day that if she could get a second child, a son, she would accept Guru as God and worship Him as the Supreme. The Almighty Guru heard her prayers and granted her desire, not to reveal His power of miracle or divinity, but to save a family from spiritual waywardness and guide it to a new faith fragrant with love and spiritual experience.
