Chapter XV: BANGALORE EXPRESS


Clouds of diesel fumes and the city’s noise threatened to overwhelm our tired bodies as we stood, early next morning, outside the Inverness bus and waited to collect our luggage. The rush of London life began to envelop me.

You’re back in the machine, I thought, but don’t forget that this time you’re only travelling through. It seemed difficult to grasp that within days and hours we would be in India at Baba’s ashram.

After arriving at a friend’s house where we were to stay a few days we washed and slept. After a couple of hours the alarm clock woke me up. I dressed and walked to the underground station to return to central London. The next day was Swami’s sixty second birthday and I was determined not to miss the celebrations.

The Guildford Street centre was full of devotees. Bhajans began and I found myself gazing at a large framed picture of Baba which had been placed above a makeshift altar. He really was the Avathar of the media age. Yet, even now, there were so many in the West who did not know of Sathya Sai Baba and the cosmic significance of his mission. And when they did how many would recognize the long-expected Lord? Throughout history there seemed to have been an unspoken tradition of blindness to divine truth amongst much of humanity.

Bewitched by Maya we forget to look through the personal and collective illusions of our present mortal condition where, beyond these distractions and limitations, awaits an indescribable Love. We have to desire it, to reach out desperately towards it. We have to learn the Zen trick of lifting ourselves up by our own experiential shoe strings. To just stop doubting and do it! Then, having performed the apparently impossible, we are free to make incredible journeys to magical realities. It can and does happen.

The moment we choose to free ourselves is when it begins. The grey magic of Ahriman need not enslave us forever. Yet, each must choose the moment when the shackles are disowned, cast off, and the path of self-liberation is sought. The cry for freedom must come from our hearts.

As I sat there before Lord Sai I made the cry once more. “How long, Lord? How long is the road we must travel?”


I met an old friend who told me that she had been in India the previous Easter, near a lake in Kodaikanal in the Nilgiris. A huge, double rainbow had formed a circle around the Sun.

I related my own story of the Rainbow Meditation which had been received about a month later. Here, surely, was another confirmation that behind the events of the summer of 1987 was the Mother-Father’s design.


I could feel a powerful spiritual upsurge building up inside me. It began to get ever clearer that this journey to India was to be the culmination of a great cycle of death and rebirth on which the immortal soul had embarked a long, long time ago.

It was an end to one great cycle and the beginning of one yet greater. I picked up a book. It was Eileen Caddy’s GOD SPOKE TO ME. To understand the meaning of these events I opened a page at random:

“Ask and ye shall receive,” I read. You must do the asking. You must take the action. Know that whatever you ask in my name, believing, is yours. Have no doubt about it. Simply accept it as a gift from Me.”

Then turning to Baba’s picture, I opened the Bhagavad Gita and asked for another confirmation of what I had just read. “What a man has made himself worthy of, that comes to him spontaneously,” was the reply. “This fulfilment is called the law by some and the grace by others.”

What a wonderful confirmation! The deeper meaning was yet to come but first I had to learn to stop doubting, to stop denying the greater Self. “See beyond! See beyond!” I seemed to hear him say constantly. “For there lies the vision which will inspire and empower you to use your talents in the service of humanity.”


We boarded ‘Isis’, an Egyptair A300 Airbus, at Heathrow the following Friday night. Was the name another of Baba’s leelas? I wondered. The closer one gets to him, it seemed, the more one began to experience these little hints of his omnipresence.

Some hours after the huge aircraft swept us into the sky, I made my way towards the flight deck to ask permission to enter the pilots’ cabin. A large, affable Egyptian greeted me and waved towards the Chief Pilot’s seat.

“Would you like to sit down?”

Once above 400 feet these high tech airliners flew by computer. But I could hardly believe my good fortune. Taking care not to upset the trim controls I edged forwards, sat in the seat to the left of the Co-pilot, and began to examine the illuminated green dials and controls on the panels before me.

I peered out of the huge, perspex windshield. Below us, somewhere in southern Italy, a thunderstorm lit up the earth below. Lightning flashed and bounced over heavy cumulo-nimbus clouds. Yet, we flew through calm skies. I could see Orion’s Belt. From the Hyades, Aldebaran winked a welcome. Above it lay the seven dancers in the Pleiades. If only I could attune more clearly to these heavenly bodies to discover their message!

Then, a strange realization began to dawn in me. I had always loved aeroplanes and had experienced an apparent past life as a flyer during the last world war. That flyer’s ambition had been to become a pilot but, failing his lessons, he had ended up as a bomb aimer instead. During this life too I had always wanted to be a pilot but fate had grounded me.

As I sat in the pilot’s seat of the great A300 Airbus a thought flashed through my mind. In the perspex-covered cabin of the Heinkel 111 the pilot had also sat on the left. Was this Swami’s way of allowing me to achieve my dream of sitting in the pilot’s seat? An ambition apparently from another life!

“You see,” I seemed to hear him say, “you have come through! You have the proof of victory over mortal death. You are alive and well in the Age of Aquarius ... no longer a victim of having to obey others’ orders.” Of course, Isis was the protectress of the dead. By retrieving and embalming the body of Osiris she had allowed the pharaoh to achieve immortality. To provide me with this wonderful insight into immortality Baba had given me this leela!

The comfortable cabin of this graceful state-of-the-art airliner was very different to the draught and noise of a diesel powered Heinkel 111. And the lightning that bounced and flashed below us was Nature’s blitz, not Man’s. This time my ‘plane flew high over the thunder clouds. I felt the mystery of time. The third dimension seemed to flow and merge in a greater meaning with other, unseen, dimensions.

I thought of all the passengers slumbering in their seats behind us. The co-pilot gently banked the huge airliner from left to right and back again. Then he switched on all the instrument dials.

“Look, it’s Christmas!” he exclaimed.

We all joined in the fun. I could feel Swami’s presence. He had given me my wings.


In Cairo we changed ‘planes. The old Boeing 707 which flew us on into the burning dawn of a new day and India was named ‘Mubarrak’ (‘Welcome’). The play on words seemed quite appropriate. About midday, we began to descend over the blue Arabian Sea towards Bombay which lay below in a sprawl of white high rise blocks, shanty towns, radio masts, untidy building lots and sweeping palm lined beaches.

The ‘plane bumped carelessly onto the hot tarmac at Sahar International and came to rest in the shimmering heat. I was back in Asia, a circle close to completion. Circles within greater circles, orbiting like planets around the sun. Planets soon to align in one great moment ...


The autorickshaw careered recklessly through Bombay’s teeming streets. We sat in the back amongst our luggage learning how to give ourselves up to the whims of India’s drivers and God’s grace. At Dadar we found the Bangalore Express, settled our luggage onto the top bunks of two air conditioned second class sleepers, and prepared for the long haul south.

I thought of all the places we would pass as our train rattled over miles and miles of steel rails shining under the stars, deep into the mystery of the great Indian night. Poona, Solapur, Raichur where we would cross the River Krishna, onto Guntakal, Anantapur and Dharmavaram (not far from Prashanti Valley and Baba); then Hindupur and finally Bangalore.

I don’t know how much I slept that night. I never slept well travelling in trains, buses or ‘planes. By the following morning, the Express was nearly halfway to its southern destination.

After breakfasting on a delicious, hot omelette and the traditional Indian chai, sweetened with condensed milk, I settled down by a double glazed window to gaze at the unfamiliar scenery of the Deccan that rushed past us outside: arid semi-desert and hills scattered with great rock piles like unfinished pyramids. Natural megaliths stood precariously atop these pyramids, burning a deep red-brown under the fierce Indian sun.

Were they the remnants of some long lost civilization destroyed many millennia ago in some nuclear holocaust? Or had they been fashioned into these strangely familiar shapes through some gigantic process of nature?

In the heat, country folk toiled steadily on, their ankles submerged in the tepid waters of paddy fields. The carriage’s double glazed windows kept the heat out of our air conditioned compartment. Several date palms floated by as the express train sped on.

After midday we stopped at Guntakal Junction and I climbed out onto the platform to take a picture of the locomotive engine pulling our train. It was not the traditional Indian steam engine I had hoped for. Sadly, those wonderful old iron horses are being replaced with modern, diesel electric locomotives such as the one which pulled the Bangalore Express.

I walked a long way up the platform, feeling just a little nervous that the train might suddenly pull away, leaving me behind. A young man walked up to me and pointed to a group of turbaned railway workers.

“Sir, they would like you to take a picture of them,” he indicated.

I aimed my camera at the labourers and waited as they grouped together. After taking the picture I grinned at them. They grinned and waved back before returning to work. Their childlike enthusiasm seemed light years away from the drudge of workaday life in the West. Who, after all, was closer to happiness?

Evening came and the sun began to set fast over the Deccan’s mountainous horizon. I opened the carriage door to sit on the step and watch the last golden rays of Surya make his descent into the western hills. The dusk that followed touched something deep within my heart. Childhood memories of another time and place farther south. An equatorial home.

A day after pulling out of Bombay our long train drew into Bangalore City Station. As usual, a porter ran up to us for our business and we walked out of the busy terminus towards the taxi ranks outside. After haggling pointlessly with an autorickshaw driver we climbed aboard a frail, two-stroke chariot which, loaded with our luggage, proceeded to rush headlong into the midst of Bangalore’s evening traffic.

Of course, our driver was determined to take us to the hotel of his choice rather than any we preferred. Somehow we got him to drive us to the Woodlands Hotel in Sampangi Tank Road. Feeling tired and dirty after the long rail journey we obtained a large, air conditioned room on the eighth floor. The gentle swish and whirr of an overhead fan is much preferable to the racket and positive ions generated by an air conditioner. But by this time we were glad just to find a comfortable room in which to lie down and rest.

After a shower I walked out onto the balcony to gaze at the lights of night time Bangalore. Dogs barked and cicadas chirped. It was almost thirty years since I had last heard the comforting nocturnal lullaby of the crickets. I stood looking out over this panorama of the lovely old south Indian city first visited as a five year old child. I looked up at the stars. They twinkled and danced in a velvet black universe. A warm December breeze blew across my face.

Above lay the Constellation of Auriga and the Kids; Orion and Taurus; Aldebaran ... the words of a poem I had written on a winter’s night in snow-covered Oxfordshire returned to my mind like a prophesy fulfilled.


That night you raised your eyes to the stars
and remembered another time...
distant recollection of a Southern Constellation;
soaring dome of ancient memories!
O, Cathedral of the Indian Night, now magnificently unreal! 2


Tears came into my eyes as I witnessed my spiritual and emotional return to the beginnings of a lifetime.

Namo, namo, maathaa...

I lay, once more, in the womb of mother Asia, the sub-continnent which had borne me into this life some forty years before. I was still hundreds of miles from Lanka but close to the spiritual heartbeat and eternal wisdom of Bharath.3


We returned downstairs for dinner. Quite unexpectedly we met our friend, Paul Gopaul, who had travelled separately from Aberdeen with his family. They too were heading for Puttaparthi. We spent the evening enjoying the hot, south Indian food and swapping our travel experiences. Already, it was proving to be a joyous Christmas.

The next day we did all our shopping in Commercial Street, ordering white kurtas 4 to wear in the ashram and tailor-made clothes to take home. You can get whatever you need in Commercial Street simply by walking up and down the length of its pavements.

We ate lunch in a local hotel restaurant crowded with business people — a sure sign of its excellence. That evening we returned with our freshly tailored clothes to the hotel for an early night before the bus journey to Puttaparthi.

The next morning, I rang Whitefield to check Baba’s whereabouts. He was still at Prashanti Nilayam. So we caught an autorickshaw to Kalasipalayam Bus Station.

There we found the red Puttaparthi Express bus for which we had made our reservations. A young boy carried our luggage and placed it on the roof rack. I felt none too happy about this arrangement. What if it rained or we hit a bump?

My preoccupation with the fate of our luggage was interrupted by a young man who came up to me begging for money.

“I am on my way to Madras and my suitcase, money and bus ticket have all been stolen,” he informed me. “I need thirty Rupees to get home.”

First, I felt suspicious. Then, noticing the way he stood there, looking lonely, lost and frightened my feelings began to mellow. Perhaps Baba had guided him to me for help? I decided that he was telling the truth, gave him fifty Rupees and asked him his name.

“Bryan D’Souza,” he replied. “My father is a doctor in the Indian Air Force near Madras. I was on my way home when this happened.”

From this I knew that he was a Eurasian of Portuguese descent. Perhaps it was some unspoken vulnerability, much deeper than his present condition of material loss, that had caused my feelings of compassion. For centuries, Eurasians had been considered a race apart, despised by both sides, as if they were aliens in their own country. Had he guessed that I too was a Eurasian?

“Where are you travelling to?” he asked me.

“We’re going to Puttaparthi on a pilgrimage to Sri Sathya Sai Baba,” I replied. He looked at me doubtfully.

“Some people say that he practises black magic.”

I replied that I knew about such stories and that some Christians in India were not above spreading rumours.

“I’m a Christian too and I have no doubt at all that Baba is the Avathar.”

Orthodox Christianity had been imported to India from the West as part of a’ superior‘colonial culture. It would be a very difficult thing for an established organization like the Church to accept that the Lord had returned as a dark skinned Indian! I knew that some Christian book shops sold literature that slandered Baba.

“And I’ve also read Tal Brooke’s book where he attempts to defame Baba. That book gave me bad dreams!” Then I added, “The Christ too was often accused by those who were afraid of him of doing the devil’s work.”

Curious to learn more, Bryan asked me how I had first heard of Baba in the West. In a somewhat garbled way I tried to tell him of the light in the sky and the vision I had had three years before. He looked at me suspiciously, wondering if I had taken drink or drugs.

“I’m sorry,” I laughed. “I get emotional and carried away by it all sometimes!”

The bus was filling up and I saw the driver walking over towards the cab. Taking Bryan’s hand I wished him a safe journey home to Madras. I wondered if our conversation might have provoked him to think more deeply, beyond the usual social prejudices. I knew that Baba never demands anything from us, least of all that we should worship his form.

“I am not this body alone, neti, neti,” he so often reminded devotees.

I had strongly felt that Swami had asked me to help this fellow traveller unconditionally along his own road to Damascus. I hoped that act of compassion would, at least, encourage him to believe more deeply in the grace of the Christ in whatever form he should perceive it.


The Karnataka State Transport bus drew out of Kalasipalayam and proceeded down several spacious avenues lined with bougainvillea and shady banyan trees. We were headed towards the N7 Bangalore-Hyderabad road. Finally we reached open country. The ancient banyans seemed to stretch on forever, their branches bearing witness to the never-ending story of the Indian highroad.

Other vehicles rushed headlong towards us, blaring their horns. Only at the last moment would both drivers swerve away from each other, missing a collision by inches. There were several pictures of Swami adorning the driver’s cab and I prayed that these would protect us all.

Our bus bumped on over the arid landscape. We were unaccustomed to such hard passenger seats but fortunately Jenny had brought the little pillow from the flight to Bombay. We took it in turns to share it and in this way our western behinds were afforded some relief!

I began to notice the smooth, red rocky hills on either side of the road with the familiar natural megaliths perched above like lone sentinels from another time.

At Penukonda we took a rest stop. After the hard seats I was glad to be able to get out and stretch my legs. Around us, the busy mid afternoon life of an Indian town was in progress. Followed by several vendors, determined to sell me fruit and biscuits, I climbed onto the roof of the bus to tie down our luggage. Such was their persistency that, on the way down, I had to wait for them to climb off the ladder first before I could return to my seat.

Jenny was talking sign-language with some young children outside the bus who stood grinning and playing tease with us. We were the only westerners present. Most of the others who visited the ashram at Prashanti took taxis.

Soon we pulled out again, onto the main road and disappeared in clouds of dust towards the north. Then, turning off the N7 at Dharmavaram, we headed towards Puttaparthi which was by now sign-posted. Again, we took a smaller road to Bukkapatnam and drove under an archway welcoming us to ‘Prashanti — the Valley of Peace’. Just a few miles now and we would be there.

Outside Bukkapatnam, the bus passed a bullock cart laden with freshly picked peanuts. Our driver stopped and pointed to us, indicating that we were English. The farmer passed him a bunch of peanuts which he retrieved through the cab window. He kept some and thrust the rest in our direction through the security cage that separated the passengers from the driver.

Like monkeys we picked them up off the floor and began to shell the nuts.

“Just like old times!” Jenny remarked, alluding to a joke we shared of having been with Hanuman’s army of monkeys during the time of the Ramayana ten thousand years ago. Was Swami teasing us about our ‘monkey minds’?

“We haven't changed that much,” I replied, laughing. “What a welcome!”

Soon we entered Puttaparthi, driving past all the schools and colleges that Baba has had built, past the multi-coloured Sathya Sai Space Theatre and under the pink Vidyagiri welcome arch into the Bus Station. A young lad fetched our luggage down for a couple of Rupees and we began to walk the last few yards towards the ashram gates. Several porters offered to carry our luggage but we refused. It seemed appropriate that we should carry our own ‘excess baggage’ into the Lord’s mansion.

As we passed the Ganesha temple we noticed that all was very quiet inside the ashram. It was time for Baba’s afternoon darshan. Then, in the distance, I caught a glimpse of the familiar orange kafni.5 It was him for real! My heart leapt and I felt breathless. My superstar! I wanted to run towards him. Quietly dumping our luggage by the outer compound and discarding our shoes we scurried into the segregated darshan rows.

My Baba of many invisible dimensions, at last I saw him on the material plane. The final completion of a great inner Circle of Time, a soul’s odyssey through many lives was at an end. I felt a golden ray of love connecting my heart to his. Though I was right in the back row I took out a friend’s letter and offered it to him.

He walked by and I sent him all the love I could find in my heart. He turned and smiled in my direction. The sun was very bright and it dazzled me. It was as if his light shone so brightly that lesser mortals were obliged to shade their eyes to get a small glimpse of his glory.

(As I rewrote this passage at Woodend, several weeks later, Swami’s golden voice was heard on a tape of bhajans at the very moment the above sentence was written! Indeed, this whole book has been blessed throughout, with all manner of the most remarkable synchronicities).

After darshan we went to register our arrival. Strict segregation of the sexes is, for practical spiritual reasons, maintained throughout the ashram. Only married couples and families are allowed to stay together. As we were not legally married would we be allowed to share a private room or would we be put in the sheds? I had prayed to Baba and asked him to allow us the privacy of a room, toilet and washing facilities.

“Don't worry,” I had heard the Inner Sai reply. “You are my son and may be assured of all these things in your Father’s house. Don’t worry!”

Still, I had worried. In the questionnaire I stated my country of origin as Scotland as that was where Baba had guided me to make my new home.

“You are the first from Scotland,” the registration officer informed us. “As you are together you may have Room B3 in Roundhouse One.”

I breathed a sigh of thankful relief. Here was proof that what I had heard Baba tell me on the inner planes was real. Though I didn’t know it Swami’s intensive therapy and training course had already started.

We climbed up the stairway of the circular pink building and found our apartment. Dumping our bags in the front room, we swept and cleaned the floors and tried to make it as homely as possible. The toilet cistern was leaking and the basin was coming off its wall mounts. The apartment was severely austere by western standards but we did have our privacy, a double room, a bathroom with western style toilet, basin and shower and even a five-speed electric fan. And the window was meshed to protect us from mosquitoes. Despite the bare interior what luxury!

After some late shopping for mats, pillows and other comforts we found the canteen and discovered how the meal ticket system worked. The Canteen is a non-profit organization run by the Sri Sathya Sai Bhaktha Sahayak Sangh. It provides good, wholesome food at very reasonable prices. Most westerners chose the blander European style food. But I was more than happy to eat the hot, south Indian vegetarian raasam and sambar with rice which made me feel at home in my Asian motherland.

Soon it was nine o’clock and the lights began to go out across the ashram. I set my alarm to five thirty AM and slipped into my sleeping bag. Outside, I could hear the blessed bedtime lullaby of crickets happily chirping. I had returned home to the Lord!


The next morning I got up on time for morning darshan to discover that it had been put back one hour. Jenny felt this to be a special blessing as she had hoped for a lie-in to recover from our journey. I joined the mustering lines outside the Mandir6 compound.

Seva Dal volunteers were busy marshalling the male devotees into neat lines. At first, I found myself getting a little irritated by their brusque commands and had to remind myself constantly that this too was a test to endure to gain the Lord’s grace.

“There! Get into that line,” a Sikh Seva Dal wearing a turban directed me. A north American joined me and we got talking. I couldn’t help noticing his dark, psychic eyes. I told him that I was from Scotland and that, altogether, there were six of us in our small group.

“When Swami asks you how many you are tell him six,” the American replied. I wondered if he was relaying this information psychically from Baba. Then our line’s number was called and I found myself in the third row from the front, sitting on the sand in a cramped space.

The large Mandir building stood before me, looking rather like an iced wedding cake. Gold and silver traditional ‘Indian rococo’ ornamental domes and spires gleamed serenely in the morning Sun. Above the magnificent structure, three pastel tinted blue-and-gold domes with solid gold kalasams or stupas rose heavenwards.7 In the foreground was a circular bed of flowers protected by silver, wrought metal railing. Six flagpoles pointed towards the sky and in the centre lay a beautiful red, gold and blue statuette of Lord Ganesha, the remover of obstacles.

Then, onto the central gold kalasam, to the right of a seventh flagpole, flew an eagle. It sat like Garuda, grandly opening its wings and preening itself. Swami’s sentinel of Aquarius.

Just after half-past-seven a hush fell on the crowd. Baba’s familiar orange kafni appeared outside his private interview rooms to the right of the Mandir. Slowly, he began to make his way through the crowds. One or two got up and walked towards the Mandir as he called them. Finally, he approached my row. I offered him the letter and he took it. I stood with my hands together, making namaskar.8

My thinking mind began to seize up and I must have gone into a timeless dream.

“My Sweet Lord!” I blurted in hopeless adoration.

“Very happy! Very happy!” he replied. “Where are you from?”

“Scotland, Swami,” I answered.

“How many?”

“Six, Swami.”

“Come,” he beckoned, pointing towards the Interview Room.

Somehow I clambered onto my feet which were feeling quite weak by then and began to walk towards a line of devotees gathered outside the Mandir veranda. I was floating, not walking, in a dream, amazed at the apparent speed of events. Could this be possibly happening so soon? I knew deep inside that the heart connection had been made immediately between Cosmic Parent and child. Even so ...

Baba walked past me on the veranda before stopping to ask me, once more, how many there were in our group. Again I replied, “Six, Swami.” But the others were nowhere to be seen.

“Where are they?” he asked in a quizzical tone.

I gestured, vaguely, towards the crowds. “Out there, somewhere, Swami.”

I interpreted his tone of voice to mean that I should get up and summon the others. Not knowing quite what to do, I stood up and went outside to wave to the crowd. Jenny saw me and began to step forwards through the women’s rows.

“Come here, rowdy!” Baba shouted.

I nearly died on the spot. Was he really calling me a rowdy? Timidly, I rejoined the queue which had begun to enter the general Interview Room. Swami closed the door, turned on the lights and switched the electric fan to its fifth and highest speed. Then he walked into the corner of the room and sat down on a sumptuously upholstered maroon, velvet revolving chair. He looked across at me interrogatively, his eyebrows lifted.

“How long are you staying?”

“Two months,” I replied, then added, “...with Swami's permission.”

He raised his eyebrows again. Then he talked to the Indians in Hindi. Not understanding, all I could do was to listen to the music of his gentle voice as he spoke.

“Neti, neti ... I am not this body alone,” he emphasized in English, moving his hands animatedly. I was still in a dream, watching his dark eyes flash vivaciously, opening myself up to the experience of each moment. Everything was moving so fast. I watched every princely movement and gesture, trying to absorb each millisecond indelibly in my memory. How long, oh Lord! What a long road it had been to find you in this brief moment in time. I pray that I will never forget it. Not in this life nor in any other!

He ushered the Indians into a private Interview Room and left the rest of us waiting outside. By his upholstered seat I noticed several clocks. On all of them the time was coming up to eight.

Eight ... infinity and integration. I set the alarm on my watch to Swami’s time. As the hour hand reached eight and all the clocks began chiming, my own Shivas watch began to joyfully play ‘The Bluebells of Scotland’. It had guided me to Scotland and, then, to the Lord. I grinned at Jenny.

The Indian group filed out. Swami put his head through the door and called us. Once inside, I requested padanamaskar — permission to kiss the Lord’s lotus feet. Baba answered, “Yes, you may.”

I knelt down before him, gently raised the golden hem of his kafni to behold his graceful feet. The toes were gracefully set apart and each toenail was carefully manicured. A faint scent of lotus blossom seemed to emanate from the light brown skin. Kissing the feet very softly, I lay my forehead against them. To see the Lord (darshan), to touch the Lord (sparshan) and to talk with the Lord (samburshan) is said to remove karma and to bestow countless blessings upon the recipient.

I could have left my forehead rest on his feet for eternity! Baba tapped me gently on the back. Already, I could sense a great liberation take place within my innermost being.

“Tomorrow, I will interview all your group,” he assured us. “Please tell them.”

I asked him whether our group should wear a special scarf as identification. “That's not necessary,” Baba replied before ushering us out into the general Interview Room.

There he began to give us all small, hermetically sealed packs of vibhuti from a red, plastic shopping bag.

“Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full sir!” he sang to himself as he handed out the vibhuti. Now I knew that the universe had been created by a loving, humorous God.

Then quite unexpectedly, he called me over to his seat. Clumsily, I stumbled across the others and kneeled before the Lord. He asked me to stand up and, with a swift, circular movement of the right hand, slipped a ring onto my finger. I gasped with amazement. On the ring was a golden likeness of the Lord surrounded in black.

“Who is that?” he teased, pointing to the face on the ring he had just materialized.

I stared, paused and blurted, “Baba!”

“Baba!” Swami repeated, chuckling.

“My Mother and Father,” I exclaimed, feeling just like a little child lost in the wonder of Merlin’s cave. Though he had instructed me not to remove the ring I had to transfer it to my left hand as it was too large for my right hand ring finger.

I explained this to Baba and he replied, “Yes, yes. Next time, I’ll fix it.”

Then he took my left hand in his and squeezed it intimately. Without thinking, I covered Baba’s with my other hand warmly. For an everlasting moment of unconditional love — a love beyond all rhyme or reason — we stood there together, Parent and Child. My Mother! My Father! After eternity I had returned to him!

He ushered our group out into the daylight and I floated in samadhi9 across the sand, still in a heavenly dream.


Several people clustered around me to get a view of the ring. They asked to touch it and to hold it against their foreheads. I found all this very embarrassing and found myself struggling to understand what was happening.

“Wake up!” a westerner shouted and jabbed me rudely on the shoulder. I felt shaken by the competitive, rough-and-tumble world into which I had unwillingly returned. The truth was I didn’t want to wake up!

Suddenly, Baba’s unexpected gift of the ring had turned me into some sort of personality around Prashanti. Now just watch your ego, I told myself, not knowing how to behave in this new role that Baba had appeared to have conferred upon me. Maybe this was some kind of test ...

As I walked out of the Mandir compound I noticed some beautifully painted signs whose purpose it was to give devotees spiritual advice as they passed by them. In the synchronicity of the moment, I became aware that the one that had attracted my attention advised me to discard all bad habits from that day on!

At breakfast, I met Paul and Mala and their two children, and told them that Swami had promised to interview our Scottish group, as well as Charles and Heather Murphy, the next day. Though resident in Australia, Charles was an expatriate Glaswegian. He and his New Zealander wife had sold their house and belongings and bought a 52-foot ketch which lay anchored in Sydney harbour. They planned to create a floating Sai centre in which they would sail the oceans, visiting 108 ports to create a ‘floating japamala’ around the Planet.

I told them about our plans to buy Woodend and to create a place of healing there. I showed them the photos I had brought to give to Swami. That evening, we all climbed up to the kalpavriksham, wish-fulfilling tree, which stands above a huge rock overlooking the Chitravarthi river and Prashanti Valley.

Up by the tamarind tree all was peace as the gentle evening breezes blew inland from the east. Inside a little cave, below the tree, a caretaker priest went about his sacred duties, humming gently to himself. It was a perfect, serene ending to a day amongst all days.

As dusk approached the valley we made our way back down the hill back into the crowded streets of Puttaparthi. The lights of the busy town twinkled cheerfully.

“Very happy! Very happy!” I could still hear him say ...


© RW 1989