Chapter XX: EPIPHANY


“All prayers arising from pure love, unselfish eagerness to render service and from hearts that are all-inclusive will reach God. For God is the very embodiment of Love. God who is Love can be realized only through Love. Love is God. Live in Love.”

BABA, 21 December 1987.


The next morning Swami interviewed a Latin American group and turned back two Mexicans. When I tried to ask them what had happened they dismissed me angrily. One was in the choir in which I sang. I felt hurt by his offensive behaviour. Maybe this was ‘instant karma’ for my own unpleasant behaviour towards Jenny the night before? There was an unsettled atmosphere in the ashram just before Christmas and living there had become a trial of determination and faith.

Outside I bought a packet of cigarettes and smoked one. Something I hadn’t done for a long while. Two women with children came up and begged for money. I gave them some coins. Their impoverished condition reminded me how the bliss of my early days at Prashanti seemed to have vanished into thin air. As I drew hard on the cigarette and the nicotine entered my bloodstream the atmosphere around me turned increasingly heavy and unpleasant. I stubbed it out in the dust and returned to our room for a shower.

That afternoon, I prayed at the Ganesha temple to ask that my problems with ego and personality should be resolved.

Never had I felt so alone during my stay in India as I did now. I had alienated myself from Jenny and become infatuated with a stranger against my better judgement. I felt helpless. During afternoon darshan I had found myself in the second row —something that had become, for me, a rare privilege.

But, as he walked towards me, Swami carefully moved away in a semicircle from where I sat. I felt hurt at this action and began to tire of the mysterious game he seemed to be playing with me. In every instance I felt I had behaved honestly and openly with him and this was my reward! Who needs it? I thought. Life hadn’t changed really. There were the same old problems in the same grey world where Murphy’s Law prevailed.

I fell deeper into depression. Was Swami testing my devotion? These tests could go on forever! Then and there, I decided to stop competing for his favours. My devotion was scattered about me and I felt numb to my surroundings.

No longer was I sure that Swami was really the Avathar I had come looking for. Again the nagging thought crept into my mind that I had thrown away my meagre savings on a quixotic journey in search of a guru. The thing I had vowed never to do. I could not trust my inner experiences any longer. Maybe I had simply done a good job in fooling myself about the whole trip.

That afternoon, Swami had given a special darshan to the westerners, treating us all to strawberry ice-cream. Whatever I felt about his being an Avathar the gesture was very touching. After blessing each box the ices were passed round the lines.

Christmas at Prashanti is a time of spirituality and has none of the commercial trappings that it has elsewhere. So, in consideration, Baba gave the westerners this little treat. He came out to begin his inspection of the crowd, looking very motherly and indulging himself in our pleasure. At last, I was learning just to be at Prashanti without hoping or expecting anything.


In the street, Oblama, the little flower-girl who I had ‘adopted’ ran up to me. I started to tease her by bargaining for the flowers. She was all smiles when I asked her to come home as my daughter.

“How much for the flowers?” I asked.

“Two rupees!” she replied with an eager-to-please flash of white teeth.

The jasmine garlands had been carefully threaded together. All that work for a few pennies. Then another girl ran up to join her, pretending to be her sister.

“No, you’re not her sister,” I said, pulling a long face. “And, anyway, I only buy flowers from my little girl here!”

“Friends,” the other little one replied, grinning all over her face. By now a woman had joined the group and smiled at the banter. I gave Oblama two rupees and told her that I would pick up the flowers the next day.


It was Christmas Eve. Before morning darshan I stopped to read the Thought for the Day:

“We are true Christians only when we live according to the teachings of Christ and practise them in daily life. Even if we follow two teachings of his that would be enough. Christ said, ‘All life is one, my dear Son! Be alike to everyone.’ If we truly follow this it would be enough to fulfil our destiny. When he was on the cross and overcome with agony an unseen voice said from Heaven, ‘Death is the dress of Life, Death is an event that is the very nature of the body.’ Men seek the cause for death but no one seeks the Source of Life. Be engaged during the brief sojourn of life in glorifying God and in doing God’s work."

BABA.”

I thought of all the hectic times I had spent in Prashanti during the previous three weeks. I had taken with me a book called Death, the Great Adventure1 which was a collection of writings given to Alice Bailey. Although I had not once opened its pages while in the ashram it seemed that I had been put through many little deaths during the time I had been with Swami.

Once more, I found myself asking if this man was really he who he proclaimed himself to be. Or was he just another guru who many Indians had chosen to deify? If he was the Avathar I really needed a sign that would remove my doubts. Though it seemed that my life had changed since I had come to know of Baba could I be certain that all this had been no more than a trick of the mind? I was still stuck in the trap of duality.

That afternoon I tried yet again to contact the airline office in Bombay to change my seat. After another frustrating time at the Post Office I gave up and went to my room for a siesta. As I drifted off to sleep there was a knock on the door. A telegram had arrived from Bombay confirming that I had a seat on a ‘plane to return on 3 January.

A little miracle! At least I could leave on the twenty eighth, stay a few days in Bangalore, and then start the journey back. One less worry. I still hoped that Swami would allow me one last interview before I left. Maybe then I could ask him to materialize something as a blessing for my son?

That afternoon we sang carols as well as bhajans. The rain poured down and soaked everyone to the skin. Though my head still questioned Baba’s Avatharhood my heart did not. Despite the weather it was a real pleasure to be able to express love in this way in our own language and I found myself singing extra-loud to make up for those who were not so well-acquainted with the English carols.

Baba came out into the rain and beat time to the rhythm, swaying from one foot to the other as we sang Gloria in Excelsis Deo. Suddenly I began to think of home, the snow, the Christmas tinsel and to my surprise the old movies we see over and over during the festive season. Already, I could feel myself preparing to go back.


We all awoke early on Christmas Day for the candle-light nagarsankirtan around the ashram to the Mandir. At five AM it was still chilly and I didn’t feel good about walking barefoot as I very easily became ill that way. Everyone seemed to be in a grumpy mood and I was no exception. Finally, our section moved off towards the Ganesha temple and then around the ashram and finally to the Mandir. As it was a festival, six flags flew before the Mandir that day. About five thirty AM, Swami appeared, his arms folded behind him.

He stood on the balcony and listened to our songs. Singing my heart out I looked directly at him.

Shalom Chaverim, Shalom Chaverim,
Shalom, Shalom!

Lehitra’ot, Lehitra’ot,
Shalom, Shalom!

The Hebrew tune seemed to remind me of an older time, another civilization when something like this had happened and the Lord’s glory was proclaimed. Then, Baba waved and it was over. Returning to my room to wash my feet I felt a chill coming on.

Feverishly, I got back into the sleeping-bag for another hour’s sleep before darshan. That day, the crowds were the largest I had seen while at the ashram. When Baba appeared, the Sathya Sai College band began to play Come All Ye Faithful, Mary’s Boy Child and other popular Christmas songs.

Again I sang loud and clear. Others looked to see who it was but I felt so joyful to be here on Christmas Day, remembering all those other Christmases as a child when, with my sisters, I would sing hymns around the family piano which my mother had played. Always, tears came into my eyes when we had sung like that together as if deep down inside me I knew that there would be difficult times for my family.

After darshan I staggered back to sleep some more before Swami’s big Poornachandra speech in the afternoon. Outside the Poornachandra building, I sat in the Sun, trying to dry out my cold. The huge hall began to fill up and it began to get hot and stuffy and, to my relief, the side shutters were opened to let cool air inside. How ironic that it should be so hot and that I had a high temperature! This was my test and I was determined to see it through. Almost two hours later, Baba appeared and the proceedings went on for a total of 4 hours — a real challenge for the westerners who were mostly unaccustomed to sitting lotus-fashion for such long periods.

Al Drucker — the pilot who Baba had saved from certain death — presented his latest work to Bhagavan. This was followed by some poetry readings which pleased Swami immensely. Finally, the learned esoteric scholar and writer, Howard Murphet, walked onstage to make a brief speech on the true meaning of Christmas. By the time Baba began his discourse my strength and attention had begun to flag severely.

The whole experience had turned into an unremitting assault on my senses. Soon I found myself unable to listen anymore, nodding off with fatigue, only to wake into a hallucinatory state. If this were God why did everything proceed so noisily? Finally, culture shock slammed into me. All this felt so alien.

I stared at Baba who stood in front of a huge rainbow backdrop. Before him was a wooden podium on which were carved two swastikas. For a moment I forgot their sanskrit meaning and found myself transported back to darker times. How strange, I thought, that the Avathar should remind me of a Nüremburg rally? Perhaps this was finally some karma to be repaid from a past life. Was that why I was having to experience this disturbing hallucination or should I have stayed in bed?

The discourse ended and we began our carols. This had been the only reason I had managed to soldier on, to sing to my Baba. It didn’t matter if he wasn’t an Avathar and I had fooled myself. I just loved him anyway, beyond reason. Never mind all the bad hallucinations.

But things had gone overtime and Baba soon left the stage and the Aarthi song began. Leaving the Poornachandra, I headed straight for my sleeping bag ... only to walk into another unpleasant row with Jenny. God, what an awful day! I took some more sleeping tablets and headed for the exit from this personal hell. I had nearly run out of time.

After darshan on Boxing Day, I took Swami another letter to Public Relations where I had seen a pigeon-hole labelled ‘Letters for Bhagavan’. There I was directed to Kotumbarao who was the chief administrator of the ashram.

“Mr Rao, I am leaving the ashram on Monday and wish to give Baba this letter. Will you take it to him?”

“But you should give it to him, yourself, during darshan,” he replied. “That is the custom here if you wish to give Swami a letter.”

“I am leaving soon and I need to ask him for a final interview before going away,” I repeated in as determined a manner as I could muster.

“Oh! Why didn’t you tell me before?” he replied. “You want to sit in the front line at darshan?”

Feeling happy and embarrassed at the same time, I thanked him profusely and walked off clutching the chit giving me permission “to sit in a conspicuous position”. Tomorrow I would be in the front line.


With two other friends we hired three old bicycles and cycled out of the town that evening. It felt good to get out of the busy circus for a while, to coast down the country roads and enjoy the beauty of the Valley which reminded me of my childhood in Asia.

We passed groups of villagers on their way home from a day’s work. We smiled and waved and they waved back.

“Sai Ram! Sai Ram!” we greeted each other.


Sai Geetha

We passed Sai Geetha, Baba’s pet elephant, who was returning from her evening constitutional. I supposed that the sight of three Europeans on bicycles out in the country was quite unusual. It felt so good to be among these friendly country people.

The sun shone on the hills all around us and, for the first time in many days, I felt happy and carefree again. After cycling several miles out of Puttaparthi we decided to turn back home. Soon, the sun began to lower into the west and the whole sky began to glow. Delicate rays of silver and gold streaked over the hills in a soft light play.

We sped back as fast as our legs would carry us for dusk was falling over the valley and the stars began to twinkle over India.


That night I returned to an empty room and lay thinking about all that had happened. How much had changed since first entering the ashram! It had become such a heavy place for me. I seemed to feel happier outside now. Obviously it was time for me to head back home.

Maybe the processing which Swami had put me through in the last month was now over for a while. But, being in that empty room, I began to experience the kind of loneliness that I had gone through after the breakdown of my marriage. It seemed that my whole life had changed since we had left Scotland.

On the journey south I had felt that nothing was ever to be the same again. Now I began to see why. Everything had been stripped away from me. My life felt as if it balanced on the edge of more turmoil. I was alone inside a cell of hard, cold walls with nothing but these empty feelings. It was late. Perhaps Jenny had decided to stay elsewhere with friends.

Suddenly, I felt like a small, lonely child, remembering all the times when I had desperately needed the love of parents who were not around to provide it. I gasped for air as great knots of pain convulsed out of me. And then, in desperation, I turned to the God whom I had always known and never doubted.

“My God whom I know so well. You have never forsaken me or left me unconsoled. If You and Baba are One and the same will You please give me a sign before I leave this place for home? Do not send me into a world of doubt. Let me know the truth which is more important than any other thing I have sought throughout this life.”

And, then, as an afterthought, I added, “Tomorrow is my son’s birthday. Let Baba interview me so that I can ask him to materialize a gift for my son. If he is really God then he will not let me leave Prashanti feeling lonely, ignored and confused. God, please answer your child’s prayer!”

And, having prayed, I fell asleep.


At morning darshan I gave the Seva Dal my authorization chit. “You must go to the other line there,” he pointed to a small queue forming at a side entrance to the left of the Mandir compound. Soon, I was being ushered into the inner compound where a line of demarcation had been drawn in the sand where the first row was to sit. As I sat down, I noticed that there were no other westerners present. Then a German man and his son squeezed into our row. We were all like sardines by now but the important thing was to be there when Swami walked past.

At about seven-fifteen he appeared and I crossed myself once more. Would he listen to my appeals? As he walked towards me I summoned up all my courage and spoke.

“Swami, I am going back to Scotland tomorrow. Please give me another interview.” I begged.

He ignored me and walked by.

Desperately, I called after him, “Swami, today is my son’s birthday...”

But he just walked by. Refusing to acknowledge my appeals with the smallest sign it seemed that he had cast me into the wilderness.

That afternoon, I shared my feelings with Charles and Heather. In Britain, I had been so close to Swami. How ironic, then, that I should have travelled all those thousands of miles to be confronted with doubts and disillusionment! I went through all my arguments with them.

If he was God why did he treat his devotees like that? Why did he put us on a cross and leave us at the very moment when we needed him most? No. He couldn’t be God. I had never stopped believing in the incorporeal God whose Spirit is in everything. But, as for Baba, maybe he was just fooling everyone including himself ...

Or maybe he did practise some subtle, dark magic to make us believe the illusion?

By that time I had tried Charles’ patience to its limits. Heather couldn’t believe what I had said. What a thoroughly ungrateful attitude for one who had been so blessed and had been given four interviews in as many weeks!

“All right. If you feel like that why don’t you throw away the ring he has given you?” Charles replied, pointing to the golden ring I still wore on my finger. “And throw away the lingam as well!” he added.

It was my turn to be horrified. “But I couldn’t do that!” I replied. “No I couldn’t. Even if a little child had given me them as a gift I wouldn’t just throw them away. It would be unfeeling and disrespectful.”

But what he had proposed was, indeed, true enough. If I could no longer believe or accept Swami as the Divine then I had no right to wear the ring or to be the guardian of the lingam.

“I guess I’m having to leave Prashanti with all my doubts and confusion,” I replied and took my leave.

Baba seemed to be giving negative signs when my prayers had asked for positive ones. Now it didn’t matter about interviews. If only I could be given a positive sign! But then, maybe he was the opposite of God? Maybe that was why I received all these negative signs? Maybe he was the Rex Mundi after all, the Cathars’ Lord of Darkness who controlled the material universe?

I had come to Prashanti for help and consolation, to find the answers to all my questions and to obtain inner peace. Instead, I was having to leave with even my faith shattered. Having come to find peace, Baba was sending me away in pieces! A loving God would surely not do such a thing.

I decided that I had to be brave. I had to return the ring and the lingam. If Baba were to give me an interview that was what I would have to do. It would be dishonest and undignified to pretend it were otherwise. Integrity counted more than these material objects. Once more, I returned to Kotumbarao and asked for another chit authorizing me to sit at the front in darshan.

“We can only do so much,” he explained. “I can get you as far as the front darshan line. After that only Baba decides!”

He wrote me out another chit.

Putting the lingam in my pocket I walked towards the small queue which had formed already. Then inside the compound I joined the other Indians who had arranged themselves in a line where the front row was marked out in the sand. Putting my mat down by a young man I sat down, noticing that I was the only westerner in the front line.

I had noticed this young man who I had seen in the ashram over the past few days.

“You were in the front row this morning,” I said.

“Yes, I came here with my mother from Bombay and I’m hoping that Swami will allow us a family interview. My name is Rajeev,” he replied introducing himself.

I told him my troubles and why I had come to the front line.

“I’ll pray for you!” he replied.

Then Rajeev began telling me an unusual story. I listened carefully because there was something for me to learn it seemed.

“When I was nine years old my father died, leaving me the son and heir at such a young age. I became the head of the household. Then, one day, Baba visited Bombay. Many thousands flocked to see him. Without any prior warning — quite unexpectedly — Swami came to our house! I couldn’t believe it! He gave me advice that even though I was so young I was now the man in the house and should behave responsibly.

“Now, imagine the odds against such a thing happening,” Rajeev exclaimed. “Out of all the thousands who had flocked to see him, out of the many millions who live in Bombay, he should have chosen to come to our house to remind a nine-year-old of his family duties!”

By now the customary hush had descended over the waiting crowds. The familiar screech of an eagle sounded over the Mandir to be lost in the silence as Baba’s orange kafni appeared in the veranda opposite the men’s section. As always, he walked towards the women’s rows to move up and down through the serried lines they had formed, joking with one, talking to another and materializing vibhuti with a swift, circular motion of his theurgic hand.

Was it simply my mounting impatience or was he taking much longer over the women than usual? I didn’t relish what I had made up my mind to do and, if my heart beat hard, it was with trepidation.

As he walked towards the men, I fumbled in my pocket for the lingam and took it out. Pulling the ring off my finger I put both in the palms of my hands, holding them closed as if in prayer. As he walked towards me I held the palms open as if offering him the objects in supplication. All of a sudden there he was. Standing before me.

For once, Baba had stopped before me. If I had wanted I could have reached out to touch his feet or have attempted to kiss them for one last time. I could have begged for one last interview — the interview for which I had craved and worked so hard. Or I could have sent him my love and said goodbye.

In that timeless moment I found I could do none of these things. As he stood before me all I could feel was intense hurt at the way he had abandoned me after a precious few times together. Pride and anger and hurt welled up inside me. I wanted to say, “Baba, please take these objects back. You have rejected me too often. I have lost faith that you are the Avathar for whom I feel I have waited for so long, through so many lives. You have played a game with me and I don’t feel like playing any longer. I cannot believe in you anymore. So please take back what you have given me!”

But I was afraid to speak with such disrespect. So I twisted the truth and, in my duplicity, I muttered, “Swami, I am unworthy of your gifts!”

He looked at me for a moment. A half smile played, very briefly, on his lips as I sat there, not daring to look straight at him as I had always done. What did he think, what did he feel? Could he sense my desolation? Could he know how deeply I had really loved him through so many lives? Could he know?

Would lightning descend from the sky and destroy me, reducing this body to ashes, for having dared to think and do what I had done? But nothing happened. Swami just smiled and walked away. He hadn’t even taken back the ring and lingam.

“I think it means he wants you to keep them,” Rajeev said, breaking into the empty moment in which I found myself suspended.

“Yes, I suppose he does,” I replied.

What a fool I had been. For days I had prayed, written letters, and begged authorization chits just to get to the front row to crave a few more moments with the one I had loved. That love had gone sour and now I had blown all my chances goodbye.

“You’re a fool,” I told myself. “How do you manage to mess up your life over and over? How is it that you are so good at rejecting what has been offered you? Will you ever learn or are you a no-hoper as your entire life reflects? What a fool you have been!”

I thought of the long and winding road I had walked to Baba’s feet. That road seemed to have taken me more than one life. It had been many lives. Almost eternity. And then, I had turned away from him in anger. Like Cain I had cast the first stone. Not at my brother ... at myself.

Now I would have to leave Prashanti as I had arrived. A sinner who continued to sin against all creation, to die on a lonely cross in an unforgiving world.

... And then he answered me. In the darkest moment of my having lost all he revealed to me the meaning of my life. I received a sign.

As I walked back into the thoroughfare by the ashram canteen a young girl handed me a leaflet. Absent-mindedly I took it, glancing at the green print. It was a poem, with the five-petalled Sarvadharma sign over it, called Aura of Rainbows. The same Rainbow which had brought me to Baba in the Hopi Year of the Rainbow Dreams.


AURA OF RAINBOWS

A rainbow-coloured, beautiful stream
Flowing out from Prashanti Nilayam,
Gently sparkling and radiating
A river of coloured ribbons.

Shades of blue, green and yellow,
Orange, red and white —
A stream of multi-coloured ribbons,
The spectrum rays of the Sun.

An aura of rainbows, emanating Love and Joy,
Enveloping the people and the cities —
The positive emotions of the people
Uplifting the community of the world.

Free from fear, anger and hatred,
To dispel the darkness and despair
From the trouble spots of the Earth —
Bathed in an Aura of Rainbows.

The words flew, like doves from the Ark, straight into my heart. It was his epiphany. Here it was, the Sign I had asked for. The Rainbow. The living proof of Light made by God as a visual sign of his Promise to all living creatures on this Planet.

The Rainbow of Aquarius!

I stood in the middle of the crowds, transfigured by his light. God had given me the sign I had prayed for. My eyes returned to the poem and raced across the page. Below the poem was a dedication: ‘Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba’s 62nd Birthday, 23rd November, 1987.’ But the name, ‘Bhagavan’ had been mis-spelt ‘Bhayan’ and corrected, by hand, with red ink.

I thought of Ayaan, the mystery horse that had won the Calcutta Cup races. Above the spelling error the red ‘Bhagavan’ stood out in contrast to the green which surrounded it. I knew that this was meant to tell me that the poem had really come to me from Bhagavan Baba!

It was no error at all. Through this little slip of an unknown hand I was to understand that Baba was everywhere and in everything — the Lord of All who had revealed himself in Light to me both on the fourth and on the third dimensions. The synchronicity of this poem having been put into my hands in the moment of my deepest darkness and despair, when my faith was in shreds, was, of course, perfect.

The Rainbow was Baba's gift. Out of all the others he had chosen to reveal this to me at that very moment. Just as he had visited Rajeev —the nine year old child— out of the many millions in Bombay. Although he had appeared to ignore me, all the time he had been preparing me for this moment of Awakening when this poem fell into my hands.

“Imagine the odds against such a thing happening!” I heard Rajeev’s voice still echoing in my ears. My eyes scanned the leaflet. Who had written the poem? Where had it been published?

Then I saw — at the very bottom in miniscule print — ‘Star Press Ltd., Maradana’.

My heart fluttered.

Maradana?

Yes, there it was ... ‘Star Press Ltd., Maradana’. I knew where Maradana was. It was as if the poem in my hands had been conceived and written up among the stars. That it had descended as a rainbow-light to a place on the Planet named Maradana where it had been borne into the world ...

... As I was born, just over forty years before that poem, at the Alexandra Nursing Home, De Saram Place, Maradana, Colombo!

Of course!

This could only be Baba telling me that he knew everything about me.

“Remember why you came here, my Child,” I heard him say within me. “Remember the Trees of Light I asked you to grow. Trees that would grow into forests until all the Earth is bathed in their Light — the Light of a New Age!”

“Yes, it’s all true my Child. It’s real because you all dreamed it awake. You are all of that Spirit whose Dream is now about to come true ... the Spirit that Dreams within you!”

I remembered being taken back in time to a darker world when Europe was overcome by hate and fear and destruction. Again, I saw a frightened airman peering out of the glass nose of a metal bird whose broad wings tossed and bounced over a turbulent, red sky. Below, a city burned, like a dying soul in the night. I sensed the ‘plane sliding out of the sky, crippled by anti-aircraft fire and strafer bullets, spinning into its death dive. The pilot desperately tried to control it. To do the impossible. To keep flying.

Spiralling down on wings shredding themselves down into stubs the broken bird returned to Valhalla somewhere in Kent, reducing the buildings that received its exploding impact into a fiery grave of dust and rubble.

Then I remembered a Place of Light into which that airman — now free of his earthly body — rose in pure consciousness. Once more I saw him in the classes of learning to which he and many, many others were attracted to learn their group purpose before the next incarnation.

Again, I heard God’s promise. That the dream of an Age where Love, Peace and Harmony would rule — the dream of a new Golden Age — was now about to come true for all life. We were to go back to the Planet and prepare for our life-purpose as Aquarians.

I recalled the airman’s fear of making the return. How the Lord Sathya Sai had literally taken him over and spoken through him.

“Why fear? You know I am always with you.”

Then, across the reluctant warrior’s breast he drew a Cross of White Light and renamed him, in old Norse, ‘Fame Spear’.

And then I heard him tell this one, “Go, Knight. And help change Night into Day!”

I saw this one’s spirit return in the body of a child borne back into the gravitational pull of the Earth Mother. Back into the dream of Gaia. To be reborn, blue in colour and a little late, a fragile time-capsule to awake into the Earth’s dimensions, below the Seventh Parallel, at a place named Maradana, Colombo, Ceylon...

The year was 1947. Now, forty years on, at Prashanti with the Lord on the third dimension, I heard his voice speak from an Aura of Rainbows, asking his devotee to return into the world “and help change Night into Day.”

“Yes, my Child, it’s all real,” the Lord continued. “It was only your doubt that stopped you from believing, more fully, in your dream. For your dream is also Mine. As you too are my Dream. That is why I asked you all to return here to do my work. For my work is also yours. You and I are the same Spirit that has entered the field of this Planet.”

“I keep urging you to go beyond the illusion of separation. And what else but doubt and your ego keeps you imprisoned? What else keeps you from seeing beyond into the greatness of my Being? What else, my child, has kept you from grasping the many chances I give you? I keep showering them upon you as if it were Christmas every day!”

“Why do you think it has taken you so long to return to your Parent, Mother-Father? And even when you made that happy return what else kept you so miserable? Was it not doubt, my Child? The doubt which I once told you is death? What else separates you from the Lord and casts a spell of helplessness over you? What saps your self-confidence and erodes your self-discipline?

“In your prayers of desperation you asked me for a sign before you left Prashanti. I have watched over you as you travelled, once more, through the darkness of the soul. I have watched and waited for the right moment. Well, here it is. Now will you believe me? Will you believe that, despite appearances, I am always with you? That I know everything about you? Your past, your present, your future?

“Now, will you accept this gift that is beyond all time and space, will you take this rainbow and the great thought of Light contained therein? Will you understand that I have kept my promise to all my beloved Children on this Planet? Will you make it yours to shine its light on the world so that through the many rainbow colours I send out from Prashanti Nilayam this Planet may ascend from darkness into the Light? Take it, my child. Take my Light with you wherever you may go!”

My heart swooped into the heavens with joy as I found myself ascending into that Light. How perfect that, in the Year of the Rainbow Dreams, the Lord should have merged his Aura and removed the layers of darkness that had separated us from him! That a group of Sri Lankan devotees should have brought their Aura of Rainbows to Prashanti to help heal a long-lost compatriot...

From the Land of Serendipity, so close to my heart, had come this gift of perfect Love and Light. How often had I felt the sorrow of that unhappy little land, going through the birth-pangs of its own awakening. Now, Swami’s devotees had brought to me, from Lanka, the greatest gift of all. The gift of the Promise.

Of course, it was all Baba’s doing. How could I doubt it now? Through his healing Light my dream of the returning Dawn came alive. Burning, burning away all the dross. All the dark nights when we fell in despair, cut down by the long knives of our other aspects — children who had not yet awoken. Burning, burning.

Burning came the Dawn when an Indian warrior-shaman sat waiting and watching for the long-awaited day when all the children would awake to the Spirit that Dreams Within Us.

And here it was at last. The Year of the Rainbow Dreams, when Etenoha, the Earth Mother, and all that lived within her realm, on her dimensions, would begin the great awakening. In this Year the Lord opened my eyes to those dimensions, streaming and flowing into the One Reality.

And yet my rational mind demanded an explanation. Could this Maradana be another place similarly named? Maybe a place in India? I turned to a middle aged Indian who happened to be walking past.

“Excuse me. Do you know of a place, in India, with this name?” I asked, pointing to the miniscule green print.

He looked closely and shook his head. “No, I have never heard of it. I don’t think that’s in India,” he smiled.

This was surely one of Baba’s leelas? A gift of understanding given to me at the very moment of the child’s despair. Now, Bhagavan stood above me, glowing in a new and vaster light. It was as if he had called me up to a huge Christmas tree and, with a wave of the hand, had astounded me with a most profound insight into life’s matrix.

But it was no trick or sleight of hand. It was Reality.

“Remember the Rainbow Dreams,” he seemed to be saying and, as he lifted away the veil of forgetfullness, I recalled a great Chief called Wakan Tanka, his shining head-dress of feathers flowing to the Earth below. Those were other lives, other times which had, in this moment of knowing, all woven themselves into a great, multidimensional tapestry of Light beyond all limitations.

“Many of you had to go through several dark lives in order to get here, to this time now. During that long, great Night all you had was your faith and the inner knowledge that, one day, the Dawn would light up the Earth. Now that Dawn is here. I am the Bringer of the Dawn. I came this way before. I am that Dawn that once seemed so far away. Do you remember me now?”

“You are each aspects of my Rainbow Light which shines ever stronger and, through your love, my Light will shine. My Rainbow glows in your eyes and it will be seen and recognized by others. Don’t forget, dear Child, who you are and why you have returned!”

My yearning to come to the Lord’s feet in Prashanti in the Year of the Rainbow Dreams was fulfilled. Only four months before I had sat in the Shrine Room at Woodend, waiting for the Sun to rise on the Day of Harmonic Convergence when the Thunderbird was to fly across the Planet and begin to dream the dream alive.

But I had fallen into a night of separation and weakness. Anger, ego, insecurity and doubt had overtaken me to form a wall between the Lord and my frail being. My boat had been swamped in a wave of desperation and had capsized in a sea of sangsara. And, as I gasped my last and sank into its swirling depths, he reached down into the murk and saved me. Here was the loving Parent whose ‘Always, always,’ I had so often heard as he had walked past me in darshan. But the ‘Always’ that I had given back was not unconditional and had turned out to be more like ‘Sometimes’!

Now, Baba had given me a powerful jog which shot to the core of my being. For a few seconds I had been given a glimpse of a much greater Reality. He had lifted away the Maya and duality to give me a fleeting glimpse of immortality.

Then, brushing Your arms with my wings, I saw
the Goddess shining in that Blue Moment, offering
me a deep, diving Heaven
Healing my dark memories with Love so that my wings
Might bear me, once more, into the Starry December night!

My falcon flew free, free from its cage of despair. At last I saw the way out of chaos and into freedom.

And, as I climb away: silently, silently,
As I climb away,
Into my sharp vision is borne
The faint flicker of a hoary Dawn
Awakening below the Night’s blue horizon.

And in this vibrant freedom regain’d
thank the Golden One whose
Arms gave me my Flight to bank and swoop
Once more toward the promise of a glowing Morn...

Sri Sathya Sai Baba. Divine Mother-Father. The lord who dreams within us, who dreams us all.


It was the last evening of my stay in the ashram. Once more, Paul, Tony and I hired three ancient bicycles and set out on the Anantapur road. But, instead of cycling as far as we had the previous day, we turned off into a little village, riding down little alley-ways, chased by excited children whooping exuberantly, steering dangerously past chickens clucking frantically before oncoming bicycle wheels.

Bemused adults stood watching it all.

“Sai Ram! Sai Ram!” the little ones shouted. A joyful memory of rural India to take back and treasure in the material world to which I would return. But return though I would, I knew deep down, that nothing would ever be the same again.

At last, tired and thirsty, we returned to the lights of Puttaparthi.


The final morning arrived. At darshan I found myself in the very last row of a sea of shining faces. From there I had no expectation of Baba noticing me. As he walked by I watched for a sign. But there was none. Not even a smile or a wave of his palm. But I was no longer concerned with the outward signs or the apparent distance between us. Swami had given me a much greater gift and I knew that he was always with me.

“Always! Always!” I heard him speak so very clearly from within me. “Now you know that I never forsake you. Even when I don’t seem to be looking at you I know where you are and what you are experiencing. You do know that now, don’t you? Are you quite sure? Do you want me to turn the volume up?”

Then, as if an internal radio had been turned up so that it blared inside me, I heard his voice continue. “Is that loud enough? Now do you see what I mean when I say I am always with you? Don’t you see that it can only be so because I Am within you. That I AM you?”

Thus saying, he turned the volume down to a more tolerable level. Swami had given me my final leela before setting me on the path out of Prashanti Nilayam back into the world.

Once before, during a past-life experience, he had told me, “Each one of you is guided and protected. None of you are alone.”

“Know that loneliness is just the illusion — that, within you, you carry the truth. That it can’t go away when you home into it whenever you wish or need to. In time, as your work becomes clearer, so you will home in more clearly. It is necessary for you to listen in because, through you, my Plan is served. How can you fear when you know that I am always with you?”

“Be gallant, be gentle. Always speak from the heart. Always search for the Truth within yourself, in the heart. For there you will find me whenever you should need me. Now go and join with all the others. Prepare for the Day that comes!”

Again, I was reborn. And. as if to confirm his nearness, Baba’s thought for the day told the ashramites that it was,

“unnecessary to go round the world searching for God. God is in search of the genuine devotee. The devotee who is conscious of the omnipresence of God will find Him everywhere. He must have the firm conviction that there is no place where God is not present. That is the real mark of devotion. Meditation and prayer have value as of purifying oneself. But they do not lead to God-realization. Unwavering faith in God grants inexpressible Bliss. One should not give way to doubts which undermine faith.

BABA, 28 December 1987.”

At Prashanti, I had become attached to Baba’s form, delighting in the attention he had showered upon me. Those moments had brought me bliss. But, when he had appeared to ignore me, I had fallen, too easily, into an all-too-familiar depression.

Through letting me first taste his sweetness and then by depriving me of it he had actually made me dive much deeper — to begin to go beyond the illusion of physical form. I had prayed to the God that is Everywhere and He had answered me. Had I not asked my Krishna to lead me to the Isle of Everywhere? Here was the proof that Baba always answers the heartfelt prayer.

… Sometimes in the most unusual and unexpected ways.


© RW 1989