Why we believed in Him
My husband had a paralytic stroke. He recovered within days of meeting Baba
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I NEVER THOUGHT I would become a Sai Baba devotee. But fate had other plans. In 1980, my husband, Dr Ramachandra Reddy, had a paralytic stroke at the age of 30. It paralysed the left side of his body, even the left side of his mouth. We went for the best possible medical care in London, but were told he would never recover fully. I was almost beginning to lose hope when some people, including English doctors and professors, told us to look up the godmen in our own country. We had never heard of Baba before this. Finally, we got our first darshan in Whitefield outside Bengaluru. Nobody told Baba what the problem was. He just went up to my husband and started touching his left side, his arms and head. Baba told my husband not to worry. After he had finished the gents' queue, he came to the ladies side. He didn't have to ask for me. Baba just came to me and said, "Don't be disheartened, I'm taking care of your husband." As I looked at him, there was no way I could miss the love and compassion in his eyes. Following this meeting, my husband recovered really fast.
This wasn't the only time when Baba made a difference to my life. My husband and I went abroad for a 12- year spell. In 1992, Baba came to Hyderabad. My mother had passed away recently, and I was shattered. But once he spoke to me, I knew he'd taken my mother's place in my life. He told me he was my mother. It was indeed comforting.
Seeing him in person was an electrifying experience. He had an enchanting smile. One would feel so happy and content when he'd just look at you. The great thing about him was he didn't believe in long discourses, rituals, pujas or shlokas. In fact, he once told me, "I use these illnesses as my calling cards." And now he is gone when we need him the most.
Baba walked into the room and his sister slipped out of a coma
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GOD HAS NOT CREATED everyone equal. I believe that some people have superhuman powers. Sathya Sai Baba was one of them. My brother-in-law told me about him 12 years ago. When I met him, he already knew I wanted to build a cardiac hospital on the outskirts of Bengaluru — a project most were sceptical about. When I met him, he simply told me, "The city will come to you." It really did come to me. Baba once gave me a ring that I wear all the time, except during surgery, because I feel his warm presence.
The most beautiful miracle of Baba's is the one my brother-in-law witnessed. He was treating Baba's sister, who at the time, had been in a coma for days. When Baba walked into the room, she woke up, talked to him for a few minutes and slipped back. How do you explain that medically?
A Hindu woman once came to me for treatment. Someone in the Ajmer Dargah had told her it would save her life. She had aortal arteritis, a rare and serious condition. She insisted I operate. I didn't know how to. I had to patch up her liver, her intestine and re-establish circulation to the brain. I did and she has been healthy for eight years now. Similarly, a very established doctor and friend saw his patient in a hospital levitate while meditating. I have seen people who are two yards away from death surviving and perfectly healthy people dying suddenly. How do you explain this? We do 36 heart surgeries a day in our hospital. We cut off circulation to the brain, paralyse the heart, and the patient is practically dead. Each time, I don't know if he or she will survive it. Any doctor who thinks he does is kidding himself. You don't want to hear this from a doctor and a scientist, but my hands are about as powerful as forceps controlled by God.
He picked me from hundreds of people in a religious gathering and asked me to sing
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WHEN I WAS nine, Sai Baba was addressing a huge gathering in Mumbai. I was far away from his gaze, yet he managed to find me. Of hundreds in the gathering, he picked me, a small girl, and asked me to sing. I often wonder how could he have known that I loved to sing. Ever since, I have sung for him in Mumbai, Chennai and Puttaparthi. I think he was a Mahapurusha in the true sense of the word. I might not have seen any of his ‘miracles', but I think his very presence was magical. It is hard to maintain discipline in a house of 10 people. He, on the other hand, created a spiritual silence in audiences that were sometimes as large as three lakh people. People say it is only his physical presence that is gone. For me, it is a huge loss that I won't be blessed by him the same way again.
A mercury Shivling sent by Baba helped my wife recover from a fatal accident in 24 hours
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FOR ME, Sai Baba was neither a godman nor a saint. He was God himself. He has been the force that protected my family during challenging times. Everyone in my family is a firm believer of Baba and his powers. In 2006, my wife had an accident and was bedridden. The doctors had given up on her. Baba sent me a Shivling made of mercury. Science tells you that you cannot bind mercury, but here I was with a mercury Shivling in my house. My wife did the abhishek of the Shivling and drank the water. Within 24 hours, she was feeling alright. Once she was hale and hearty, the Shivling broke by itself. Years later, my wife and I met Baba at a religious gathering. He stopped by us and produced a mangalsutra and a ring in front of 40,000 people. I tied the mangalsutra around my wife's neck and she put the ring on my finger. Later, I was fortunate enough to spend some time with him in his private chamber. His body might have perished but his soul will live for ever.
My wife had hip cancer. Baba just said, ‘Cancer, cancelled', and she was well and could walk
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SAI BABA saved his miracles for others. My sister suffered from a bad gastric ulcer. She was weak and the hospital doctor prescribed milk fed through the nose. A young, inexperienced nurse misunderstood the instruction and gave my sister milk intravenously — directly into the blood. She lost her consciousness and it seemed she would die. When the error was corrected, she suddenly got up and said, "Baba was here. He gave me vibhuti. I am perfectly okay." She walked out of the hospital without an operation.
In 1999, my wife suffered a heart attack. Four months after a bypass, she fainted during an evening walk. I rushed her to the hospital. She was in the intensive care unit and had breathing problems. They said — four months to live, operate immediately. When she heard this, my wife insisted on having Baba's darshan before surgery. The doctor, who was also a devotee, discharged her. Bound to a wheelchair, oxygen cylinder in tow, my wife and I went to meet the Baba. It was Christmas. At Puttaparthi, we stood in the front row waiting for Baba's darshan. On seeing me, he said, "No second surgery for her." He produced vibhuti out of the air and told me not to worry. She was wheelchair-bound but after the darshan, she started walking and didn't need that second surgery.
I went back to Baba a second time for my wife, about eight years later. My wife had developed cancer in the hip. She could neither walk nor lie down and was on morphine injections. When I saw Baba, he said, "Cancer cancelled", and produced a crystal Shivling with a wave of his hand. "Do abhishek and give her the water to drink," he said. On the ninth day, my wife went to the market. Her cancer was gone.
Sai Baba's life, however, meant far more than the many miracles he performed. I used to believe only in the Vedantic philosophy. Now when I pray, I also chant Jesus, Allah and Buddha's names. You can find all the world's religions in Puttaparthi. I once saw an Iranian boy chant the Gayatri Mantra with perfect diction. By showing us the similarities in religions, the Baba united us. Not to mention the several cashless hospitals he ran or his colleges that took students without fees. For us, he was a living God.
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