Leela-10

EXPERIENCE OF DARSHAN

V. B. Nandwani


On 7th of May 1973, I reached Shirdi with my son, aged 14 years. Expecting heavy rush due to vacation, I had written in advance to the Sansthan asking for reservation of a particular room for us. Although, the letter had not yet been passed on to the accommodation Incharge, he offered me the same room, I wanted. He was also kind enough to invite us both for lunch that day at about 2 pm. However, for some reasons, it was little after 3 p.m. that he came to call us for lunch at the Bhojan Griha. By then, my son had gone to sleep hungry. I had earlier asked him to go and eat something but he did not agree. Now, when we both asked him to get up for meals, he refused to eat anything, in anger. Knowing his nature and habit of eating earlier, I left him and went for lunch with that Sansthan Officer. My son got up at about 4 p.m. and said angrily " I would not go to Samadhi Mandir. I will not bow before Baba. I do not want to stay here. I will go back to Bombay even if I have to go alone. " I knew all this outburst was due to hunger and anger and so kept quiet.A little while later, he got up and went out to eat something. Instead of eating in the hotel, he brought four " Dosas " and asked me also to have one. To please him I did. He could eat only two. The one left un-touched, he gave to a beggar.


We were in the room on ground floor touching the road inside Sansthan compound and parallel to Accommodation Office. Guru Padika Sthan. There is an L shaped passage between the two rows of rooms. The entrance is from longer leg of L. The shorter leg has the bath rooms and is closed at the other end. Thus anybody going in or coming out must be seen by us if the door of our room is open.After eating the " Dosas " my son went to wash the plate at the open tap fixed in the line of bath rooms. Suddenly he rushed back to the room and said that someone looking just like Baba was standing in the passage outside the bathrooms with a stick in his hand and that he got frightened. He talked to me all this standing on the threshold of the room, keeping the door open. I was sitting in such a position that any body coming in or going out must be visible to me. I got up immediately and went with him to the bathrooms' side and found none there. I feel it was Shri SAI HIMSELF who gave him darshan. I did not see any one going out of the passage. How could someone vanish like that, in thin air. None dressed like that was staying in the other rooms.!On questioning, my son told me that Kafni was torn on one arm and lower ends of it were frayed badly. He was pointing with the stick (satka) towards the Samadhi Mandir.Then, afterwards at about 6 p.m. my son quietly accompanied me to Samadhi Mandir, Dwarkamai and Chawri and everywhere he bowed to Baba, as I did. During rest of the seven days stay he was extremely happy and made many friends.

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