WHERE THERE IS HIS WILL, THERE IS A WAY

By Mr. Vipin Prabhakar
- A former student of Swami’s Institute

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Swami Sends Me to School in Ooty Swami always says that unless God wills it, nothing can happen. It was at the age of seven, when after an entrance exam and an interview, I was chosen for the 3rd standard in the Sri Sathya Sai Vidya Vihar, Ootacamund. My parents had neither seen Swami before nor had even heard of Him. It came as a surprise to my family that though I had taken the examination in Puttaparthi, I was selected for the Ooty School. My father was not particularly comfortable about admitting me to a school in Ooty, but He willed it and both of us left for Ooty. Once we reached the school, there was no looking back. My father was very inspired by the school and above all by the school Principal.

Having joined the Ooty School in the 3rd standard, it was a sweet journey all the way. In the year 1990, it was decided to close down the Ooty School and all of us were transferred to Parthi. After completing my 10th standard, though I was interested in the science group, I was picked for the commerce group. Again there was a debate in the house as my family was not very keen on my pursuing the commerce line. But He willed it, and I went on to complete my Bachelor of Commerce (Honours) from Brindavan Campus, and then an MBA from Parthi.

Entering the Business World

After completing my MBA degree in 2002, I was going to take my first step into the competitive world of business. The competition was fierce and fear of unemployment loomed large, but then I knew He was always there with me.

There was only one question that my relatives, neighbors and anyone I knew asked me. “Were there no placements in your Institute, or did you not get placed?” My answer was straight and simple. “Swami gave me world class education right from K.G. to P.G. without charging even a single penny. Having gotten the best MBA degree from a top institute, can I not secure a job myself? It is my conviction that any student from this Institute will get the job of his liking within a period of 6 months after completion of the academic program, and I am sure I will not be an exception.”

I came out of the portals of the Institute in June 2002 and exactly 6 months later I landed up as a Purchase Officer in Asia’s premier Aerospace Industry – Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. My selection was nothing short of a miracle and was all accomplished by His Divine Will.

A First-Rate Job, Through His Will It is a well-known fact that it is not easy to get a first-rate job in the public sector. HAL had posted their advertisement in the month of June in all the leading newspapers and on the Internet. Like any other candidate, I put in my application. To my disappointment, I did not find my name on the short list for the entrance exam. I did not take this to heart, although it was disconcerting that having scored 91% in MFM (Masters in Financial Management), my name was not included. I tried to think of all the possible reasons for this. A week before the exam, I received my call card through the post. This was nothing short of a miracle! It was the most pleasant surprise of my life and my joy knew no bounds. But my preparations for the exam were nil. I came to Parthi, took Bhagavan’s blessings and took the exam in Bangalore. Later I discovered that at least a thousand candidates had appeared for the test. I was fairly confident of being called for an interview. Two months went by but there was no response from HAL. In fact, I even forgot about this job and continued my part-time lectureship in a degree college that I had taken up in June.

All of a sudden, in September, I got a call for the interview. This was going to be my first interview and I was competing with more than a hundred candidates for only fifteen posts. I went for the interview fully prepared in all areas of Materials, Management and Finance. However, to my utter surprise, all the members of the interview panel only asked me questions about Swami. All of them were impressed with my answers. Swami was in Bangalore then, and at the end of the interview they asked me for the darshan timings and about the best route to reach Brindavan. The rest is history. I was one of the fifteen candidates selected.

This job was very important to me because the company my father worked at was in financial distress and all the employees were offered retirement under the Voluntary Retirement Scheme. As it turned out, both my appointment and my father’s retirement came about on the exact same day in December 2002.

Spreading Swami’s Message After a year of training in Bangalore, in January 2004 I was posted in my home town of Hyderabad. HAL-Hyderabad consists of around 3000 employees. During my first month, I was on job rotation in all the departments. In each of these departments, apart from work, everyone had questions to ask about Swami. By the end of the month, I did not know if I had been able to spread Swami’s message adequately, but I knew that many people had sent in applications for admitting their children to school in Parthi. Later that year, when I came to Prashanti Nilayam for Swami’s darshan, I met several of my co-workers who had come to see Him for the first time. But as every coin has two sides, there were also a handful of colleagues who criticized Swami. Whenever I came across these people, I did not try to convince them that Baba is God because I knew it would lead to unnecessary arguments. I would only say, “I am not telling you to believe that He is God or to start worshipping Him. I am only informing you about the amount of service He has been doing for humanity. A free world class hospital for the poor, premier education from K.G. to P.G., clean drinking water for the poorest villages, etc. Tell me any other individual or government agency which has accomplished anything even close to this. If, at the minimum, we try to walk in His footsteps, the world would definitely be a better place to live in.”

Slowly, word spread in the company that a Sai student had joined HAL-Hyderabad. And now it was our Executive Director himself who called me for an informal discussion about Swami. The following week, the Executive Director visited Shivam (the Sai Center in Hyderabad) and also bought some books on Bhagavan Baba.

A Miracle at HAL

We were coming to the end of the financial year 2004-05, and our production seemed nowhere close to our target goals. One night, at around 11:00 p.m., when I was asleep, the Executive Director rang me up. He sounded perturbed. He asked me, “Can’t Swami do something? Why don’t you pray?” I replied, “Swami always says ‘Karmanye Vadhikaraste Ma Phaleshu Kadachana’ – “Act and don’t think about the fruits.” Though I could not convince him with this reply, I satisfied him by saying that I would pray. This material target, however, was never in my daily prayers. But then to the utter surprise of the entire division and HAL as a whole, all the materials required for production started pouring in from our suppliers and the employees worked three shifts and today HAL–Hyderabad has exceeded its targets by a significant margin.

Truly, anything is possible when He wills it.

Thank you, Jai Sai Ram!

- Courtesy: 'Fragrance''

- Heart2Heart Team

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