Dear Reader,

It was three score and five years ago, India’s independence was still in the womb of time. The state of Tamil Nadu never existed and most of South India was part of British India’s Madras Province. In fact, both Puttaparthi and Madras City (now Chennai, the capital of Tamil Nadu) were part of the composite Madras. And for Bhagavan, who was just sixteen years then, Madras was almost like an extension of Puttaparthi, given the scores of visits He made very frequently. Not many will know that Swami visited this city as early as 1942, and what happened in those years is really fantastic. In the first year of His visit, He cured the asthma of Sri Parthasarathy, who happened to visit Him in a neighbour’s house, by creating an apple for him! And his mother’s cataract was cured amazingly in ten days when the young Sathya applied on her eyes a bandage of jasmine petals! What happened in 1943 is even more astounding. Sri Lokanatha Mudaliar had become completely mentally challenged when an illegal occupant of his land, who was also a notorious occultist, cast evil spells on him. The doctor had, in fact, advised his family to admit him in a mental hospital. And then, suddenly something wonderful happened. Swami appeared in Mudaliar’s dream and gave him ‘Thulasi (basil) water’ saying, “Take this. You will be alright”. Next morning, his madness had vanished.

Cut to January 19, 2007, after more than six decades, the Lord played a similar drama, although in a totally different scale and dimension. Now it was not ‘Thulasi water’ for one Mudaliar, but the torrential flow of Sai Ganga for multitudes, which cured the “madness of disunity and malaise of disbelief in God” that unfortunately had plagued this holy state. And the cure came not via a ‘dream’ but a dream-visit of the Lord to this ‘land of temples’, after a hiatus of ten years. Now, to heal the current ‘cataract of narrow vision’, it was the ‘jasmine of joy’ that the divine enveloped the whole city with for ten days. Just as Mudaliar had then fallen at His Feet and cried, “Lord, You are my all” when Swami visited his house the next day of that dramatic dream, the Chief Minister of the State was completely bowled over. While his wife touched His Feet, Dr. Karunanidhi, casting aside completely his six-decade-long sworn atheistic image, said, “The question is not whether God exists or not, but whether our deeds are pleasing to Him." He continued, “For me…the blessed Sai Baba…is equal to God.” And Swami, the ever-compassionate one, referring to Karunanidhi said, “I give him My heart”. Imagine the charismatic and outspoken Union Railway Minister Sri Lalu Prasad Yadav declaring, “He is not just Baba…He is Bhagavan.” In fact, the modern world needs no more testimonies of the transmuting power of pure love. What happened on January 21, 2007 in the 40,000-seater Nehru Stadium packed with the who’s who of Tamil Nadu and Chennai, is something which history will cogitate on for years to come.

Imagine four Chief Ministers, three Union ministers and two governors – all belonging to different political affiliations with their party ideologies miles away from each other, seated on the dais next to Swami in a rare demonstration of bonhomie and talking about cooperation, sharing and unity to solve the country’s problems! When you read our cover story you will not only get a complete overview of the grand proceeding of that day but also get a deep insight into the background and the sequence of events that led to the landmark occasion that the Chennai Citizens’ Conclave was. What could not be achieved with decades of deliberations and thousands of confrontations since India’s independence was happening that day. Pure love was flowing in Chennai [see our Photo Album] and it was absolutely irresistible; it had submerged and soothed everyone with its coolness and sereneness.

And it is not only Chennai, it is happening in various corners of India and the world in different forms - we just have to look around. If you thought Baba’s Hospitals in Puttaparthi and Bangalore, which provided the best tertiary health care absolutely free of charge, were role models only in theory and could never be replicated elsewhere, then you must visit Rajkot, a town in Saurashtra, the least developed region of the state of Gujarat. It is incredible how more than six hundred completely free premium cardiac surgeries have been performed in the Sri Sathya Sai Heart Hospital of Rajkot, silently and selflessly. And they are now adding operation theatres, conducting Heart-Camps in the remotest and severely under-developed settlements in search of the most hapless ones to be operated upon, creating hundreds of dedicated workers and inching towards the thousand-surgery-mark at great pace. When did this hospital start? Who is managing this ‘fairy tale of a hospital’? How did this miracle come about? Read our story in the Sai Seva section and you will have a dozen myths about modern healthcare shattered by the time you complete it. When pure love takes over, ‘impossible’ becomes a redundant word.

How else do you explain devotees dedicating their lives in caring service in gratitude and love from a tiny triangle shaped country nestled in the shores of South Atlantic Ocean thousands of miles away from Puttaparthi? How Sai has entered Uruguay and brought about a U-turn in the lives of hundreds of its citizens is truly fascinating. This is our twelfth story covering Latin America in the features section and there seems to be no end to His unfathomable ways.

In the just concluded Shivarathri celebrations, Swami said, “Consider love as your everything. It is only then that you will have a fruitful life”. When you will read the experiences of Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma, world renowned Santoor Maestro, or the sweet anecdotes narrated by a little girl, Ms. Vaishnavi, from Chennai, in the SwaMi and Me section, you will see live examples of this. If you want more, there is the revealing interview with Dr. Keki Mistry, an eminent orthodontist from Mumbai, in the H2H Special section. This will not only startle you but also tell you how beautiful and blissful life can become when real love becomes its only pursuit.

Dear reader, this is the month of March, and it's time for us to march! As we see Sai’s glory manifesting in a million ways every moment all over the world (incidentally, the Chinese just finished their grand New Year celebrations at His Lotus Feet; you will find reports and lots of pictures of this in Prasanthi Diary), let us tune ourselves to this Universal Consciousness that is Sai, feel His love, plunge into The Mission and redeem our lives. Opportunities such as these come rarely in history and let us not let the diamond slip from our hands. Let us make our life His message. Let us become just that – Pure Love; completely in harmony with Him.

Loving Regards ,
Heart2Heart Team.

In Quest of Infinity - III
By Prof. G. Venkataraman