Incredible Blessings

...The startling story of Benjamin

By D. Ariarajah

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This is an amazing story of grace sent to us by one of our readers, Mr. Ariarajah, a former Superintendent of Police in Sri Lanka, currently settled in Melbourne, Australia.

This is a story of a miracle in my family life and it concerns my son, Nirmalan Ariarajah who works in the Law Faculty of University of Melbourne and his wife Marion, who is a nurse. They were married in 2000 and were expecting their first baby in the latter part of January 2006.

On December 24, 2005, all our family members came together at their residence to celebrate Christmas. However, on the night of the 24th, Marion became concerned and told us that she felt reduced movement from the baby in her womb. We decided to wait until the next morning and on the 25th we got up early and after breakfast my son and Marion gave a lift to some of our relatives to Melbourne Airport.

From the airport they went straight to the Royal Women’s Hospital, as there seemed to be no movement at all coming from the baby. They were very worried at this development. After carrying out various tests at the hospital, the doctors discovered that the baby’s heart beat was very low, and they decided to operate and remove him from the womb immediately.

Hearing this news all the remaining family rushed to the hospital and spent a very anxious time awaiting the news. At about 1.40 p.m. my son came out of the Operation Theater and said, “It is a baby boy” and then went inside to support his wife. Five minutes later, he came out of the operation theater again, but now he was crying.

“The child was 98% dead and has no chance of surviving,” he said. In these circumstances doctors do all they can to maintain any signs of life and so the baby was taken to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). By that time my son had named the baby as Benjamin. At birth he weighed only 1.35 kg. (Below 2.5 kg is classified as a low birth weight.)

All our euphoria at the arrival of our only grandchild had disappeared and dejectedly we remained at the ICU. Benjamin’s condition required the combined attention of seven expert doctors who were frantically trying to save his life, as all his internal organs had failed including his lungs, except for a mild heart beat.

During this time of acute crisis and pain, we somehow had the presence of mind to pray to Bhagavan. As I entered my prayer room that evening, I asked Bhagavan why He had given us this child if He was to take him away so suddenly in such a fashion.  I seemed to receive a reply that I should touch him while chanting the Gayathri. I clung desperately to this hoped for inner guidance and resolved to carry this out.

On the 26th morning at 11.00 a.m., my wife Lilian and I arrived at the ward. A doctor was standing by and observing the child in the incubator with the necessary life-supporting tubes attached to his body.

When I asked the Doctor about the condition of the child, he said that he will not survive for another 2 hours. I then asked his permission to touch the baby and to pray, to which he agreed.

I carefully inserted my hand into the incubator, placed it on the baby’s head and chanted 108 Gayathris in my mind. When I finished chanting, it was 11.45 a.m.

At about 12.40 p.m., the Doctor who was observing the child shouted and called the other doctors over as Benjamin was breathing. Later, when I asked him how it happened, he said that he had no answer and that it was simply a miracle!

This was on December 26th. In the evening, my wife and I sat down in our prayer room and chanted 1008 Gayathris. It was a time of anguish and intense prayers to the Lord. That same night Bhagavan came in my wife’s dream and walked all over the house from room to room, followed by her and my son. But before leaving, Bhagavan picked up a crowbar from a room and threw it out of the house.

The next morning, on the 27th, at about 11.30 a.m. when we arrived at the hospital, my son said, “Doctors have announced that Benjamin has recovered to a sufficient extent. Now he will surely survive.” What an incredible turn around! Needless to say we were ecstatic and shouted for joy, though we were all exhausted - emotionally and physically. In ten days he was taken out of ICU, but remained in the hospital for few more days.

During the second week, the Doctor in charge of the section where Benjamin was in, called my son and his wife, and said, “We have performed a brain scan and we fear damage to the brain. We suspect that he will be a disabled child.”

When we thought we had just been saved from the worst situation ever of our lives, here was another blow. In my prayers I asked Bhagavan the truth about the statement of the doctor and I seemed to receive this reply: “When I gave him back, I removed all defects and it was only a scar.” By the end of the third month Benjamin came home to much rejoicing in the family. Now he was loved and cared for in his own home and his mother and father poured out all their love on him 24 hours a day.

True to the word of Bhagavan, Benjamin has now progressed and after his first birthday he began to take all his meals and weighed over 9 kg. Today he goes for swimming classes and other physical exercises, and calling “mum” and “daddy” He is trying to walk a few steps. He knows “Baba” very well and gets exhilarated by the daily chanting of Gayatri Mantra.

Baby Benjamin with his Mother		The beautiful one year old

This was a time of great anguish for our family, which was crowned with the triumph of a gift of grace from our Lord Bhagavan of a healthy baby boy, saved from the clutches of death and disability. Is there nothing He cannot do when we call upon Him?

 

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