Mr. V. Srinivasan is an electrical engineer and an eminent industrialist. He is a former National President of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), and also a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (USA). Currently, he is the All India President of the Sri Sathya Sai Seva Organisations, as well as a Member of the Sri Sathya Sai Central Trust and Sri Sathya Sai Medical Trust.

The following is an excerpt of a conversation between Mr. V. Srinivasan and Prof. G. Venkataraman, former Vice Chancellor of Sri Sathya Sai University, held in the Radio Sai studio in 2002.

Prof. G. Venkataraman (GV): Please could you relate to us some more of your unique experiences with Swami.  I am sure you have had so many and we would like to benefit from your sumptuous storehouse.

Mr. V. Srinivasan, the All India President of the Sri Sathya Sai Seva Organisations, India

V. Srinivasan (VS): I have been graced with magnificent instances of the boundless mercy of Bhagavan; experiences which I was fortunate not just to witness, but even play a role in. One such incident comes to my mind, an instance which was very unique and indicative of how Bhagavan looks after every single devotee of His.

This happened a few years ago, about a week in advance of Bhagavan’s proposed visit to Chennai. I suddenly found that I had to make a very urgent business trip to Chicago for a meeting, and it could not be put off; there was no way I could postpone this appointment. Literally I was going to fly in and fly out.

But I could do so only if Bhagavan gave me a go-ahead. Swami was then staying in the old bungalow at Brindavan, Bangalore. So I went there to seek His consent. It was evening by the time I reached Brindavan and I was to leave that night from Chennai.

When I sought Bhagavan’s permission, He very graciously said, “Yes, you can go and come back. Anyway I’m going to come only after a few days.” Bhagavan knew I was worried about my absence when He came to Chennai. He knew of my reluctance on taking this demanding trip. With His reassuring words, He made it possible for me to go on my trip, without the additional baggage of anxiety. Or so I thought…

A Mysterious and Arduous Journey

Just as He was about to retire, while I was waiting there with folded hands, Bhagavan said, “On your way back, stop in such and such a place and meet this particular person.” I said, “Yes Swami, I’ll do that”. And I sat waiting for Him to give me further instructions on the assigned appointment. But Bhagavan simply went inside His chambers and the meeting was over.

I was stunned! Here was I going to travel thousands of miles to meet an individual without the slightest clue as to why I was going there and what I was supposed to tell him. 

GV: Swami really gave you a tantalising and mysterious task. How did you cope with it initially?

VS: I thought to myself, “Well, Bhagavan will sort everything out.”  And I flew that night to Chicago. I finished my meeting and then, called this individual to inform him that I was coming to meet him. He lived in a city, a long way off from Chicago, 14 hours by flight!

When I telephoned this individual, I was, however, met with a curt “Why are you coming?”  I replied, “I’m coming there, I’ll tell you when I get there.” If I told him that I didn’t know why I was coming, I was sure that he would have immediately put an end to a discussion forthwith. Again he sounded a bit curt, but I didn’t allow the dialogue to persist. Instead, I simply said, “Sai Ram. I’ll see you and I’m arriving at such and such flight.”

I left Chicago that evening and flew 14 hours with a refuelling stop over in between, in the Pacific. I was quite worn out by the time I reached my destination. As I came out of the customs area, I found this particular gentleman waiting for me. He appeared to me a highly well-to-do individual, with an aristocratic demeanour.

When he saw me, he said, “Sai Ram”.

GV: So he was a devotee.

VS: Yes, he was a devotee. We didn’t have any further talk there. Instead we went over to the curb side where his Rolls Royce was parked and got into it.

There was dead silence throughout the journey. When we reached his palatial home, it was about 2:30 in the morning!

GV: You must have been exhausted.

VS: Yes, very much so and when we reached there, this gentleman did not even offer that I retire to my room and have some rest. Instead, he took me right away to his drawing room, shut the doors, sat opposite me and demanded, “Now, why have you come?”

GV: You two were alone?

VS: Yes, totally alone. One can well imagine my plight after a 14-hour flight and a long drive to residence, in the wee hours of the morning, all alone with an enigmatic gentleman.

I replied to his question saying, “I have come here because Swami asked me to come and see you.”

To which, he burst out impatiently, “Yes, yes, yes. What did He ask you to tell me? What is the message you bring?”

I said, “I bring no message.”

He grew wary. “What? Are you a fool? You have come such a long distance without any message, without knowing why you are supposed to come and see me? Are you sure or are you hiding something?”

I said, “No, I’m not hiding. I’m implicitly carrying out Swami’s instructions. I was asked to come and see you.”

He repeatedly quizzed and grilled me, and I stuck to what I was supposed to say and that was the truth.
 
Then he relapsed into dead silence and got into a very sombre mood. He looked removed to a different world altogether. Fifteen minutes elapsed this way. Even as I was thinking of the wretchedness of my circumstances, stranded with an inscrutable gentleman, lost in thought and with no talk whatsoever, I suddenly saw this gentleman bending forward and reaching for his right shoe. And I was wondering whether he was going to shoe me.

Then a Revolver Appears…

Suddenly, I saw the man drawing something from his sock. It was a pocket revolver in glinting blue steel!

Showing it to me, he asked, “Do you know what this is?”

I said, “I know exactly what it is. Please don’t point it at me.”

Certain that my last moment has arrived, I started chanting ‘Sairam, Sairam, Sairam’ in my heart, wondering what I had gotten into.
 
Then, the gentleman said, “This is a fully loaded revolver. And I want to tell you that just tonight I was going to shoot myself.”

GV: That must have been a heart stopping experience for you!

VS: Most definitely so, and for the gentleman a heart saving one! The dam finally broke. Unable to control the flood of emotions, he began reciting his story of how he had got himself into enormous debts in his business which he was finding very difficult to repay, and how he had decided to take away his life as the easy and only way out.
 
He then himself said, “Bhagavan knew what I was going to do. That’s why He has asked you to come and see me.”
 
We conversed for a while. I had a return flight to Chennai in the early afternoon. I just had time to have a quick wash, eat a very light breakfast in the gentleman’s house and rush to the airport. Before leaving, I told him that Swami would be coming to Chennai within the next few days. He said that he would be there. 

So here I could understand that how Bhagawan knows the past, the present and the future, and how every devotee is under His care… You asked me a question, whether he was a devotee and I said,”Yes, he was a devotee.” I was very careful in my choice of words.

GV: I didn’t realize that.

VS: Because he seemed to have strayed from the fold a bit. But still Bhagavan did not forget him.

Swami’s Mercy is Infinite

GV: Was there any follow up experience for this man?

VS: To take this incident a little further, the gentleman came down to Chennai a couple of days later to see Bhagavan. But He who saved him pretended that he didn’t exist at all! Swami did not, so to say, speak or even cast a glance in this gentleman’s direction. Several days passed this way.

One fine morning however, Swami called the gentleman into the interview room and asked me also to come in. Once inside, Bhagavan started to really castigate him. Swami’s words were so strong that I was feeling very delicate to translate some of them. As I tried to pass them over, Swami got very angry with me. He said, “No, you are just a loud speaker. Your only role is to say exactly what I’m telling you to say.”

I had no choice but to follow Bhagavan’s instructions implicitly. The gentleman burst into tears and wept like a baby. Finally Bhagavan, in His ever flowing mercy, said, “Now forget the past. Past is past. Everything will be alright for you.”

True to Bhagavan’s words, the story had a happy ending. This gentleman owned a lot of property which could not be sold due to crash in the prices which took place at that time. But lo and behold, buyers seemed to come mysteriously from somewhere seeking him. Finally the gentleman could raise enough funds to meet all his obligations.

This was a very unique experience for me. I learnt that day that Bhagavan’s ways are mysterious. We may never know how, when and where He will come to protect us. But what we should always be sure is that protect, He will. He will always protect us.  But He will protect us at the time when we need protection. That is what we have to understand.

GV: There are two salient points to note here. One is the way you implicitly obeyed Swami’s command. This is something that Swami asks us to do very often. But we almost invariably fail. And I was deeply impressed how in a delicate mission like this about which you had no clue, you literally followed His instructions. And that I think is a great lesson. The other even more striking thing is you said that this man had strayed away and here is Swami ready to come and save him. It’s just absolutely extraordinary.

How about another scintillating experience to follow this one?

Sweet are the Ways of the Lord

VS: Well, a really beautiful aspect of Swami’s love is that with Him, even the tiniest of entreaties do not go unheeded. I remember an experience of a devotee who was to go to Moscow. Before he left, he came to Brindavan to take leave of Swami. As he got into his car to drive home, a sevadal came running to him and said, “Stop sir, stop sir”. The sevadal was carrying a huge box and he said, “Swami has asked this to be given to you.”

So the devotee opened the rear of the car, put in the box there and drove back. On reaching home, he wondered what to do with the big box. No instructions had been given and he was to leave for Moscow in a couple of hours. So the devotee opened the box to check its contents. He found it packed with sweets. Deciding to take the sweets to Moscow, he transferred them onto another suitcase and took it along with him.

In Moscow, this person went to the Sai Center. The first question he was greeted with was, “Has Baba sent the sweets?” The devotee did not know that he was supposed to carry the sweets with him. But he was instinctively led to bring them along. Still, he asked them, “What do you mean by did Baba sent sweets? Why should Baba send you sweets?” They said, “Sir, we are arranging sweet distribution to an orphanage here and we prayed to Swami saying, ‘Swami, we are planning to distribute sweets. But it would very nice if You can send some sweets.’” And Swami had sent it, using the devotee as His instrument!

GV: How He used him as an instrument was similar to your revolver incident; the man didn’t know what was going to transpire – but He did!

VS: The Moscow gift of sweets was to me a powerful reiteration of Swami’s mercy and love. Bhagavan melted at a manifestly insignificant supplication and hastened to fulfil it. I learnt that day that not even the smallest prayer escapes Bhagavan’s personal attention.

I learnt another important lesson in the process. Many a times, we think that we are the doers. But we have to understand that we are just instruments in the hands of a Greater Power. Once we realize that we lose our ego and our rigidity, and become flexible instruments in the hands of Bhagavan, to be used and utilized as He thinks appropriate. And that, I have learnt, is the way to happiness.

An Elevating Experience

Not only that, when we immerse ourselves in Bhagavan’s work, He ensures that ‘our’ work is taken care of. I learnt this through a first-hand experience, some years ago.

GV: Please tell us about this.

VS: This happened in New York when I was visiting my sister who lived in Manhattan. I was spending a night with her, scheduled to return the next morning. My plan was to go up to the west side air terminal to catch the American Airlines flight which was going from New York to Chicago. I had planned to leave my sister’s flat at about 7.30 in the morning.

Exactly at 7 a.m., a Sai devotee who was very well connected with the Sai activities in New York called me, and we started talking. So engrossed were we in talking of Swami that when we had finished conversing, it was 8 o’clock. Time had just flown by.

Certain that I was going to miss the flight, I rushed out of the apartment, got into the elevator, and pressed ‘L’ for lobby. Lo and behold! I found the elevator, which was signalling ‘Down’, going up, defying their sound logic control system. I thought to myself, “Today seems to be a day of troubles for me. Now I’m going to be stuck in the elevator.”

Suddenly, after the lift went up about 5 floors, the door opened. Two men in airline uniforms stepped into the elevator. One of them, who saw my suitcase, said, “Look, buddy, you seem to be travelling somewhere”. I said, “Well, I wanted to travel and I’m not sure whether I’ll be able to do so. I think I’m going to miss this flight”. He asked me, “Which flight is that?” I replied, “The American Airlines flight to Chicago”, and gave him the flight number. He said, “You don’t have to worry. We are the pilots of that flight!”

GV: So literally you went with the Sarathi (charioteer)…

VS: Need I relate what happened after that? They took me in their car and we went straight to the aircraft. The captain of the flight had me checked in right through. I was treated royally, without a bother in my mind. This was a very small instance, but it showed me that when one is engaged in Swami’s work, even simply recounting or recollecting Swami’s leelas (play) and mahima (glory), one does not have to worry about the world. That is because Swami takes over and take care.

GV: This incident reminds me of Swami’s profound statement in the Bhagavad Gita, “He who talks about me and spreads My word is dear to Me.”

VS: That day, Swami validated the veracity of the same to me, ensuring that not only the sarathi (driver) of the flight had driven and flown me home well in time, but that He, the Sanatana Sarathi  - Eternal Charioteer -  had driven home a lesson too.

GV: This incident may be dismissed as coincidence by sceptics. But, as Swami says, “Coincidence is a miracle where I hide Myself.” If we have the faith, God will materialize Himself more often in our lives, through innumerable ways and channels.

Faith, in Swami’s words, should be unconditional. If something doesn’t happen quite the way we want, we must regard that also as an act of God and not lose faith. We must stick with God through thick and thin, powered by the firm belief that whatever happens is always for our good. Because, as Swami says, “I’m in you, with you, above you, below you, around you.”

It is important that we reflect the inner significance of that message, conveyed to us, assuring us of His guarding and loving Omnipresence. It means that we are never alone. Bhagavan is always with us.

VS: Indeed so, and I hope these accounts have affirmed this beyond doubt.  Thank you, Professor Venkataraman for having me.

GV: Thank you. Sai Ram.

VS: Sairam.