Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Nothing is Coincidence

SWAMI VISHWANANDA
A small story: In 2005, the year of Swami’s first visit to America, one person who met him at that time told Swami Vishwajayananda (Pritala) the following story:

A three-year search for my Satguru culminated in my meeting my teacher, Sri Swami Vishwananda! After the years of yearning, a simple card placed into my hand by my yoga teacher proved to be the divine sign that would lead me to him.

I learned of a young saint from Mauritius who would be visiting the U.S. and I felt guided, almost compelled to offer to do seva for Swamiji’s U.S. organization that was newly forming at that time. Before meeting Swami Vishwananda though, on our first meeting the coordinator for Swami’s work in America gave me pictures of Swami. Something strangely familiar haunted me as the beautiful face in the pictures reminded me of the face on the card my yoga teacher had given me recently. Something strangely familiar welled up from within when I looked at the card and then as I looked at the pictures of Swami Vishwananda. Even though I was sure I had saved the card, I could not locate it.

On Swami's first visit to America, at Gurupurnima in July 2005, a day when all spiritual teachers are venerated in the Hindu tradition, I met my Satguru, Sri Swami Vishwananda. I felt great love just being in his presence and after that day I could not stop thinking about him. His next visit to America would solve my haunted memory and heart-felt longing to know if the card my yoga teacher had given me indeed had a picture of Swami Vishwananda on it. I felt an almost obsession to know if that card was the divine sign that lead me to the feeling in my heart that I had been guided to Swami, that it was not a coincidence. Indeed, I felt that my obsession identified and solved would be beyond logic.

During Swami’s second visit to America, the U.S. coordinator told me about a certain man that had met Swami the same time he did in Mauritius, the birthplace of Swami Vishwananda. I met that man during Swamiji’s second visit. To my astonishment, I discovered he was the source of the card that had guided me to my Satguru! He gave the very card to my yoga teacher who later gave the card to me. As Divine Will manifests, that same man, the U.S. coordinator and I became part of the team of people who organized Swami Vishwananda’s tours in America. Was the card given to me by my yoga teacher a “coincidence?” Logic may indicate coincidence, but the heart says: “The picture on the card of my future Satguru was Divine Intervention!”

Swami Vishwananda tells us: Being perfect is to accept everything that comes to us every day as coming from God, as His Will. It is to do everything with Divine Love from the heart. You see it is very simple!

MAHAAVATAR BABAJI
Babaji writes in Unity With The Divine: “Know that I am on a search for you presently living on Earth, who are ready to reach for Cosmic Consciousness. I know who you all are!

“Throughout the centuries I have revealed myself to the few whom I choose to carry my
message of Living Light of Love to those of mankind whom I am working with throughout their cycles of incarnations on Earth. I serve the Divine in the capacity of Good Will Ambassador to the world populations throughout the cycle of time in which you presently are living, the Kali Yuga. This is the time of ignorance or darkness, now completing and simultaneously merging into the next age known as the Golden Age, the Sathya Age, age of truth.” —Babaji

From Utpalavati With Love

There is a magnet in your heart that will attract true friends. That magnet is unselfishness, thinking of others first… when you learn to live for others, they will live for you.” —Paramhansa Yogananda


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Beloved Babaji,
Can you answer a burning question in my heart? When like in the story posted here of a disciple of Sri Swami Vishwananda, one meets and recognizes one's Satguru and surrenders to Him, are we duty-bound to remain with Him throughout our many lifetimes? How can our souls ever deceive us when the eternal flame of love is ignited in our hearts forevermore?