I believed that if God exists, then you can worship and pray to him directly, without an intermediary or a guru. However, I have always been curious about why people go to gurus, though I am always open to discussing matters of different faiths. So I got involved in a discussion with a devotee of our Guruji to the point that I soon suspended my disbelief and attended a
satsang at his place in year 2018.
I later wrote a book on my early experiences with Guruji in California. Then I moved to New Jersey, a bit sad that I was separating from my
guru parivar. The move to New Jersey was paved with Guruji's grace.
At the airport on the way to New Jersey, my wife and I were being escorted to our plane on wheelchairs, accompanied by our daughter. A few minutes before it was time to board, my daughter asked me about my boarding pass. I couldn't find it and realized I had thrown it out with a sandwich wrapper. We rushed to the trashcan and dug out the pass in the nick of time, before the garbage could be collected.
After we boarded the flight, my wife noticed her bag of medications was missing. We had left it in a compartment on one of the wheelchairs, which was already long on its way to a different part of the airport. My daughter rushed to the gate desk; the attendants tracked down the wheelchair's location and brought the bag back before take-off.
In New Jersey, a devotee arrived to our house to pick up a package her sister had sent with us. She was attending a satsang hosted in my own neighbourhood—and soon we were able to get connected to devotees living close by, and pay our respects at the Edison mandir in New Jersey. Clearly, Guruji was behind it all.
When I travelled to India a few months ago, I had to fly in alone because no one from New Jersey was able to accompany me. Getting things done in India is notoriously inconvenient, and I had formalities such as acquiring an Aadhaar card to complete. I was worried that without help, I wouldn't be able to manage it all in the four weeks I had. However, everything went extremely well, and I travelled back to the US (alone again) within four weeks, just before the COVID-19 lockdown began and US–India flights were suspended. I can't imagine what would have happened if I would have had to stay in India away from my family under lockdown, but Guruji made sure I was able to finish my errands in time.
After making it home to my daughter's house in New Jersey, I thought everything had gone well. But after a few hours, I realized I had forgotten my briefcase in the cab. I called my son-in-law, who had arranged for a specific driver to bring me home; luckily, the driver was not too far away and returned the briefcase.
Throughout all of these events, I remained calm. I knew that the pass, bag, and briefcase would be found and that I would be able to accomplish my work properly because Guruji would come to help me. Indeed, He did so every time. Thank you, Guruji!
Pradhan, a devotee
December 2020