Jai Guruji!
As I attempt to write about how dear, beloved Guruji blessed me, my eyes blur with tears.
In March 2010, I had gone for a regular health check up, when Pandora's box opened: I had breast cancer. Several tests confirmed it. Considering that my general health was good, the doctors could not believe the results of the tests, but there I was suffering from a very aggressive variant of cancer.
I used to lead a disciplined life and always maintained a good diet and fairly good health. I was 48 years old and my world came crashing down. I underwent surgery, rigorous chemo therapy and was to begin radiation when Guruji summoned me.
It was on August 16th 2010, when my husband and I found our way to the Bade Mandir. It was my dentist who sent me to Guruji. I had visited him because my teeth were chipping as a result of the strong chemo drugs. The gentleman gave us the directions for the Bade Mandir.
The 16
th of August was a Monday. After going through a sitting of radiation, my husband and I set out for Bade Mandir. On reaching there, we cautiously walked into the
samadhi with folded hands, and were circumambulating the samadhi, when an elderly lady ahead of us stopped, turned back and asked me, "Are you well?"
I always felt embarrassed during those days, as I looked awful with no hair, eyebrows, or eyelashes and used to tie a scarf around my head. The lady's question terrified me. I answered her indignantly in defense, "Oh, I am fine now!" She told me to step out of the samadhi with her. That did it. I whispered to my husband that she was throwing me out of the samadhi because she could see that I was a patient. My husband, also almost certain of that outcome, gently guided me outside. But the lady took us to her car and handed us a thick book called The Light of Divinity.
I stared at it, stupefied, till my husband nudged me to ask her how much I had to pay her. Guruji's angel, with folded hands, told me that she was only doing sewa. She told me that Guruji had taken me in His
sharan and then gave me a photograph of Guruji as I told her I had none.
I read the book every day while going through my treatment. It used to bother me that all the
satsangs I read were written by devotees who had seen Guruji in His physical form. I felt I was a very unfortunate and undeserving soul to be taken under His sharan after he gave up His physical form.
I went to the Bade Mandir every month on Mondays and again to have
langar. I underwent treatment till 26th May 2011 and my health, strength, and immunity steadily improved. Every check-up showed that my internal organs functioned better than a normal person's in spite of aggressive chemotherapy.
I underwent a bone scan last week, and the report is normal. My doctors have finally removed my chemo port (a small instrument that helps to take chemotherapy and is surgically inserted below the collar bone). After two years of pain, I am finally rid of all that troubled me, including the chemo port. It was a tremendously long haul but Guruji pulled me out of it.
Disarming a fatal coconut
Since childhood I had been allergic to coconut in all its forms. For example, coconut oil in my hair led to blisters instantly. I could not swallow food. I was terrified of the coconut and very careful: a doctor had told me that it could even be fatal.
One Monday afternoon as I was visiting the Bade Mandir, I stood in the queue to take the tea
prasad and the delicious
samosa prasad. To my utter disbelief, I was handed two
khandvis and a
laddoo in a small plate along with a glass of tea prasad! I stared at the khandvis and they mocked back at me-they were full of freshly grated coconut. How was I going to refuse Guruji's prasad? Yet how was I, in my right senses, to consume them? I sat looking at them for a minute, then mustering up courage, said "Jai Guruji" and popped each of them in my mouth. On my way back home, I rang up my husband to tell him that I may need to be rushed to the hospital as I had eaten two khandvis. He said that we will wait and watch for two hours. Two and twenty and two hundred hours came and went and I did not have a trace of discomfort. Till today, the Bade Mandir is the only place where I consume coconut without a care.
Pot of grief now overflows with grace
While I was desperately fighting cancer, our daughter was engaged to be married in January 2011. It had been just a month since Guruji had taken me in His sharan when the boy's family began behaving badly. A day before one of my six-hour chemotherapy sessions, on September 5th, our daughter's marriage was called off. My daughter was shattered and so were my husband and I. And I was exceedingly tense about this chemo session. It seemed that the world around us was collapsing and that we were skidding down a dark tunnel. We could not see the light. My husband said: "Our pot of disappointment is overflowing." Our friends and relatives all gossiped about our misfortune. We had to deal with my illness and the broken engagement. We begged Guruji to give us strength.
Ever-loving Guruji pulled us out of those bad times. An year later, just this February of 2012, our daughter got married. To be honest, I must share that she and her husband are going through adjustment issues, but we know that Guruji is purifying her through the test of fire and all is fine.
I beg Guruji to keep us at His lotus feet always, and be with us even unto the end. He is God and Master. His will be done.
Sarbari Sen, a humble devotee
April 2012