It has been a while since I have written my new experiences about Shiridi Sai how he always has a surprise waiting for you, if you believe Him.
After moving to Swindon, my son had an appendicitis operation(removal of appendix) at The Great Western Hospital. It started off as a stomach pain and the GP (doctor) ruled out appendix infection in the morning. We had to call the ambulance at 1 AM in the night and at 2:30 the following morning, he had an operation performed after around 20 doctors visiting him, assessing him again and again and again before deciding to operate. In this context I need to explain the speed of ambulances in the UK, the two times we called for one, we had someone knocking on the door when we hung up on the phone : Lightning fast. I was in the hospital next to his bed for 1 week without bath, while my wife managed food for us and shuttling between home and hospital. A friend of mine who happened to be a colleague at work also helped us immensely during this very difficult period as I still didnt have a car. After my son was back at home, he kept on persuading me to make a trip to the Birmingham temple to seek blessings of Venkateswara Swamy.(before this I had a chicken pox attack -- first time in 32 years at the age of 32-- it was absolute horror) So my son getting operated made his argument stronger to make a visit to the temple and pay respects to the God. In this context again ,the doctor who operated my son said that he has not seen kids of that age being operated for appendicitis in the last 10 years, which surprised him. He was having a feeling if kids habbits have become healthy all of a sudden in the recent years. My son was never allowed to eat junk and had chocolates very rarely and was fed on a rich diet of fruits, veg (always fresh : not frozen) , always having enough water (no fizzy drinks at all) and what not. I have now waved goodbye to this theory of mine and allow him to have what ever he wants(of course with consideration). I never agreed that my principles not giving junk were wrong, but I now started allowing him out of pure frustration : Why on earth did a boy who had healthy habbits encounter this difficulty where as many out there are having a very happy life. My son could not walk properly for almost a month and needed a scan again as he complained of pain in his stomach. After seeing his suffering , I felt that there was no need to starve him of all the tastes on earth (Sai Baba always says that you should eat food to just feed the body, should never crave for taste or special foods, just enough food for the body, not much and again not less (He never agreed to do "Upavasa" (fasting))
When my friend said that we should go to the Birmingham temple to seek Venkateswara Swamy's blessings, I initially said that I will see, because I didnt like the idea of praying to God out of fear. I pray to thank Him for all the good things that happen , for all the bad things that happen, I am to blame. So this concept of fear based parying or visiting temple didnt make me agree to the trip, but eventually I decided to go there for seeing the temple, not out of any fear. Again , Venkateswara Swamy is my parents Family Deity (కుల దైవం). My grandfather being a communist, he never allowed pooja at home it seems, and my mom and her mom could only do when he was not around , so pooja was quite less in our home (very less in fact, but the belief in God is always there)
So, we set out on a suitable day to the temple : We reached Birmingham, although I was a bit surprised by the way people were driving there(changing lanes without signalling, and many other bad habbits), we reached the temple premises. My friend parked the car and both the families started going towards the temple. As it was first time for all of us , no one knew how to actually go inside, we could see the temple but it was quite open, so didnt know which way to actually enter. My wife was leading the way with my friends wife and they found a smaller temple which is much at the entrance of the big temple premises (the Birmingham temple has many smaller temples inside it, the largest one being that of Venkateswara Swamy). So here we are going to a smaller temple, which had no idea of. As we went closer, by sheer luck it was 12:00 in the afternoon and we heard something very familiar : Madhyaana Aarti of Sai Baba... It was quite faint from that distance ,but definitely it was that only. So we went inside and to our surprise, it was Sai Baba's temple . (We later found out that it was newly constructed and the key person inside the main temple was asking everyone to visit that temple also) My wife and I just could not belive ourselves. I know bits and pieces in the aarthi, but not completely. My wife was searching for the aarathi script and she was asking me, but I was in no mood, or no much in this world. I was literally crying there, with closed eyes and singing the aarathi, whatever I knew, didnt bother to look around for the scripts. That happiness of singing the aarathi there was so much that nothing else it the world seemed important and nothing else I thought would be more blissful). I only came back into the world after the aarathi was finished and then searched where my wife and son were in the crowd(luckily close by only). We never never imagined to see Sai's temple there and if just the temple was a surprise, reaching there exactly by the aarathi time is another sheer luck.
With this very very pleasant surprise, we moved on to the other temples and had a trip of a life time going to Birmingham.
For many reading this, it may be a sheer coincidence or whatever logic can explain . But, for me that was the greatest bliss of my life so far, never had I been more happy than that moment of singing aarathi in the temple.
More experiences to follow (I have an instance at this point of time to write , but I will write the same statement in that post also(that there will be more experiences to follow), as I am very sure that there will be an experience which I will share again)
Till then
Om Sai Ram and Jai Hind.
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