Mystery of Small Girl Solved

One day Swami was giving darshan (sight of a holy person) to the devotees in Prasanthi Nilayam. As he walked amongst them, I saw a small girl, scarcely five years old, trying to give a letter to Swami. 'Did this child write the letter? Perhaps her mother would have written it', I thought. Even as this thought flashed across my mind, I saw Swami taking the letter, crumpling it and throwing it down as if it were waste paper. This strange act of His made me wonder, 'Maybe Swami meant that the letter was a waste. did it mean that their prayer was answered? He is compassionate. He might have answered. Even if He did not, I don't think he would indicate that.

I got my answer when I went home for the summer holidays. I heard about the experience which threw light upon that incident. The small girl I had seen that day had a heart ailment. The doctors in Madras and Hyderabad confirmed the presence of a hole in her heart. When they came to the Sathya Sai Baba Super Specialty Hospital at Prasanthi Nilayam, the same diagnosis was given. The date of the operation was fixed. The girl's mother wrote a letter to Swami about the operation, and asked the girl to hand it over to Him. This was the scene I had witnessed a few months ago. The mother saw Swami crumpling the letter and took it as a rejection. Her heart bled for her child. The day of the operation dawned. The girl was wheeled into the operating theater. When the final tests were done, the doctors could not believe what they found. They checked again and found no trace of the hole in the heart. The child was perfectly healthy. They went home glad and grateful. What a way to indicate benediction!

Only He knows the purpose of what he does. However, once in a while He does let us peep behind the curtain of His mystery. He wants to confer joy on us. Perhaps, he wants us to understand him. But then, why does he say we should not try to understand; only experience him? Probably, he gives us these glimpses so that we will know the inscrutable nature of his deeds, and the futility of our efforts to comprehend them.