V Praveen
2001 Prasanthi Nilayam
Nothing happens in this world without His divine will. The divine master plan unfolds in the most dramatic form that leaves the mortal world baffled. Swami in His infinite love makes us part of His divine plan and gives us an opportunity to grow in our faith and to progress in our Journey to reach Him.
I was fortunate that God chose me to be a part of His divine mission and story. After completing my BSc (Bioscience), I asked Swami regarding what to do next. Swami said that I should do Management. I studied hard during the winter and summer vacations and appeared for the MBA entrance exam. In the interview, the Vice Chancellor said that since I won the Gold Medal in BSc, the institute would like me to do a PhD. and not lose me to MBA. The interview panel was in no mood to listen. When I communicated this to Swami, He just smiled and said to do MSc. In my short sightedness, I was not aware of His divine plan. I wondered how the VC could not accept Swami’s directive, but over a period of time I forgot about this and finished my masters’ degree.
In July 2001, after the Summer vacation, Swami asked a couple of us to do PhD and while giving Padnamaskar He said that this is temporary, “I will give you some other work later”. In those days boys doing PhD received a lot of opportunity to serve VIPs so we thought that Swami must be referring to that work. Fifteen days into research, Swami sent word for us. When we reached the Interview room, He said, “I want to send you to the US to study management. Will you go?” We all said yes to the divine request. Swami wanted us to get the approval of our parents. Obviously, it was a big yes from them.
We were a little unhappy to leave Swami’s physical proximity. To pacify us, He said it is only for three months. This increased to 6 months the next day.
On 7 August 2001, Swami wanted us to write an exam in Bangalore. When we spoke to the elder who was coordinating our preparations we came to know it was GRE and TOEFL. For a person who was not thinking of any other options other than serving Swami, these words were very alien. Swami served us a sumptuous breakfast in the Mandir and sent us by the 8.00 AM bus to Bangalore. We were accommodated in the Gokulam. We were instructed to go to the TIME coaching centre for our GRE preparation. When we reached the coaching centre, the counsellor asked us about our plan for US and when we said that we intend to go there for the Fall session, they said that we cannot join their coaching centre as GRE preparation requires a minimum of three months of self study and mock exams. Not knowing what to do, we asked them the procedure for taking the exams. They wanted us to show our passports. They laughed as we did not have them. We went to the passport office to apply for passports through ‘Tatkal’. On applying we tried explaining the urgency, but we were told to wait for 15 days. But Swami had other plans. The passport officer who was handling our files was being transferred to Singapore. He thought that as Sathya Sai Baba has done so much for Karnataka, such as by building the Super Speciality hospital, he wanted to do a little in return before he left office. So he fast tracked the process and handed over the passports to us by 4.00 PM. A record 6 hours from time of application! The police verification part of the application was done 10 years later when I renewed the passport!
We reached the TIME office next day with the passport to their surprise. By now, they understood the power of Sai, so they said that we could use their testing center, but did not enrol us for fear of reputation. On 5thAugust we got the dates for the GRE exams – 10 August – in just five days. During these days, we ate very little. We bought the GRE books and took the first mock test with disastrous results. For the next 4 days we locked ourselves and tried reading through the massive books. For a Bioscience student, mathematics is a difficult proposition, but Swami already made me relearn it during my preparation for the MBA exams. We found it very hard to just go through the books leave alone mastering them. On the fateful day, with much trepidation we reached the exam hall and did our bit. We could not believe our eyes when the results popped up on the screen. Swami cleared the GRE for us!
TOEFL was even more dangerous for me, as my typing skills were nascent to the extent of thinking why the alphabets can’t be in a single line on the keyboard. I had to write a 1000-word essay online. Swami did the miracle again. We got news from the University that since we had studied in English medium throughout our education, we have been exempted from taking TOEFL.
After we reached Parthi, Swami called us in along with some elders and remarked that He had sent us to study, but we were only busy eating food. He asked for a weighing scale and personally checked my weight. I had put on 5 kilos in 5 days! (I am still struggling to shed the divine weight after years of exercising.)
On 15 August, on Swami’s command, we filled up the application forms that came by snail mail and sent them back by snail mail to Loma Linda University in California, which was the University chosen by Swami out of the big list of Universities. The Vice Chancellor who thought it prudent to give me a PhD seat than MBA, gave me a recommendation letter for this course. Swami respects the administrative system He has created. He could have asked the University to give me the MBA seat, but He respected the words of the VC.
Though the admissions for Fall were closed by July, Swami worked a miracle and the University accepted our applications. The Admission Committee met as a special case and selected us. Loma Linda University is a Seventh day Adventist University which believes in vegetarian food. So vegetarian restaurants are on campus, solving the big problem of availability of vegetarian food in the US.
On 1st September 2001, on Swami’s command we applied for Visa through an agent in Bangalore as per the prevailing procedures. The application was sent to Chennai and our Visa interview was fixed for 12 September. Swami had, in the meanwhile, increased the duration of our stay from 6 months to 1 year. But the course for which we had enrolled was a 2-year Master’s course in Public Health with Health Care Administration as the Major. Swami blessed us and sent us to the Visa interview to Chennai. We reached Chennai on the evening of 11 September (9/11) and watched the news of the Twin Towers crumbling in the Tamil Nadu State President’s house. The US Consulate was closed on the 12th and our interview was scheduled for the 13th. The mood at the Consulate was of fear and anger. Our Visa applications were rejected as we did not have scholarship from the University nor did we produce our family financial status. By then Swami had made His plan of sending us to the US known to the entire world. He had announced many times in public discourses, which was carried by Sanathana Sarathi, to the world. We wanted to run away to avoid the bad publicity. When Swami was informed of our predicament, He laughed and said that we will get the Visa at 3.00PM.
Next day through Karnataka Government contacts we got an appointment with the marketing head of the US Consulate. He regretted saying that we should have gone to him directly as it was now impossible to reverse the decision of Visa office for next six months. We tried to get help from the Tamil Nadu government, but it had no results. At this point the US Consulate officials contacted the Chief Secretary to the Chief Minister (Tamil Nadu) for a meeting to increase security around their Consulate compound. The chief secretary’s first words were to issue Visa to the “Sathya Sai people” and to then to meet him. For the first time, Visa was delivered by the officials. We received it by hand at 3.00PM on 17 September 2001 in the hotel room. For Sai ‘impossible’ has no existence!
We had bookings from Singapore to Los Angeles on same day so we hurriedly assembled our suitcases and left to the airport. But our bookings to Singapore were not confirmed. Mysterious are Sai’s ways. One of the Sai Organization members happened to be the personal physician of the Singapore Airlines Chairman. We got a faxed ticket and were asked to collect the original ticket on the same flight we were to board (in those days online ticket booking was unavailable). The airlines counter upgraded us to Business class on seeing the ticket endorsed by the Chairman! When we reached Los Angeles, Dr. Ram Shetty, Swami’s instrument in the US in this master plan, picked us up from Airport. We did not have any jet lag &we went straight to our classes.
Our academic counsellor said that the course was a 2-year course. He was planning to divide the credits between quarters. We informed our desire to go back in a year’s time. He checked his rule book and said that to do so, we had to take 54 credits and that we can take a maximum of 18 credits per quarter. We also had an option to carry forward few credits from MSc so we were excited that we will go back in a year’s time. He said that since we missed the prerequisites for this course, which are given only before next Fall, we cannot graduate till that time. This disappointed us. The next day while we were praying to Swami, the usual junk mail carried us a flyer for the same credits that were given in an adjacent the San Bernadino University. Classes were divinely planned in such a way that we could attend classes at both the universities. With Swami’s blessings the University allowed us to graduate in the same year we joined before even completing the course work. Swami sent us a graduation suit specially ordered for us!
We reached Parthi after completing our coursework on 16 September 2002, one day before the completion of a year. When we reached Parthi, Swami was waiting for us on the portico. He received us saying, “I told you that you will be back in one year.”
Through this entire journey Swami gave impossible circumstances and solved them in His divine style giving us a message that with Sai there is nothing impossible. With Sai we are heroes and without Sai we are zeros. Zeros have value only when there is a ‘1’ in the front. So we put Sai before us – as our engine, we don’t need to worry about our Journey. He is our destination, He is our Journey, He is our Engine and He is our Sarathi.
Brother V Praveen is based out of Bangalore and works as Special Assistant to Director at Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Medical Sciences, Whitefield. He is also the convener of SSSIHMS, Samithi started by Bhagawan Himself. During his college days he was part of the Vedam group. Post his studies, he was guided by Bhagawan to undertake training in hospital management in USA before joining Bhagawan’s hospital.