Dada Mela, A Press Report

Press Report

Sunday 19th February.

The eager public of Pune thronged the Sadhu Vaswani Mission campus to see and hear their own, beloved Saint, Rev. Dada J.P.Vaswani. He kept his appointment with them, despite the ordeal of pain that has confined him to his room for the last two months.

Dada’s brilliant smile did not in the least betray the pain that he has been braving all these weeks. He began with a smiling assertion that grief and pain are also God’s gifts to man. They are not to be defied, denied or rejected – but accepted as gifts from God.

Why do you fear troubles and sufferings?

In them too is the Lord to be found.

And, if you accept them in the right spirit

Troubles can be surmounted!

There is no one – no, not a single human being among us – who has not had to face problems and difficulties at one time or another.

This is the seed of faith that we must sow in the minds of our children – that difficulties and dangers may beset us – but God is with us, within our hearts; closer is He to us than hands and feet, nearer is He than our breath. And when he is with us, what is there that we need to fear?

Unfortunately, we are so wrapped up in our troubles that we are unable to forget them, unable to move away from them and focus on the Lord.

Dada narrated the profoundly moving story of the American girl, who had borne witness to this truth in her life – that the Lord is always with us, ever by our side, listening to our every word, and always ready to give His loving answers to our queries – if only we learn to listen to Him in the silence of the spirit! Her father had taught her this truth, and she learnt to live by it.

She cultivated the practice of silence – and she learnt to hear the sweet, silent whisper of the Lord. When she met with an accident which prevented her from attaining motherhood, she accepted the lost in the spirit of faith. The doctors who had said to her, “You will never become a mother,” were taken aback to see the fortitude with which she accepted the terrible blow.

But God was truly with her. She met a wonderful man who married her – and a miracle came about in her life, for they were blessed with a beautiful daughter – a veribable medical miracle, brought about by faith!

That was not the end of her story! In a few years, she was afflicted by cancer. In a moment of weakness, she decided to end her life, to spare her family from sorrow and suffering – but even as she stepped out of her hospital room to end her life, she heard her father’s voice whisper his loving words of faith and hope:

What if there are troubles?

Troubles can disappear with His grace!

The lady survived the major cancer surgery – and countless bounds of radiation. She lived to unite her spiritual autobiography, which became a bestseller.

Dada added with a smile, that it was not only in the lives of Saints and mahatamas that such faith was demonstrated. It happened in the lives of ordinary people like us, in this, the age we live in now.

Dada urged everyone present to take a leaf out of the lives of Indian housewives, who often tie ‘memory-knot’ in their chunnis or sarees, to remind themselves of important tasks or duties. “Tie a knot here and now,”

Dada said to his enthralled audience.

“Never ever forget that your troubles will disappear with God’s grace.”

The whole day there was havan, Kirtan, chanting of Gayatri and Maha Mritunjaya Mantra and a number of service programmes were carried out.