Personal Transformation Experience
Let it Happen as Per Your Will
My journey with Swami started 14 years ago when my family made our first trip to Puttaparthi during Diwali. On one of the days, as we were sitting for Darshan, waiting for our beloved Lord to arrive; Swami came in His bright orange robe and stopped in front of me, my mom and my sister and looked at us for some time, smiled and moved away.
Until today, I can remember those eyes of Swami which were filled with so much Love that they instantly made a connection and convinced me 14 years ago that Swami is Divine and He is God.
As a little girl, I grew up talking to Swami in my heart. My mother would always tell me to keep Swami with me every second of my day and He will guide me. Whenever I felt the need to share my feelings with someone, it was always Swami, especially when I could not speak to my family and friends. Because of that, Swami became my constant companion.
Back in school, I was a hardworking girl and because of that there was never a point where I experienced failure or stress. It was always being the top in every possible way. I would pray to Swami that I would do my best and leave the rest to Him as He knows best. But this prayer still had that ‘I’ in it, the ego, which means it would be my hard work and effort and not of Swami’s, who is the true doer in each one of us. Never did i realise that this feeling of being the best started building a slight ego in me and Swami decided to use this to put me through an unexpected test.
This year, in the month of January, when Swami visited Malaysia, I had given Him a letter. In that letter, I prayed to Swami to keep me with Him and make me a part of His Divine mission that is growing tremendously. There was a deep yearning in my heart to do more work for Swami. This was because I felt I was not growing spiritually. The morning before Swami left for the airport from Sai Amrutham, He instructed me to come and sit for a medical entrance exam in India called NEET and would inform Sister Bhuvana to send me more details about it. Without thinking twice, I said “Okay Swami”. However, right after Swami left, I was feeling a little confused because a year ago in March 2017, when I had the opportunity to be in Taiwan during Swami’s visit, He had told me to pursue my tertiary education in Malaysia at a university near home and the centre so that I could attend Seva activities regularly. Since then, I had fixed in my mind that I will be completing my pre-university and MBBS in Malaysia. A year later, Swami tells me to come and sit for NEET in India. Still feeling very clueless about the whole scenario, I decided to give it a try. After all it was Swami who has called me, which means there must be a reason for it.
Thankfully, Swami sent two loving Sai sisters from Sri Lanka and India along with me to prepare for this exam. In March, right after completing my finals, I flew to India as I was attending a 40-day coaching class in preparation for the exam. On my first day of class, I was feeling confident about myself and thought it was going to be an easy 40-day journey. But what happened was the total opposite. Swami decided to test me in a way that I could never imagine. The topics were taught in-depth and in-express because exams were in just 40-45 days. And there I was, feeling completely lost as everything was new to me. I had to learn the two years’ syllabus of Plus-2 in just 40 days. On Sunday, which was our only holiday for the week, would be used to study for a test on Monday. Every day, it was just studying and more studying and I was completely foreign to this lifestyle.
Every day, I would complain and cry to Swami to bring me back home as I could not handle the stress. It was such a heavy feeling that I could not share it with anyone except Swami. The worst feeling was when I compared myself to my classmates, I felt very dumb as I was just learning everything from scratch. On top of all of this, I was missing my family, being away from them for the first time. These bundles of discouraging emotions went on for almost two weeks. In the third week, I received a beautiful message of Swami on the prayer of surrender which said: To surrender means to turn your thoughts away from troubles, to turn them away from difficulties you encounter and from all your problems. Leave everything into My hands saying “Lord, Thy will be done, Thou think of it”. That is to say Swami you have taken everything from my hand and let it happen as per your will.
This prayer transformed my entire experience of studying after that. At that moment, I realised that I was so engrossed in myself, my pain, my stress, my effort that I forgot to share it with Swami. So, I decided to let go and let Swami take the lead. I surrendered all of my actions to Swami and prayed for Him to study through me. True enough, I started enjoying every lesson taught in class as I believed that Swami was now working through me.
40 days passed by and now it was time for the exam. Before exams, we had the opportunity to get Swami’s blessings. As the Divine Mother and Father who is always there to support, Swami said, “All that you have to do is pass NEET. I will take care of everything”. That one sentence from Swami, shattered all ego in me. It removed all doer-ship and touched me very deeply. Swami has been taking care of everything and Swami will take care of everything. A little bit of faith and love is all that it takes to make the first step in this journey of surrender.
Today, when I look back at those 40 days, I am grateful to Swami for it. He taught me the true meaning of surrender, which is to live and work every day for God. If not for those 40 days, I don’t know where i will be standing today. Thank you Swami!
Sree Gaeythri Abimanan
Region 1
Malaysia