Om Sai Ram friends,
One of the most read article in StarSai is the experience I had in during my Tirumala pilgrimage back in 2007. During that trip, I kept chanting “Sai Vengusa, Sai Vengusa, Sai Vengusa” continuously and traveled to Tirumala hills.
Late night at 1 AM, we did Angapradhikshana (rolling around temple with body on floor) and came back to the room we stayed. I hugged the holy book Sri Sai Satcharita and slept. Sai blessed me with a beautiful dream as if Lord Venkateshwara is opening his eyes and blessing me. I wrote about it in below article.
Sri Venkateswara – The God who opened eyes for chanting his holy name
Here’s a devotee Dr. Bhaskar who shared a very beautiful experience on how the above article inspired him to travel to Tirumala and his experience in the divine adobe of Lord Shri Venkateshwara.
Leela: Discovery of Starsai Website
My father passed away in June 2018, he was a staunch devotee of Shirdi Sai Baba and Lord Venkateshwara, I am also the same in this respect. Since his passing, I was to some level inconsolable and kept talking to him in my prayers and thoughts.
It was in December 2018 that before I went to bed at night I told my wife, I wish to travel in my sleep and visit places tonight, quite a strange statement to begin with. Well, I slept and the same night I had a dream.
I was traveling in a dark hallway with occasional specks of light scattered (stars) and reached a place where in my mind I kept on thinking “He will open his eyes now, he will open his eyes now, ” And he did open his eyes, they were moon colored inside. That’s all I remembered and woke up.
That’s when I went on Google and searched: “Lord Venkateshwara open eyes in dream meaning” and came across: Sri Venkateswara – The God who opened eyes for chanting his holy name
This is how I came to know of your website and read that we kind of had the same dream. I read your story and then decided to go to Tirupathi in March 2019 along with my wife. Before leaving people and priests at our local Venkateshwara temple were trying to arrange for darshan tickets/passes etc, but I kept on telling them that we will just go there on our own and Venkateshwara will help us and we do not need any special arrangements.
Anyway when the time for departure came, they still didn’t manage to get any tickets and we left our country for Chennai and from there went straight to Tirupathi.
On arrival, we rested for one night at ITC Grand Select Hotel and the next day went off for darshan.
On the way up the hill, as per your story, I was also randomly chanting Om Sai Ram, Sai Vengusa, Om Namo Narayana, Om Namo Venkateshaya silently in my mind.
We took the NRI ticket and joined the queue. Now in the queue people were pushing a lot, this was very irritating as we were not used to such behaviour in queues, I kept on turning back and asking the people behind to please stop pushing us as they also came here for darshan and it is not right to push others this way.
Then out of nowhere appeared this old man who said: “Hello Sir, I walk behind you, let them push me you walk in front”. I didn’t know what to say and didn’t reply and kept walking; but he did do what he said and no one pushed me and my wife anymore.
As we were walking, the old man kept asking questions “Where are you from? Can I see your passport ? etc…” Which I didn’t really answer. All I know is he said he is a Labourer from Kannur in Andra Pradesh (On googling later I found out it was in Kerala).
Along with us on the way was an Indian couple from Dubai, it was their 3rd time going to Tirupathi. To cut a long story short, at some point along the way my wife and I got separated in the massive crowd but I could still see her on the other end. The couple from Dubai stayed with her until myself and the old man who was still with me managed to join them.
This is quite a funny event, as before we left our country my mom told us the exact same event happened to her when she went to Tirupathi with my father, they got separated and a couple stayed with her until my dad joined them again. She was telling us to stick together etc.
When we reached close to the sanctum the old man was telling us ” Sir stay on the right, keep staying right or you will not see anything” he repeated this many times until we reached the front where we saw Lord Venkasteshwara.
We saw everything so clearly, no one pushed us, even the security didn’t move us away, until we felt that we are preventing others and decided to move. The lady of the Dubai couple was in tears as she said she came here 3 times before and this is the first time she actually saw Lord Venkateshwara properly.
After we exited the old man told us “Come with me there’s one more God to see”, we did not follow and he just disappeared, we were still in the sanctum area coming out. We waited a bit but no sign of the old man. As we came out we had to find our gate to exit where the driver was waiting, and needless to say we got lost!! I saw a police officer and showed him the ticket and he asked “Where are your laddoos?”
I told him “We are tired and we don’t want to stand in another queue with thousands”
He said “Follow me” and took our tickets with him. My wife and I waited, we were worried because if we didn’t see him again and our tickets are lost, people might think we got in without paying. About 15 minutes later the police officer came back with a bag and 6 laddoos.
We didn’t have a phone, so he called our driver and asked him to come to another gate. Again, I thought the officer might ask for something in return as he did so much, but he just dropped us off and we left back to the hotel.
I would describe this as Shirdi Baba coming along all the way to help us get Darshan.
I shall write more after this Leela to tell you about how Shirdi Baba again helped by forcing me to do a CT scan for a different problem, only to discover a life threatening illness for which I can be potentially cured and still undergoing treatment at this point in time.
-Dr.Bhaskar
Hope you like this Sai leela friends. I love it when devotee’s are inspired to do chanting or reading good books or visiting a temple reading my articles. Sometimes, I request devotees to give Saree or any dress to poor people in village area and get their blessings. My words should be transformed as a good deed which is all I ask Sai for.
I feel happy for such Sai leela and that’s why I created StarSai.
Today, December 23rd 2020, StarSai is stepping into 16th year. Hopefully, Saibaba will inspire me to do more good work for Sai children in the years to come.
Om Sai Ram
Venkat
