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Articles: Devotion | The Sai movement in Chile
- Prof. venkata ramanamurty mallajosyula
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One can only stand stupefied in wonder reading about such instantaneous transformations! And beautiful instances like this were happening everywhere in Chile.
He Introduces Himself to Many More :
In Viña del Mar, the beautiful coastal city, we mentioned that there is a Sai centre. But there is something more unique going on here. Right in the middle of a small pine forest there is a small cabin, from which on every Thursday one can hear bhajans accompanied by an Andean instrument (“palo de agua” - a hollow piece of cactus with small stones inside and nails on the inner walls and closed ends. Whenever the cactus “stick” is turned, it makes a sound like a river slowly carrying thousand of pebbles.)
Most of the devotees are teenagers; they sing bhajans with lots of energy and zest. On Mondays they lovingly serve meals to needy people at the nearby port of Valparaiso, and this is something which has been going on for several years now.
The lovely Vina del Mar :
In another Sai Centre, in the city of Quilpue, (called by locals “Sunny City” because it has more sunny days than Valparaiso, its nearest big city) on a Saturday morning while a group of devotees were chanting a series of 108 Gayatri mantras, suddenly something unexplainable happened. One of them was keeping count on a japamala, and almost at the end of the 108th round, a bead materialized out of thin air and fell onto the floor. Now there were 109 beads…the ways the omnipresent Swami makes His presence felt are unfathomable.
All these experiences of Sai which increased as the days passed by not only brought more people to the centres but it also resulted in the Centres expanding their activities and trying to make a positive difference in the local community. One such thing that took shape was EHV – the all important Education in Human Values programme. And how Swami brought instruments for this work too is fascinating.
The materialised japamala bead :
Manuel, a very enthusiastic devotee, never missed an opportunity to speak about Baba, be it in a bus or any place. Once, Marisol, a lady living in La Serena, was riding in a bus when Manuel, who happened to be sitting next to her, started talking about Baba. Marisol says, “Normally I don’t talk to strangers, but this time something made me listen to this gentleman. What he said was very interesting, he was very well prepared; he opened a small business briefcase and started pulling photocopies and pictures of Baba. He invited me to a Thursday meeting. As soon I got home, I went through all the reading material and then saw the picture he had given me. I noticed it was covered with dust. I cleaned it and after a while the same ‘dust’ covered the picture of Baba again. It puzzled me. Only in the Thursday meeting, I learned that this strange ‘dust’ was Vibhuti and Baba’s calling card.” This was enough to instill faith in Marisol and soon she became involved with Sai activities and later on did a lot of work on EHV.
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