The Grace of Sai Baba

(A Child's Prayer)

It was a day of great sorrow and yet ended up by being one of the happiest days of my life – the day on which the glory and grace of Sri Sai Baba of Shirdi first shone upon our family. I was only eleven at the time. My grandfather, whom I loved and idolised, was in the last stage of cancer. There was profuse internal bleeding and the doctors had given him up. The family were sitting around in grief, expecting the end within a few hours. As for me, I was sobbing aloud and wishing that I could die too. My grandfather was the person I most loved. I worshipped the very ground he trod on. While sobbing I kept on praying to God to have mercy on me and save him.

As I stood by the window in the evening, disconsolate and calling on God and all the saints to help us, I heard someone singing outside in a strangely powerful and moving way. The man who was singing stopped and continued his songs just under the window at which I stood, though I am sure he did not see me. His songs were all about the numerous miracles of the resplendent Sai Baba and how he never failed to come to the aid of those who sincerely turned to him and implored his help.

I had never heard of Sai Baba and this singer had never before come to our house, but as I listened a ray of hope penetrated my mind. I eagerly began praying to this great one to show mercy on me too and not to abandon me at this time of tragedy. Within two hours the haemorrage stopped and my grandfather took a turn for the better. When the doctors came next morning they were flabbergasted to see the change in him and sat there scratching their heads and discussing what could possibly have caused their prognostications to go wrong and how he could have recovered from such a hopeless condition. I smiled to myself because only I knew. Within a few days my grandfather was, quite all right again and the cancer never troubled him again.

Many times after that I experienced the grace and favours of Sai Baba and I am eternally grateful to him, but it was that first miracle that won my undying gratitude. I found afterwards that I had often seen his picture, for it is in so many Bombay shops, but I had not known who it was. Of course, he had long since left his physical body – as far bask as 1918, long before I was born – when this miracle occurred, but that did not matter. His grace and mercy are still showered on those who turn to him, and often on people like me who had never before heard of him.