Monday 23 April 2007

A Reservation for Five (Amrit, India)


Some years ago I learned that Maharajji was ill, so I decided to pay him a visit. As I lived in Punjab more than 300 kilometres away, I had to organise a trip for this, and my two daughters accepted to go with me to see him. However the day before we left, I thought of inviting my neighbour to come with us. When I spoke to him, he hesitated, and said he would let me know the following morning if he was coming, the very day we were leaving.
When the day came, he informed me that not only would he come, but so would his own daughter. In the end, five of us were going on this trip to Rishikesh. Neither my neighbour and his daughter, nor my daughters and I had told Maharajji about our visit. We were going to give him a nice surprise! We left very early, because Rishikesh was quite far.
When we arrived, we were received by Maharajji and while we were speaking to him, Swami Baldev came into the room. Maharajji then told him,
“Baldev, here are the five people for whom I told you to reserve rooms this morning !”
We were completely dumbfounded. And how we had been looking forward to giving Maharajji a surprise!
We then learnt that in the morning, here at the ashram in Rishikesh, Maharajji had called Swami Baldev and given him precise instructions to reserve rooms for five people who were going to come. He had insisted that on no account should the rooms be given to anybody else. It must be said that at the time, the ashram could loge very few people.

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