Everyone who comes into contact with Guruji is, at one time or another, a recipient of his grace. There is no doubt that he has extraordinary powers (siddhis), and uses them to allay suffering or enlighten intellects or mirror the Love of God in another soul. Some of these encounters are simply too precious to share. But some reveal the spirit of Guru Kripa, the grace of the guru, in extraordinary stories which beg to be told.
All embodied beings struggle to remember their divine nature because Mahamaya (Mother Nature) is instructed to do that job. When the compassionate Guru is moved to move Nature on your behalf, or lift a veil of ignorance, or give you a taste of bliss, or light up your third eye, you know it isn't earned in any way or deserved as a gift.
It is Guru Kripa.
Those are remarkable moments which give us a glimpse of something divine. The grace of guru is evidence of God's mercy descending to earth.
Hearing stories of those moments, God-loving beings (bhaktas, devotees) caught in the cobweb of desires unfulfilled--or feeling crushed beneath the "wheel of karma" because their desires were fulfilled!--take hope and have their devotion rekindled. God personally cares for His devotees. That is Truth (satyam) and He sends peerless servants like Guruji to remind us of That.
Please take time to share your stories of Guru Kripa. Yours may be the one God wants to use to inspire devotion towards Him in the heart of another being. Yours could be the one which gives the gift of understanding. Yours could bring a smile or laughter or cause the tears of devotion (bhakti) to flow. Such is the way of the eternal Play of the Love Divine (lila).
Will you share with others a precious moment in your life? Send your story of Guru Kripa by email to . Please send your name if you want to be listed as author.
Here is a wonderful story to start things off:
In early 1982 at the Temple on Santa Clara Avenue in Oakland, California, Guruji and Mataji were in residence. There was a great bustle, as always. Much food preparation and cleanup had been done over the weekend. But today was a Monday. The crowd for lunch would be only 9-10 people.
M and V were women devotees helping serve at the Temple. They worked hard over the weekend and though they had served many guests sitting with Guruji, they had not sat with him themselves this visit. There was hope, though, that today with the thinner crowd, Guruji might come downstairs to eat at the common dining table. A cool cheerfulness pervaded the kitchen, even though the pace was feverish.
Alas, word came at the last minute that another devotee, a lady who often dined with Guruji, would be joining him for lunch. Instructions were given to set the upstairs for two.
In an instant, a spark of jealousy nursed for days flared into flames for M. She started roughhandling the plates. The silverware drawer rattled angrily. Then, as she was filling the water pitcher for upstairs, her thoughts took a form. She knew Guruji drank only special bottled water and that the pitcher she held was intended for his guest alone. She hurled a glance of pure venom deep into the pitcher.
V turned and saw what M had done. She laughed, aghast. "M! Not that! You rinse out the pitcher and put good water in there!"
M smiled sheepishly and rebuked herself soundly for her temporary flight into selfishness. She good-naturedly prepared another pitcher with clear, cold water, carried it upstairs and marveled at the power of the mind.
Not ten minutes later, word came down from upstairs. "Move all the eating utensils, etc., downstairs. Guruji will be dining below." He descended, eyes twinkling, and offered a kindly smile to the two women.
His meaning was clear. His compassionate heart had answered a roomful of unspoken desires for his company. But he also recognized that if the "poisoned pitcher" of water had gone upstairs to poison that one lady, it would now be coming downstairs to poison us all!
Guru Kripa!
V writes:
Plagued with bouts of soul-crushing depression which made life difficult for everybody at the ashram, one night, in utter agony, I beseeched Guruji. "Surely, there must be something!" I cried. Though trying to remember the Holy Name at all times, I didn't always succeed. I sadly went to bed before Guruji, curled up and surrendered to sleep, miserable to the core of my being.I woke up early the next morning and opened my door. There, lying just outside it like fallen treasure at my feet, were sheaves of paper meticulously handwritten by Guruji. I eagerly clasped them, my heart humbled and overwhelmed with gratitude. He had stayed up later than his usual late to transliterate from Sanskrit the powerful Aditya Hridayam, a hymn of praise to the Sun taught by Sage Agastya to Lord Sri Rama when the latter became discouraged on the battlefield.
I rushed downstairs and created a little booklet to accompany my vrita (vow) of offering this hymn to the Sun for forty days. It was the dead of winter in Oakland, so there was some doubt I was going to get to address His Highness face to face. I laughed to myself, too, because I remembered the last time I had wanted to pay homage to the Sun. I was pretty new to asanas then, so the crystal-voiced R had painstakingly drawn for me all twelve of the Sun Salutation yoga postures in stick figures on a chart with colored pens. It was gorgeous and I took it home and enthusiastically threw my back clean out on the fifth salutation!
But now, as I turned the pages of Guruji's writing, I marveled again and again at what a gift he had bestowed. The healing began as I typed and silently sang the melodious Sanskrit. I urged my fingers on to surprise him with the manuscript's completion when he opened his door that very morning! He was! We smilingly had our coffee and went over my typos one by one.
Soon afterwards, Guruji and Rama Mataji left for other venues. Early every morning that grey winter, without fail, I greeted the Sun with my singsong Sanskrit rendition of the Aditya Hridayam. About day five, I peered out my window at the completely overcast sky, bowed my head in salutation and raised it again to begin the chant:
OM Tato Yuddha Parishraantam
Samarae Chintayaa Sthitam
Raavanam Chaagrito Dristvaa
Yuddhaaya Samupasthitam . . . (click here for full text)To my astonishment, the clouds parted ever so slightly east of the ashram to reveal a glimpse of the radiant Sun, incongruous in a cloud-choked sky, but there nonetheless, shining, cocking an ear, as if. Every day thereafter, no matter what weather was displaying, during the ten minutes or so it took me to offer the hymn, Sri Surya Narayana, Aditya, the Lord of the Sun, would part the clouds at least once to receive it. Oh! The joy of the child playing with the Sun--wondering "will He come today?"--was fueled by the awe of the adult experiencing the Lord's commitment exactly reflecting her own.
My depression lifted little by little. On day 32, I had a profound experience which belies telling. And to this day, I have not been profoundly depressed again. I bow my head in gratitude for the grace of Guru.
Jai Guru Kripa!
But wait, there is more praise for the holy Aditya Hridayam and the power of the Guru's word behind his gifts!
J and I had been eagerly waiting for the opportunity to be roomies on one of the pilgrimages. We knew if it was meant to be, it would happen and sure enough, mid-trip, the chance arrived. But it was for one night only, at such and such a hotel, ta da! We laughed like little schoolgirls.
It had been an especially hard day of an especially hard week of an especially hard pilgrimage for one of the devotees, a dear lady stricken often and hard with extreme depression, suicidal at times. She careered between energetic rage and hopeless listlessness, from painful, humiliated awareness of her bizarre behavior to brazen indifference. She was hardly recognizable in speech or demeanor. Her whole pilgrimage was on the line and having reached the absolute end of her rope, if she didn't feel composed in the morning, she was leaving the tour. There was no doubt about her complete misery and apparent inability to surmount it by any means. People were shaking their heads in sorrow.
It had been months since I'd chanted the Aditya Hridayam but I never left home without it. The warm memory of its blessings flooded back. I excitedly told J what the Hymn had done for me. Maybe we could offer it on our friend's behalf! I dug into my backpack and came up with my beloved, by now worn booklet. As we began the holy incantation, J and I knew why we were rooming and chanting together. A holy, heavenly purpose filled the room. Our intent was pure. "Please, O God, relieve the suffering of ...."
We finished our prayer, turned out the lights and slept. Our friend never knew we did this.
The next morning, we get a telephone call to our room. It's our friend. She sounds exactly like herself of yore, says she's entirely baffled but pleased to report she feels great and by God, she'll be continuing on!
J and I look at each other.
"I can't understand it," our friend gushes, "it's like a light clicked on. The dark just isn't there anymore...! Wanna go have breakfast?"
Guru Kripa! Jai Guru!
~ J ~ writes:
In the late 1980s, I was in the U.S. Air Force stationed in Riverside, California and might have been around age 26 or 27. Though I was raised in a strict Catholic, African-American culture and environment, I always had an intense interest in eastern religion and spirituality, and practiced strict vegetarianism since age 18, praying to God as Sri Krishna. During my time off duty, I would wander around to all the used bookstores in the area looking for metaphysical books and such. One day, at a bookstore in Riverside, I found an autographed copy of 'Essence of Bhagavad Gita and Bible' , a book Sant Keshavadas had written.Strangely enough, as I started to read the book, Guruji often appeared in my dreams. After I got out of the military and moved to Atlanta, Ga., I continued to read the book and conceived of the notion that maybe I should write Sant Keshavadas or call the temple in Oakland to speak to him.
But another year passed, and I began to sink into depression as the result of my impending divorce. One evening in late October '89, I was praying in tears to Lord Sri Krishna for relief and asking, who was my Guru? I had written Sant Keshavadas about 4-5 letters previously to no avail. Suddenly, after about an hour of intense prayer late at night, the phone rang. It was Guruji's secretary V, and she said that he wanted to speak to me, as he had indeed received my letters but did not write back, as he seldom corresponded in that manner. It also happened to be Diwali night and I guess maybe the festivities were just concluding at the Oakland Temple, owing to the time difference and all.
As he spoke, I remember the hair raising up on my body. He told me that he WAS indeed my Guru and it was almost as if he was directly answering what I had prayed to Sri Krishna an hour or so earlier. He also mentioned that in my previous life I lived in Vrindavan, India for approximately 7 years. My mind was racing a million miles an hour and sweat was pouring off of me. He then gave me a Vaishnava name and a mantra and asked me to come to India with him in January, 1990. I didn't make it to India then, but I finally met Guruji and Mother in Miami, April of that same year. Later on that summer, I went with Guruji, Mother and 36 other Indians and Americans on the Badrinath-Rameswaram pilgrimage and tour throughout the Himalayas which turned out to be a life changing/healing event for me.
Jai Guru Kripa!
Patricia Pompa writes:
I met Sant Keshavadas through a friend when he was staying at an Indian devotee's house. He was doing some programs at that house and also at the Hindu temple in the area. I was suffering from a "broken heart" and feeling sad after a break-up with a boy friend. Sant Keshavadas was doing a program of stories with songs at the Hindu temple one evening when I arrived late. As I was entering the hall, he was in the middle of singing a bhajan about Sri Rama. When he sang Rama's name, he looked at me and I felt a wave of healing energy enter the region of my chest. Instantly I felt all sadness leave me being replaced by joy. My broken heart was instantly healed! That night he gave me the name Pavitra and I still use it as my "yoga" name.
I have another little story. The Parliament of World Religions was held in Chicago in 1993--100 years after the first one that was held in Chicago in 1893. Sant Keshavadas was one of the presenters so he received some free passes for his family. A friend and I never got tickets as they were rather expensive for us, but at the last minute we wanted to attend a lecture by a certain women saint from India. Tickets were sold out. Sant Keshavadas let us use two of his passes for a couple of hours to see her. Even though we were not attending his presentation, he was so gracious. He was so sweet about it. Some gurus might have been upset, but not Sant Keshavadas--there was no envy in his personality at all. I remember Sant Keshavadas as being a fountain of knowledge and devotion, but also a lot of fun to be around. He is certainly missed.
Jai Guru Kripa!