24. Blessings and trials, the story of Vasudevan
People asked Sathya Sai Baba for blessings and help in solving all sorts of life problems, but sometimes exactly the opposite result turned out when, temporarily, the situation worsened or became more aggravated. How to relate to this – why did this sometimes happen?
The true blessing of the Avatar does not mean the instant fulfillment of your momentary whims. The task of the Avatar is to guide you on the path of spiritual growth. It is the quality of spiritual evolution that is the most important criterion, even if one has to go through some difficulties, trials, and crises.
Sometimes, it may seem to people the Avatar, allegedly, did not help in some situations. When you come to a healer or psychic, you expect mandatory help in solving your problems, especially since most often you pay the healer for his services. People often try to shift their problems onto a healer or psychologist, expecting them to solve all their problems for them.
Any healer or psychologist, any yogi or psychic is within certain limitations. The forces, knowledge and energy capabilities of each person are limited, but the wisdom and energy of the Avatar are unlimited. It may seem to you that the Avatar has helped someone but not someone else; this is only your limited understanding. The Avatar helps everyone, only in different ways.
Let’s remember another story that Mr. Subba Rao told me. In the city of Chennai, in southern India, there lived a man named Vasudevan. He worked as a manager in a large company. When he was in his early 20s, his health began to deteriorate rapidly. The main problem was the deterioration of kidney function.
Vasudevan went to the doctors, but the medicines did not help. Vasudevan’s mother-in-law was a devotee of Sathya Sai Baba. She advised the young man to pray to Sathya Sai Baba and ask him for healing.
Vasudevan came to the house of his mother-in-law, who had a large home altar, in the center of which hung a large and beautiful portrait of Sathya Sai Baba. At the same time, several relatives were going on a trip to the ashram. The young man took advantage of this opportunity and gave a letter to Sathya Sai Baba asking for healing.
Despite all the requests to Sathya Sai Baba, the young man’s condition worsened. Friends and business partners began to laugh at Vasudevan and advise the young man to stop being involved in such nonsense and try to find real doctors who could help him recover from the disease.
The young man was in a difficult situation. Some of his relatives advised him to pray more intensely to Sathya Sai Baba, while his friends ridiculed him for his naive belief in the strange miracle worker.
Finally, Vasudevan’s mother-in-law was able to persuade him to pray again in front of the photograph of Sathya Sai Baba that hung in her house. After that, the young man’s health deteriorated even more.