It was the day after the Bangalore Book Festival 2011 ended. We wrapped up the stall set-up - the books, display items and racks. We wanted to meet Guruji and share with him all the details, significant or not, that happened over the ten day book-fest. We had met him earlier but it wasn’t enough to fill him on all the minutiae. As Somayaji and I drove back to Taponagara, we eagerly wanted to touch-base with Guruji and see if he was available that night. We finally decided to postpone till we reached home. En-route, Somayaji unexpectedly decided to finish a minor long-postponed mobile repair job.

The service centre happens to be in a narrow lane of small shops inside a busy shopping complex. The ceiling fans running at full speed could not ventilate the air; feeling stifled I walked out for a stroll. A few steps ahead I was stopped in my tracks as a car swerved right in front of me to enter a parking lot. And that made me happy. Why? It was Guruji’s car! As I followed it to find out that he was not in it, Somayaji called to inform that Guruji was with him. What a coincidence.

I went back to the claustrophobic shopping complex. Guruji was telling Somayaji about the cell phone he wanted to get serviced. In the twenty minutes I spent there I was chatting with an acquaintance. Strangely the stuffiness had not just vanished but it was replaced by a cool air-conditioned fresh environment. Nothing in the surroundings had changed since I was there last. What happened I wondered? Up until the moment we all left the shopping complex I did not feel claustrophobic again.

We all headed for a restaurant nearby. I was so impatient about sharing the details with Guruji that I spoke non-stop for quite a few minutes. Fortunately, Guruji is used to my yap! While waiting for the bill Guruji mentioned that it was not a coincidence that we all met. It was his genuine eagerness as well as ours that had created the situation; no formal planning was required. More than eagerness to talk about things it was a heartfelt wish. Many have experienced this as well.

After I reached home the sudden change in the atmosphere at the shop dominated my thoughts. What had happened? I classified it as a quirk and just ignored it. The next day there it was again, a looming question – what had changed in the air? Finally I checked with Guruji. With a surprise on his face he confirmed that it was the effect of a new Spiritual energy which he was carrying in him. He had been working with it for some time and it was a unique incident.

Many questions follow – can a purely Spiritual energy result in a sudden tangible physical environmental change? Did the energy make only one person feel this way, because others did not seem to have noticed? Did I feel the freshness in the atmosphere due to how I felt the energy from within or was it a non-specific impersonal ambient change? It is good to have such and other endless metaphysical questions which we, the Study Centre team, can keep working on; it is like job security for us!

The pros and cons of social networking sites are debatable, but it has worked well for me. Like many others I am now in touch with so many long lost friends and fellows. Many months back, on Facebook, I came across the Human Resources Manager of the last corporate company I had worked for. Both of us were too busy to go beyond clicking on the ‘accept as friend’ option. The name got relegated to the ever-increasing friends list and would surface on and off on the top. An inexplicable strong wish to find out about him took me to his Facebook Wall a few days back. To my shock it was full of condolence messages; he had passed over.

This question haunted me – what made me suddenly want to find out about him after all these months. Guruji explained that at a different level I knew about his sad demise. Somehow it had to trickle down to this level for my information.

This is not a very uncommon experience. How does it work? What triggers such processes? Why did my higher-self want my this-worldly-self to know?

A 74 year old meditator was out for a morning walk. He folded his hands and offered respect to the rising sun. As he opened his eyes, he saw an Astral being, a lady in white, enter his body and vanish into him. Then, nothing happened; he kept faith in the Rishis and the energy shield and walked home. Upon enquiry, Guruji explained that the Astral being was none other than the person’s daughter who lives in a different city, and was deeply concerned about her parent’s health. She was there to give him strength.

Strikingly the daughter had no clue about this at the conscious physical level. Was she sent by the Rishis because she had incessantly prayed to them for her parent’s well-being? Was it a one-off or is this a normal occurrence? Did the Rishis allow this out of love?

Unbeknown to us the Universe manifests miracles in our everyday lives. It unfolds through us and yet we wonder how it works. There are more questions than answers. Fortunately the Universal phenomena do not wait for our understanding of its nature. The Universe’s unconditional love transmutes our wonderment about It into reverence.