Divine protection saves

Then the Master said, “I can tell hundreds of lies, but do you think I could fabricate these kinds of stories if they didn’t actually happen? I challenge you people to see if you can fabricate continuously like this. I know some of you can and do tell lies. Well, God has either forgiven you or will forgive you people. Some of you will say that I have read these stories. It is true that I have read many, many stories. Perhaps I may also have read many, many occult-power stories which you people unfortunately have not read. So perhaps I am just telling all these stories in my name. That may be true; I don’t deny it. Anyway, I told you at the very beginning that these stories did not take place in my life.”

“Master,” one disciple said, “even though you are joking, how can you say that we don’t believe that these are true incidents in your past or present life? We do believe you! Please tell us some more.”

The Master said that, on one condition, he would tell them more stories: if they believed that these stories were not his fabrications and that they were not connected with his personal life in his previous incarnations.

They all gladly agreed, just so their Master would continue telling stories.

The Master heaved a sigh of great relief and said, “Let me continue.

“One day a young man was going to the playground on his bicycle with three or four friends. His balls were tied up in a net. All of a sudden the net got caught in the spokes of his cycle, and then his right foot also got caught. He did a somersault in the air and fell to the ground. From at least seven shops on each side of the street, people came running. They thought the young man would be seriously injured, if not dead. But he just picked himself up off the ground and smiled at them. As he fell, he had seen three big pillows in front of him and a divine being smiling at him. Of course, he had landed on these pillows, so they did not find any bruises on him, just a little dust. His neck and head were completely all right. Only his bicycle was shattered and had to be left there.

“Another time while riding his bicycle, this young man fell into a large hole. As he fell he saw a circle of divine light. In the circle in Bengali was written, Ma, which means ‘Mother’. Again his bicycle was totally smashed but absolutely nothing happened to the youth.

“Master,” one young woman said, “you once told us that in your last incarnation you wanted a bike but it was too big for you, so your father paid the shopkeeper to tell you it wasn’t for sale.”

“Absolutely true, my child,” said the Master, “absolutely true. I was so eager to have the bike, and went running to my father’s office to tell him. My father felt it would be unsafe for me to get that bike, so he sent my brother to pay the man to tell me it was not for sale. Only half an hour after my brother and the shopkeeper had agreed on this, I went back to the shop and discovered that the bicycle wasn’t for sale; I couldn’t buy it. But later that day I got a three-wheeled cycle. That was allowed. My father was right, of course. At that age, even when I just sat on the back of our messenger’s bicycle, I used to fall off.

“Once, when I was eight or nine years old, our messenger took me on the back of his cycle to a shop to get a toothstick. When we arrived there we saw several tall, stout Kabuliwalas [inhabitants of Kabul] with huge turbans. I had read about them and when I saw them personally I began to scream. I thought that they were threatening us. I thought, ‘Oh, they are going to kill us!’ and I fell off the bicycle out of fear. When I fell the messenger tried to turn and he fell on top of me with his bicycle. He, too, was crying out of fear, but his fear was caused by something else. He thought that when he took me home, all cut and scratched, my father would fire him. But my father was full of compassion and told the messenger only that from that day he was forbidden to take me on his bike.”

“Were you ever seriously injured from an accident?” asked one disciple.

“Once in my last incarnation my soul actually left the body,” said the Master.

“What happened?” asked the disciple.

“In that incarnation also, I gave much importance to sports and I was a champion runner. The night before an important race, our doctor wanted to give me some milk of magnesia. I didn’t like the idea, but he said he would give me a very mild dose. O God, how I suffered the whole night! The next morning I ran the first 300 metres the fastest. Then all of a sudden I couldn’t see anything. The final hundred metres of my sprint turned into a morning walk; everybody was passing me. During the last fifty metres everything was white, absolute purity. After I crossed the finish line I collapsed. My soul left the body.”

“Your soul didn’t want to leave, did it?” asked a disciple. “Was it just that the physical was so exhausted?”

The Master said, “The soul didn’t want to leave, but the physical wanted death. The soul bird really flew away; it was real death. But Mother Kali, the Supreme’s fastest power instrument, stopped the soul as it was flying away and forced it to return to my body.”

“Even if Mother Kali hadn’t come, wouldn’t the Supreme have saved you Himself?” asked the disciple.

The Master smiled and said, “Where is the difference between the Supreme and Mahakali? They are inseparably one. Mahakali is, indeed, a supreme aspect of God the Divine Mother.”