Features | Experience of the Divinity of Bhagavan by Devotees | Group III | Ms. Audrey Bailey

Ms. Audrey Baiely USA
E-mail: aprilb@ptd.net

Ms. Audrey Bailey, an African American from the USA, relates her experiences of the Divinity of Bhagavan in her own words in their family website http://www.thebaileysisters.com/

‘Baba has made his presence known to me many times and in many ways. The one instance that stands out most prominently, in my mind, is when I was faced with the ultimate test of my faith, the death of my son Christopher Bailey. The occurrences that immediately followed his death remain a constant reminder of Baba’s divine love for me.

Baba has said that from the moment we enter the world we are on a road to death. He compares birth and death to a ride on a train. “When you purchase your ticket and begin your journey (birth) you may take many detours, but no matter how you take the ride, your destination is death. He tells us, it is how you take the journey, not the destination, which is important.

To begin with, I believe that every parent has prayed, from time to time, to precede his or her children on the journey of life to death. However, when you lose a child there is a pain so great that it seems to stay with you until your dying day. My son Christopher was the son most parents pray to have. Despite the usual boyish pranks, Christopher was a very spiritual youngster. For example, at the age of five, when our family lived in West Hartford, Conn., we constantly found him disappearing from our backyard. Instead of going to the neighbouring yard with other youngsters his age, we found him in the Large Catholic Church, which bordered our home on the other side. When we attempted to apologize to the Priest for his intrusion, the Priest told us that Chris was a welcome little visitor.

Upon asking Chris what he was doing in the church alone, he replied, “I’m talking to him” and pointed to a statue of the baby Jesus. It was not surprising when, years later, he asked to go with my sister, brother and me to see Baba, rather than stay with his older brother in California, with whom he had previously wanted to spend the summer.

We were blessed with an interview with Baba on this trip. When we returned to the U.S.A., he secretly built an altar to Baba, which he kept hidden in his computer cabinet. The altar was replete with a picture of Baba, Jesus and Ganesha and generously supplied with the sacred ash, Vibuthi.

On February 5,1992, just after his 18th birthday, Christopher was shot to death in a case of mistaken identity, his assailant admitted.

The chain of events that followed showed me that Baba’s divine hand was pulling all the strings. Although we were grief-stricken, this traumatic drama heightened when we began to have a difficult time finding a church in which to hold his funeral. This was because, since coming to Baba, in 1986, our family no longer attended the traditional church home, which our parents attended. We attended Baba centre meetings and went each summer to see Baba.

Consequently, when I asked to have his funeral held at my Parents’ church, I was told, since we were not active members, we would have to pay an exorbitant rate for the use of the church. Moreover, the Minister’s fee would be an additional expense.

I was at the greatest depths of despair, and I silently asked Baba to help me. I spoke to a fellow devotee, Michael McCarty who resided in California, about Christopher’s death and the problems I was having. He contacted his friend Rev. Pipes, who in turn got in touch with Isaac Tigrett. Within two hours, every detail of Christopher’s funeral had been taken care of and all expenses had been paid.

The funeral plans called for the use of The Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, in New York City, the largest Gothic Cathedral in the world. His funeral service had the participation of Christians, Moslems, Jews, and Hindus.

Now one might ask how I was so sure that it was Baba who performed this great service. The confirmation came for me in the form of a story related by one of Chris’ friends.

During the hustle and bustle of making funeral arrangements, I kept getting telephone calls from one of Christopher’s friends who had moved up to Albany, New York. I kept missing his calls, but when I finally did speak to him, he said he had just heard of Christopher’s death and ironically had a dream about him the night he was killed. He said that in his dream he saw Chris in a beautiful garden with a person in an orange robe and a big Afro hairstyle.

This young man had never heard of, nor seen a picture of Sai Baba, and he had the dream before he knew of Christopher’s demise.

I shed tears of joy because, at that moment, I knew beyond any doubt that my baby was with our Lord Sathya Sai Baba.’

-- Ms. Audrey Bailey

(The experiences of Ms. Audrey Bailey are extracted from their family website on her request to info@vedamu.org .)