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

Ms. Helen,
Greece.

Mrs. Helen, from Greece, is an ardent devotee of Bhagavan. She frequently visits Prasanthi Nilayam for Darshan of Bhagavan. Her motto is ‘service to humanity is service to God’. She and the band of her associates are on spot anywhere in the world wherever there is a natural calamity or manmade disaster to help relieving the suffering of the victims. She relates a few of her experiences of the Divinity of Bhagvan in her own words.

‘We wanted to distribute food to refugees during the war in Bosnia. To do it during daytime was very dangerous. So we used to go in the evening to a place where refugees were stranded. We used to take some bags with us. In each bag we placed food, some sugar, wheat and rice. We used to keep a photograph of Swami also in each bag. When the refugees were given a bag each, they used to open them and see the contents under a torch. We thought that they were looking at the food material we had brought. But to our surprise we found them seeing the photograph of Swami first, not showing much interest in the food we brought. We found them looking at the photograph and talking to one another. I could not understand what they were talking as I had no acquaintance with their language. There were some soldiers and a few others deputed to assist us in the distribution. There were some among them who could interpret. I asked them what those people were talking.

Can’t imagine the shock I got! It was unbelievable. Of course, those coming to Prasanthi Nilayam, seeing Swami and witnessing the miracles He performs have no difficulty to believe it. But we were far away from India in Bosnia, that too, in the middle of nowhere amidst people who had never seen Swami.

The interpreter told me that they were telling, ‘this man comes here very often and gives us food!’ When I heard it, I could not understand it in the beginning. I thought that some Sathya Sai Organization members had gone there and distributed food and also a photograph of Swami like we were doing. After a while I asked again. The answer was ‘that fellow personally comes here walking in his orange robe’. (This was how they expressed.) This was what they were telling!

Later on, many things happened. Swami ‘sent’ us to the most dangerous places. In the beginning most of us were afraid.

‘How can you dare to go there?’ Our families used to ask us, ‘you have not had vaccination. You have not taken care to protect yourself.’

‘Well! God is with us’, we used to reply, ‘He is protecting us. He is holding our hands and leading. We are 100% sure that nothing will happen to us.’

During the war in Iraq, ours was the very first team to enter Iraq to extend service. We entered Iraq on March 20, 2003. It was under bombardment. Our team was Swami’s team. In fact, we had received a message from our Government before we left for Iraq. ‘Don’t leave Greece’, the message warned us, ‘don’t go to Iraq because it is too dangerous.’

‘Swami is guiding us’, we said, ‘Swami is holding our hands. Why can’t we go?’ So, we came.

We entered Baghdad at 11 o’ clock in the night. Everyone who saw us in the hotel was shocked. ‘How could you enter Iraq?’ they asked. That was Swami’s wish. So we came with His help. Not only that. We visited Iraq 15 times after that. We distributed medicines.

‘Please, Helen! Don’t come’, the Directors of the Hospital in which we used to distribute medicines used to say; ‘your life is in danger’.

‘Don’t worry’, I used to reply, ‘God is bringing me here. God is taking care of me’.

On hearing my words they used to laugh.

Whenever we visited them, they used to give us a letter of thanks. In the last letter they gave us in October, they wrote, ‘we are now convinced that God is sending you here’.

We used to go to Dorphore. People there were starving. We used to take there wheat-powder always because that was the easiest to make food for them. When we went there for the 4th time, we went there with 100 tones of wheat-powder carrying it in trucks. We went to a different area that time and not to the area where we were going earlier, to distribute it.

When the people came to know what we had brought they told us, ‘why don’t you bring us milk? Our children are dying. You should bring us milk powder.’

We tried to buy some milk powder for them but we could not get any. I felt very sorry because there were so many children and we were unable to help them. In such situations, I always ‘ask’ Swami: ‘What now?’

We started distributing what we had brought. As the distribution was going on, I found a small child taking the wheat powder and eating.

Some local persons were helping in distribution. I called one of them.

‘Please tell that child not to eat raw wheat powder’, I told him, ‘it is not good for her health.’

‘Doesn’t matter, madam’, he replied with a smile, ‘it is not wheat powder but milk powder.’

‘No, no’, I said, ‘you are mistaken: it is wheat powder. Not milk powder’.

‘No, madam’, he replied, ‘you taste it a little. You will know it is milk powder’.

It was, indeed, milk powder! In a few moments, all the sacks of wheat powder turned into milk powder. People were immensely happy. The miracle does not end here. We had to pay some sort of tax to bring it there. In the fakura (challan) that we were supposed to pay, it was written ‘100 tons of wheat powder’, when I actually paid the money. But the receipt in which the payment was acknowledged now reads: ‘100 tons of milk powder!’

That is what Swami has been doing sitting at Prasanthi Nilayam, and helping all that need Him.

Though I made to Iraq several trips to distribute medicines, nothing happened to me. One day we decided to go to Iraq. Unfortunately they stopped my car. I was alone. That was Easter time also. They arrested me. They tied my hands and closed my eyes. They kept me from 9:30 a.m. to 12 in the night.

‘Who are you?’ they asked me. They were repeating the question in spite of my answering it.

I sat there contemplating on Swami. ‘Swami!’, I was thinking, ‘my hands are tied. But I feel your hands behind me. So I am sure you will save me.’

Finally, they left me and let me go. Swami is our Father; He is our Mother; He is our good Friend that will never, ever desert us.’

-- Ms. Helen.

(Extracted from the speech by Mrs. Helen delivered at Prasanthi Nilayam in the Sai Kulwant Hall on November 19, 2004)