Meandering Among Miracles

Mankind throughout the ages has held in awe the phenomenon of Miracles. Some attribute them to divine grace, and some regard these as superstitions of the gullible. One evening, by the shore of Lake Luzerne in Switzerland, one of us in the group asked Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, "Maharishi, what is a miracle? He giggled and said "Very simple! Any phenomenon which we cannot rationally explain is a miracle. If we have not discovered as yet the Natural Law behind it, it is a miracle". To the agnostic in me, this explanation appealed the most. This set me thinking of various examples in our daily life. When I show a simple vanishing trick to my grandson - by moving my hands around, mumbling abracadabra, and then dropping the object behind me, it 'disappears' and I am god for the small child. He is equally mystified, when slyly I take my hand behind and produce the vanished object. Most conmen do exactly this to con the willing. Thus, they hold power over their flock. As the child grows up, he understands what was behind that apparently divine or occult act, and it is no longer a miracle and not even magic. This notwithstanding, everything in life is a miracle to me, even after we have understood the scientific laws behind them.

When I was gifted a small compass, no matter how much I turned it around, the needle continued to point only in one direction! To me this is a miracle, even now when I have well understood the business of magnetism and earth's magnetism. When my uncle got me a magnifying glass, and showed me how it can burn holes or set a matchstick afire, I was thrilled by this miraculous happening. Later, even when basic physics taught me the simple reason behind it, this continues to be a miracle for me. Imagine the sun, which is about 8.5 light minutes away, is able to do this and much more on distant earth. In fact, practically all that happens on earth is in some way driven by sun's energy. No wonder, most ancient cultures and religions revere Sun as a God. Many of us in India still follow the Vedic tradition and offer our salutations to the sun with folded hands, at sunrise. The accompanying Vedic mantra is chanted as an ode to this cosmic energy. When in the evening the lights are switched on, my wife immediately closes her eyes and pays her respects to the sun, whose energy is miraculously transformed into electricity and finally into the glow of the electric bulb, thus dispelling the darkness around us. When I was given a small prism, which miraculously projects an entire spectrum of glorious hues, it was miracle. Understanding the phenomenon of refraction has not helped me to not feel that sense of the miraculous. Man throughout the ages has been bewitched by the promise of the rainbow. It is a message of hope, even when we know that it is just a combination of refraction and suspended water drops. Then with the bard we sing, 'My heart leaps up, when I behold a rainbow in the sky'. The miracle is why just a simple matter of refraction of light can make children jump and send all of us into a state of ecstasy and hope? Ditto, for the myriad colors and patterns in every sunrise and sunset. They transfix us and we are lost in a trance. Time stands still. Surely, we were in some higher level of consciousness, which 'passeth understanding'. At that moment our Self merges with Infinite and we have experienced God, or whatever name we may want to give to that creative force.

The child in me remains, even when I am in the golden years of my life. Every morning, when I go for my walk in the nearby forest, I see miracles around me. Why do all plants not have the same type of leaves? Why do some have huge leaves and some very tiny ones? Why do different plants have different patterns and colors on their leaves? Why do some plants have only thorns and no leaves? Of course, botany and allied sciences have explained all this to us. Over the ages all species have adapted to their habitats and continue to do that. This however, does not explain to me which intelligence drives them to evolve in such a way, as to ensure the survival of their species, sometimes in most hostile of environments. Then, how do chameleons, some insects, and plants change their colors and patterns, from moment to moment, to fool their predators?

Coming back to Maharishi, I have practiced TM for more than 30 years and also Vipassana, a Buddhist form of meditation, for 20 years. I do not know if I practice them exactly as should be, but I can vouch for the fact, that I have been largely a beneficiary of the professed results. Today, most of these claims for different types of meditation and chanting can be clinically validated. While I remained at the basic TM level, many of my friends graduated to the advanced TM-Siddhi programs, one of their manifestations being levitation. The photographs of levitating meditators appeared surreal to me. Then one day a colleague invited me to join the TM group, which met every Sunday, at Dadar, in Bombay. I gamely came for the group meditation. It was a big hall, where community events were held. What intrigued me was that the entire hall was covered with thick mattresses. I had never meditated in a hall full of mattresses. Doors closed and all of us sat cross-legged and started our routine. After about half and hour I heard repeated sounds of thuds. Curiosity got the better of me and I opened my eyes, only to find that many fellow meditators were indeed rising, with their feet locked in lotus asana and falling with a loud thud - some close by and some quite far away. That was the reason those mattresses were laid out, to soften the fall. While they were not suspended in the air, the very act of rising and falling a few feet away, defied all logic. It was at least quasi-levitation. With consternation I came home, sat in locked lotus position and tried all sorts of acrobatics and flexing of muscles, but I could neither rise even a fraction of an inch nor move forward even an inch. I accept that I am not able to understand what I saw during these Sunday sessions. It was a miracle of sorts. No visitors were allowed, so this was not any marketing gimmick, to impress the outside world.

Now I must come to some 'miracles' in my own circle of family and friends. One day my mother-in-law was admitted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi, in a state of coma. After 40 days, the doctors told us that all her vital functions had failed and we should take her home and keep a nurse to tend to her. Medical science was giving up on her! She was a devotee of Lord Rama and 'round the clock our ladies held a vigil chanting Ramayana. Lo and behold, she gradually came out of her coma and normalized to the extent that she could travel unaccompanied. She lived another 14 years! Similarly, among our friends there have been some cases of spontaneous remission of cancer. One of these friends, after her recovery, has been teaching children in a remote Himalayan village, in a school financed by her. She had been a Vipassana meditator for a long time. She attributes here miraculous recovery to the meditation. None us can beat her, in her jest for life. What was common in all these cases? Divine grace, lust for life, or the intervention at some deep level of the healing vibrations of chanting? I believe that such miracles happen to people of all faiths and religions.

Now the piece de resistance, which still haunts me in my sleep! I advise all who are in Bombay to make a trip to Shivapur, a hamlet among sugar cane fields, very close to Pune. Long time ago I had read about it in some tabloid. Once when in Pune, my wife and I went to this place. Here there is a very modest shrine of Kamar Ali Dervesh, a Sufi saint venerated by people of all faiths. In the compound are two 'levitating' stones. One weighs about 70 kg and the other a little less. Even two or three people cannot move it. I also joined others, to no effect. But the bigger stone can be effortlessly lifted jointly by 11 people, above their heads, just using only their index finger and in one breath chanting 'kamar ali der.........vesh'. The moment any one in the group loses his breath, the stone falls to the ground. Try it with 12 or 10 people, and it does not work. Try any other chant and it does not work. The other stone can be lifted only by 9 people. Any other combination does not work. I lifted it twice and did not feel the pressure of 70/11 kg on my finger tip. It was just as if my index finger was touching a feather. Mass hypnotism! No, for there are umpteen photographs of visiting dignitaries lifting the stone. Googling turns up photographs of this miracle being performed by ordinary folk. I was spell bound. Next few nights I could not sleep, wondering what was behind it. Karate kids also break bricks and slabs of ice, with just one fell stroke of the hand or even banging their forehead. Similarly, was it that all the psychic energy and breath is concentrated just at that one point, at that time? I have no answers till today. Nor has any one else come up with an explanation. So, it is a fascinating miracle for me. Makes life interesting and I keep on wondering.

This was a short random walk through my small world of miracles, where faith and reason play their tantalizing games. Your world may have other miracles, explanations and dead end streets. As long as we have that sense of wonder of a child, always asking How and Why of everything, life will have it mysteries and fascinations. That is what makes life worth living, with never a dull moment.