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An Umbrella of Protection |
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In 1967 R.P. Vaish, a devotee of Baba's, came to Kainchi to see Baba. He
was being transferred to Delhi, and he told Baba that he wanted to tour
Kashmir before taking up his post. When Vaish was leaving, Baba gave
him an umbrella and said, "Keep it with you. It rains
heavily there."
Vaish hesitated to accept the umbrella and said, "I have an umbrella at
home. This one will serve many people here at the ashram." Baba did not
listen to him and again asked him to keep it with him. During his stay
in Kashmir, Vaish went about holding the umbrella. On his return to
Delhi, he again went to Kainchi for Baba's darshan
and to return the umbrella. On seeing him, Baba said, "You
have come to return the umbrella?" Baba then said, "Keep
it with you. It will be a protective umbrella over you."
Vaish did not understand what Baba meant, but he went back to Delhi,
taking the umbrella with him.
In 1978, five years after Baba's Mahasamadhi,
Vaish was transferred to Lucknow and left his extra luggage, including
the umbrella, at his house in Delhi. In Lucknow he started suffering
from heart, live, and spleen trouble. A check-up at Balrampur Hospital
revealed that his spleen was enlarged by thirteen centimeters, but the
doctors did not advise an operation due to his heart trouble. As no
other treatment was available to him in Lucknow, he and his wife went
to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi. Back in Delhi,
Vaish was getting ready to go from his house to the hospital when his
wife noticed the umbrella lying there. The idea came to her that by not
keeping the umbrella gifted to him by Maharaj with him always, he might
have been deprived of Baba's protection. In the hot month of June,
Shrimati Vaish escorted her husband to the hospital and hid the
umbrella under his pillow.
Vaish was examined thoroughly once
again. His spleen was still enlarged by thirteen centimeters. The
doctors told him that he would have to stay in the hospital for six
months and agreed that it was not advisable to operate on the spleen in
his condition. They would have to rely on medicines to effect a cure.
They told him that he would have to take a special tablet once a month
that would reduce his spleen by two and a half centimeters over thirty
days. He took the first tablet the same day. The next morning he felt
so much better that he asked the doctor to get his spleen examined
again. Saying encouraging words to him, the doctor explained that the
process of measuring would be repeated after six months, not every day.
Vaish was not satisfied with this and sent his wife to the chief
medical superintendent with a request to get the spleen examined again
as a special case. The superintendent ordered it to be re-measured, and
the results showed that his spleen had indeed reduced in size by
thirteen centimeters. Since the tablet was not that effective, the
doctors were all amazed at the sudden change. When they expressed their
surprise to Vaish, he pulled out the umbrella and said, "By its grace."
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