The Divine Will

Often we talk about the divine will but very few of us can experience it in its fullest sense of the term.

We are really fortunate that we had such an amazing experience just a day before! Often we have to travel far and wide with the holy stone of the divine mother. But what we always find to our surprise that there is no control of the travel plan in our hand at all. As an organization definitely we have to have our travel plan in place. The travel agency, co-travellers, route map in fact the entire itinerary have to be fixed before the journey begins. Nevertheless from the beginning to the end the journey goes wayward. We are made to belive that there in an invisible force that controls the journey!

Let me give you the full account of the journey for you to understand what we really mean. On June 17th early in the morning we were supposed to make for Sarisha burning ghat off Diamond Harbour Road a place not very far from the sub-divisional town. We had an assignment to complete at the burning ghat. The client, who is an eminent businessman and great devotee of Maa Shoiloputri bestowed full faith on us. Hence we had some extra care for the whole task. Early in the morning we started from Kolkata by car. The driver, Mohan is a reliable person and great devotee of the divine mother; he knows ins and outs of the roads, lanes, by-lanes of the city and its suburbs. He is very dependable. But the greatest mistake he made this time was take a shortcut to Diamond Harbour Road via Thakurpukur. It was a muddy and crowded road passing thru a number of wholesale vegetable hubs. Soon the shortcut turned into a pathetic longcut tiring, irritating and time-consuming! We were stuck in traffic jam running short of time. The holy hour must be availed to get an optimum result. Meanwhile Acharya Ranabrata had a phone call from a place adjacent to Sarisha. The female caller introduced herself to be the head of a hermitage and requested Acharya ji to visit her place en-route to the nearby burning ghat. There was something in her voice which could hardly be ignored. In the next 5-7 minutes the things started moving very smoothly as if an overseer had taken control of the situation. The jam disappearing our car started moving ahead in a lightning speed. In less than 45 minutes our small contingent arrived at the shady hermitage full of trees with fragrance of different flowers taking over the place to make the place befitting for the "sadhna". We were given warm welcome at the gate and ushered to her room. There was a skinny old lady above 90 years of age sitting on the cot. Her complexion was bright but eyes were brighter than a star. When she looked at us it seemed she was looking beyond our skin and reading our hearts at ease. She smiled for awhile and asked all of us to sit on the chairs. What happened after that was sheer astonishment for us. She asked Acharya ji to perform the holy rites at the nearby temple as if she knew the purpose of our visit. The holy hour arrived we all hurried to enter the temple of "Panch-Mandaleshwar Shiva and Dasha Mahavidya" just at a stone-throwing distance. There was an age-old "Havan Kund" huge in size on the floor where photography was strictly prohibited. However, during the holy hours we performed all the rites before the holy fire to our heart's content! As we went back to the holy woman she offered us some prasadam which we had with great respect. Before leaving we took her blessings. She had the holy stone on her lap for once followed by her disciples and asked us to visit the hermitage again while maintaining a golden silene about her knowledge of our visit to the place!

The journey had some more surprises left as yet. The moment we were on the main road a devotee from Diamond Harbour called Acharya ji on his cell and rewuested for our urgent visit. He was not at all aware that we were in Sarisha by the time. Acharya ji told him smiling that he would be there in half an hour along with the holy stone. On our arrival we put the holy stone at a temple near the devotee's residence where some rituals were performed to the welfare of the affected greeted by people at large. It was time to return. We had some photographs clicked on the river bank along with the holy stone. Perhaps the divine mother had planned everything likewise! Jay Maa Shoiloputri! Jay Maa Shoiloza!

"Har Har Mahadev! Jay Sri Mahakaal!"