Ik Til Nahi Bhane Ghaley

was posted as a Brigadier at Army Head Quarters, New Delhi in 1979. Brigadier Jagmohan Singh, a religious minded person, who was also posted at Army HQ, had his office nearby in the same building. Being an intimate friend, either he used to visit my office during lunch break or I used to go to his. We invariably used to have lunch together and profitably spent the breaktime in conversing matters spiritual.

One day his Deputy, then Colonel P C Sondhi also accompanied him to my office. Col. P C Sondhi first apologised for interruption and then requested for joining us for lunch, pleading that he could also derive some benefit from the spiritual conversation. I gladly welcomed him and requested him to apprise us of any spiritual experiences he had. This was my first meeting with him. He narrated a very strange experience of his:

I was posted at Ferozepur as a Major in my unit. One day I got a telegram from my parents who are settled in Ludhiana that I had been blessed with a daughter. I took leave accordingly for few days. One Captain of our unit was to proceed on temporary duty to Jalandhar and I accompanied him upto Ludhiana in a jeep.

On our way, we noticed a large crowd of people on Fereozpur-Ludhiana road, few miles ahead of Jagraon. On asking, our driver told us that these people in large number were proceeding towards a great place of pilgrimage, where a great and famous saint had accomplished an unprecedented and unique Tapasaya. The day being Puranmasi, they will keep awake for the whole night, listening to Holy Kirtan. Our driver further told us that he had visited the place and that this holy place was unique by itself. We were in no hurry and we thought of paying homage at the holy place. Our driver took the jeep there and after alighting, we went inside.

We took a round (parikarmya) of the Holy Shrine and we wanted to then step down the underground Holy dwelling of the Great Saint, where SachKhand was located. We were stopped by the Sewadar standing at the entrance and he asked us to carefully read the board displayed there. He explained to us that we will have to do prayers for at least one month in one of the prescribed manners to have the darshans of SachKhand. We regretted our inability to do so and were about to leave, when that sewadar realising that we being Army officers may not be able to do a month long Path, permitted us to go inside.

We had darshans of the Holy SachKhand. And after that went inside the adjoining underground Bhoras. I bowed my head in total humility on the sacred footwear of the Great Saint, which was kept at a place where Mahan Babaji used to sit on a chair after taking bath. After paying our homage at the Holy SachKhand, we left for Ludhiana.

After few days, I fell sick. My condition kept on worsening day-by-day. When treatment did not respond, our family doctor advised the family to shift me immediately to Military Hospital Jalandhar.

I was accordingly admitted in Military Hospital Jalandhar and there my condition deteriorated further and I went into a coma. I remained in coma for few days. I was put on the SI and DI list and the concerned authorities were accordingly informed. The doctors had given up all hope for my survival. I could not be revived from coma for three days.

Then suddenly on the 21st day counting from my daughter's birth, I had a wonderfully revealing vision in my advanced state of coma. At that time, the doctors and my family members were awaiting my certain death.

An angelic like Divine Personality clad in snow- white clothes was descending from the Heavens towards me in the splendour of Divine Light. When the Divinity approached me a wonderful oracle (Akashbani) was heard by me that He was Baba Nand Singh Ji Maharaj of Kaleran at whose Holy Footwear I had touched my forehead and had paid my homage. He stood on the side of my bed and the Nectar started flowing from His Holy Lips as follows:

Arise and Recite the Name of Ram.

Ram was repeated thrice by Him and my lips started moving and I was uttering the Holy Name of Ram. By then I saw His Holiness Baba Nand Singh Ji Maharaj just walking towards a raised mount nearby, where he sat in his meditative posture and went into Samadhi. I saw a glorious and shinning 'Chhatar of Light' descending from heavens and covering Him and the place of meditation.

As I was uttering and repeating the Holy Name of Ram, the Sister on duty had called the doctors. My wife was standing astounded and wonderstruck. I opened my eyes and started conversing with them." Baffled, dazed and wonderstruck with the holy name, I had started uttering, they enquired as to what really had happened and how I had escaped from the jaws of death.

It was at that time, that my wife ran and brought the horoscope (janam patri) of my daughter of 21 days. She said that our family Panditji had prepared the horoscope and given the sealed envelope to her, saying that as he had eaten the salt of the family for innumerable years, he could not help but write the truth in the janampatri, which should only be opened after twenty one days from the birth of the child.

The sealed envelope was opened, and it was read out. The Panditji had written that the child's father will die on the twenty first day after the birth of the child.

. . .

Col. P. C. Sondhi then said that one homage at the Holy Footwear of Baba Nand Singh Ji Maharaj could rescue him from certain death, grant him a fresh lease of long life and bless him with the Holy Name. It overpowers all his faculties of mind and intellect to even imagine of a better spiritual experience than this, in all his previous lives put together.

I could not hide tears flowing from my eyes as Colonel (later Brigadier) P. C. Sondhi did not know that I was the humblest of humble dog of the Greatest Divinity of all times - Baba Nand Singh Ji Maharaj.