It's wonderful to read how various devotees met Sai for the first time. Here is my encounter. My parents are orthodox and always worship all Gods and do puja/abhishekam etc every day. When we were young, they had pics of Shiva, Vishnu, Lakshminarasimha, Balaji etc, no gods were eliminated in our puja room, including Sathya Sai of Puttaparthi and Shirdi Sai of course. I had seen the Shirdi Sai pic as a young girl, my parents had even visited Shirdi at some point but I knew nothing about Shirdi Sai. After I grew up and got married etc, I also set up a puja room and some time in 1986 when I visited India, I bought a picture of Shirdi Sai in Mantralayam. I had kept that in my puja room but never paid special attention to it. Much later in 2001, I was faced with a major health scare totally unexpectedly, despite being very healthy all my life. I was praying in my puja room every day and one Friday night, all of a sudden, I saw that Sai photo where he is standing in a red robe and showing his blessing right hand and I quietly said "Oh Sai, I am praying to all the Gods but I know absolutely no prayer for you. All I can do is pranam" and I did that and went to bed. Next day (Saturday), I picked up mail and I saw an envelope from Sai temple in Pittsburgh. We had visited that temple when my in-laws had come that year and we had taken them to Balaji temple in Pittsburgh. Since Sai temple was also not far from there, we had visited but I don't remember much about that visit. When I saw the envelope in the mail, I opened and it was the newsletter. But the miracle was that the last page of the newsletter had 108 Sai Namavali! I still get chills thinking about it since just the night before, I had said to Sai that I knew no prayers specific for Sai and here I had this in my hand. I started chanting it. A few years later, I had the good fortune of visiting Shirdi for the first time ever (my only visit so far unfortunately) and bought Sai Satcharita and it is my favorite holy book. I didn't want the original Sai Namavali paper to tear as it was getting old after being handled with my hands for more than 10 yrs now. So I got it laminated (that was Baba's idea too as I didn't know how to protect that paper at first and I feel it's safe now). Around the same time as Sai coming into my life, somehow my husband was also attracted to Sai all of a sudden, this despite my husband not being the religious type. Now we both are Sai devotees and our son also believes/prays to Sai. I introduce "Sai" into many of the other prayers. I feel now that despite all the pics of all gods in my puja room, I am always fixated on Sai photos and he is my only God. He responds to us like no other. He communicates with us like no other, I feel like he is really a person right next to me. I am so grateful to Sai forever for allowing us to be his devotees, for calling us to his darbar and always being there with us. Since we met Sai, I have had countless miracles/experiences and it's a reminder that Sai is always with us whenever, wherever we think of him. May he always protect us with his blessings and give us health and happiness. I wish the same for all devotees. Jai Sairam!
Topic: HOW EACH ONE OF US KNEW SAIBABA.... PLS SHARE (Read 333004 times)