WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND

One day Mark saw an old lady, Mrs Sullivan, stranded on the side of the road, but even in the dim light of day, he could see she needed help. So he pulled up in front of her Mercedes and got out. His Pontiac was still sputtering when he approached her.

 

Even with the smile on his face, she was worried. No one had stopped to help for the last hour or so. Was he going to hurt her? He didn't look safe; he looked poor and hungry. Mark could see that the lady was frightened, standing out there in the cold. He knew how she felt. It was a chill that only fear can put in you. He said, “I'm here to help you, Ma'am. Why don't you wait in the car where it's warm? By the way, my name is Mark Anderson.”

 

Mark crawled under the car looking for a place to put the jack, skinning his knuckles once or twice. Soon he was able to change the tire. But he had got dirty and his hands hurt.

 

As Mark was tightening up the lug nuts, Mrs Sullivan rolled down the window and began to talk to him. She told him that she was from the neighbouring state and was just passing through. She couldn't thank him enough for coming to her aid.

 

Mark just smiled as he closed her trunk. The lady asked how much she owed him. Any amount would have been alright with her. She already imagined all the awful things that could have happened had he not stopped.

 

Mark never thought twice about being paid. This was not a job to him. This was helping someone in need. There were so many who had helped him in the past and he was just doing his bit to help a person whenever he could. He had lived all his life that way and it never occurred to him to act any other way.

He told Mrs Sullivan that if she really wanted to pay him back, she should help someone who needed help the next time she saw them. He added with a smile, “And think of me.”

 

Mark waited until the lady started her car and drove off. It had been a cold and depressing day but he felt good as he headed home, disappearing into the twilight.

 

A few miles down the road Mrs Sullivan saw a small cafe. She went in to grab a bite to eat and take the chill off before she made the last leg of her trip home. It was a dingy looking restaurant. Outside were two old gas pumps. The whole scene was unfamiliar to her. 

 

A waitress came over and brought a clean towel Mrs Sullivan could use to wipe her wet hair. She had a sweet smile, one that even being on her feet for the whole day couldn't erase. 

 

 

Mrs Sullivan noticed that the waitress was nearly eight months pregnant but she never let the strain and aches change her attitude. She wondered how someone who had so little could be so giving to a stranger. Then she remembered Mark. 

 

After she finished her meal, she paid with a $100 bill. The waitress quickly went to get change but before she could come back Mrs Sullivan had left. The waitress wondered where she could be. Then she noticed something written on the tissue paper.

 

There were tears in her eyes when she read the note. It read: “You don't owe me anything. I have been there too. Somebody once helped me out, the way I'm helping you. If you really want to pay me back, here is what you do: do not let this chain of love end with you.” 

 

Under the napkin were four more $100 bills!

 

There were tables to clear, sugar bowls to fill, and people to serve, but the waitress made it through another day. That night when she got home from work and climbed into bed, she was thinking about the money and what the lady had written. How could the lady have known how much she and her husband

needed it? With the baby due next month, it was going to be hard...

 

She knew how worried her husband was, and as he lay sleeping next to her, she gave him a soft kiss and whispered soft and low, “Everything's going to be all right. I love you, Mark Anderson.”

 

Truly, what goes around comes around!

 

A few years ago, a student completed his under-graduation at Bhagawan's college in Brindavan. He then joined for post-graduation too but within a month or two, he fractured his leg. He was able to neither attend classes for several days nor move about. He got a lot of time to think and so he thought about joining the armed forces because his father too was serving there.

 

The student finally withdrew from Bhagawan's college and applied for the armed forces. He went for the selections and cleared the first round. He was waiting to go for the second round but before that, there was a blood donation camp in his locality. He went there and when the doctors there checked his blood, they found that he had hepatitis. He immediately realised that his career in the armed forces would not take off. He felt worried because he had left Bhagawan's college and now he was not eligible for the armed forces too. He thought, “Where will I go? What will I do?”

 

His mother too was worried. She was a Shirdi Baba devotee and so she prayed to Him. Shirdi Baba too gave her His assurance in His own inimitable way and said, “Nothing will happen, don't worry.” But still, she was a bit worried.

 

One night our beloved Bhagawan Shri Sathya Sai Baba came in her dream. She told Him, “Swami, my son has hepatitis but he wants to join the armed forces. They will not select him!”

 

In the dream, Bhagawan narrated an incident to her. He said, “One day your son was walking from the Brindavan hostel to the college. There is a bridge which has to be crossed and it is over a drain. As he was crossing that bridge, he saw a puppy that had fallen into that ditch. 

 

The mother had gone somewhere and the puppy's eyes were hardly open. It had been moving around and somehow fell into the ditch. There were a lot of thorny plants there. With half-closed eyes, it was moving around and getting poked by thorns. The puppy was not able to get any relief and so it was yelping at the top of its voice. 

 

When your son saw this, he jumped into the drain, picked up the puppy and brought it to safe land. He did it not just once but twice. For the act of service which he had done to that puppy, nothing will happen to him.”

Bhagawan continued, “In my place if anybody does anything good, it will have a multiplier effect and will come to their rescue in myriad ways.”

 

 

The mother was thrilled and when she got up first thing in the morning she was in bliss because firstly she had seen Bhagawan in her dream and secondly He had given her personal assurance that her son would be absolutely fine.

 

When the son woke up, the mother told him everything. He was totally shocked because he himself had forgotten what he had done to rescue that puppy a couple of years earlier. He did that act of service just because he felt like doing it. 

 

A few days later again he went to the hospital and they did all the tests. The doctor said: “You have the antibodies for hepatitis, but hepatitis itself is not there anymore in the body!” (Antibodies are the immune reaction of the body to any infection.) The antibodies were proof that the boy had the hepatitis infection but now after the tests, the infection had gone and only the antibodies were left.

 

The boy had saved the life of that puppy without a second thought by jumping into the drain and when the time came, the same act made Bhagawan intervene and save his life when he faced a life-threatening disease.

 

In His discourse to students on April 27, 1990, Bhagawan said:

“Remember: hands that serve are greater than the lips that pray. Real humanness consists of dedicating oneself to the spirit of service. Quantity does not matter; quality of service counts. Whatever you do, do it wholeheartedly and spontaneously. Divine love can be secured only by dedicated service. God responds bounteously to your offer. For a handful of parched rice given to Krishna, Kuchela got in return limitless prosperity. Draupadi was rewarded likewise. God's Grace is like a bank. You can draw money from that bank only to the extent to which you have built up deposits through tyaga (sacrifice). Earn God's grace through love and sacrifice.

 

Bhagawan has always maintained that for Him, quality is most important, not quantity. So even if you do the smallest act of helping another being out of spontaneous feeling, be sure that He will reward you infinitely when you are in need.