THE UNIVERSAL SURGEON

 
I was part of a large family, with five brothers and three sisters. We were all active and healthy until, when I was fourteen, I slipped inside our house and fell. My right hip, knee and ankle were all affected, although neither I nor anyone in the family thought it was very serious. Our local doctor treated me and I seemed to be okay.

But, as days and months passed, I developed a very high temperature and severe pain developed in my ankle, knee and hip. Again our family doctor was consulted but this time he was not able to relieve the pain. It was decided that I should be sent to a large hospital in another city. There, many x-rays were taken and finally an operation was performed on my hip. Afterwards I was put in plaster from my chest to toe and had to stay that way for six months.

When the six months was up, I was taken back to the hospital for a check-up. To my horror, it was decided that I would have to be put in plaster again, only this time they said it must be for a period of three years! I was horrified. Every six months a new plaster cast was made for me, and the three year period extended for seven long years. Finally the plaster was removed.

I was an adult now, and I emerged pale, shaky and with a leg which was so stiff that I could not move it.... I reconciled myself to the fact that my leg would be crippled for life. It was my fate and I was thankful, in spite of the stiff leg, just to be out of the plaster.

....While working for the Red Cross I came to know a number of people who loved Meher Baba. One of them was Dr. T. Dhanapati Rao.... My sister was also a Baba lover and would occasionally go to Meherabad. One day, in 1982 she told me that she was planning to go. I expressed a desire to go with her. An elder brother volunteered to drive us....

We arrived at Meherabad on January 29, 1982 and went straight to Meher Baba's Samadhi. My brother and sister knelt down inside and prayed. When my turn came, without thinking about it, I also knelt down and prayed. After a few minutes, I got up, still unaware that anything extraordinary had happened.

But my brother and sister were shocked to see me in a kneeling posture and asked me whether I felt any pain. Only then did I realize what I had done, that I had bent my stiff leg for the first time in forty years — I could not believe it! To assure myself that it had really happened, I went and knelt down again at Baba's feet, putting my forehead on the marble slab....

Isn't it a miracle? But even more "miraculous" is His compassion. In fact, I had been totally reconciled to my condition. I had not thought of asking Baba to cure me when I came to Meherabad. I had simply gone to pay my respects to Meher Baba, but His compassion is so great that even without my asking, when I went to bow down to Him, he made this possible.

Perhaps it is only an outward example of what Baba does inwardly as well. He cures us so that those obstacles which prevent us from bowing down to Him in our hearts are removed. Is He not really the Universal Surgeon? May His blessings be on one and all.