Beyond Confines of Time – Alternate Reality

It wasn’t like it had happened for the first time. But situation was vastly different this time.

My husband had been laid off from his job before too and he had been able to find another one within a month or so. It hadn’t hurt as much earlier times because I still had my job. At least there was an income.

But this time it had already been three months with no job leads at all. It was even worse because this time I didn’t have an income either!

He had been losing his jobs because the job sector he had been working in was in a decade of upheaval, there were frequent corporate mergers and employees were laid off.

This was in early 1990s in Texas, USA.

I didn’t have an income because I had taken a quantum leap to quit my IT career to be a full time mom to my two toddler babies while giving my focus to more active spiritual growth.  We had no family living nearby to help out with the kids if needed. I, personally, couldn’t reconcile with the idea of kids having to go to a day care.

The decision to leave my great IT career had come after years of soul searching and anguish about the uncertainty of future especially given my husband’s rocky job situation.  But in that last year the decision had become easier and easier. I couldn’t neglect the voice within echoing day and night that I just have to change my path.

I had hoped to focus on holistic healing and possibly work with it around my kids’ schedules and have an income in the near future.

This was the time of just landline phones and pagers; the life before cell phones, PCs, laptops and internet.

The typical way to apply for jobs was to circle the ads in newspapers or drive to Placement agencies, to fill out pages of applications by hand, interview with them and then come home and wait for any phone call on landline phone or receive a notice in the mail.

My husband was gone all day every day. He went to practically every agency that dealt with job placement in his job sector. He filled out more than 100 multi-page applications by hand, sent his resume to every job advertisement in the newspaper. Any personal contacts he had could find no job lead either.

There was not enough money left in Savings to even cover the upcoming bills!

Our families living in other States could’ve helped if in dire situation, but that wasn’t the solution I wanted. My husband needed to change his job sector else we’d continue to be in that same situation again and again!

As anxiety ridden and fearful and practically panicked I was and as much as I started to doubt my decision to quit my readymade career, I also knew quite strongly that this recurring situation was a test of faith!

I never called India and complained to my Guru Ji, Swami Mohandas Ji, about any rocky life situation especially to expect or implore him to ‘fix it’ even though he could’ve fixed anyone’s situation in a moment. All his thousands of devotees knew of his Divine powers!

All Change has to begin with me. It’s not the situations that define me; it is my response to them.

What is this situation teaching me? What do I have to learn from it? I wanted Spiritual growth so my Guru Ji took no time to send me an opportunity!!

I seriously considered going back to my old job that I had quit just two months before. Luckily my ex-manager had been contacting me regularly to ask me to join the job back again. So, I knew it would be no issue to have to job. It was just my decision to join it or not.

I put it in Guru Ji’s hands. It was a Monday.  I did fervent mental prayers to him for his Divine Guidance in this situation. I told him in my prayers that I thought I had made the correct decision to quit my job and change my life path. I knew the new life path was correct but perhaps it isn’t the right time for me to be on it. So, as his wish. I decided to wait until end of the week. Even though it would be enormous anguish for me, if my husband didn’t get any job offer then I would call my ex-manager for my old job back.

For the first time I really let it go after putting it in his hands! I did it consciously and deliberately. I wanted to learn to release the problem to Guru Ji and be happy in the present moment.

I was amazed that I was actually able to follow through on that resolve, to be happy in the present moment without agonizing over past and future!

By the way, I didn’t communicate any of my thought process to my husband. He was under extreme stress and almost completely withdrawn from all communication.

That Monday went by and no job lead from anywhere.

Tuesday came by. As usual, my husband left for his job hunt in the morning. I was happy in my present moment. I was singing and cooking with the Indian songs playing on an AM radio station in our local  area.

That solo Indian radio station in our area was hard to locate on analog radios. But once the dial was set it was pretty clear broadcast sound.

This is when the mind boggling miracle happened.

Right in the middle of Indian song playing another English language talk show radio started broadcasting, loud and clear. It was a station I had never heard before especially given that they were talking about Metaphysical and Supernatural topics. How did I not know about this station?

If this radio station was this close somewhere on radio dial to Indian station how come in last 3-4 years I never caught this while trying to get clear reception on Indian station? “Really Weird!” I thought.

Normally, I would have just fiddled with the radio dial and tried to go back to the Indian station but this talk show was talking about the story of a man in Florida and his spiritual awakening!! I was hooked on that story already in progress.

I had missed the beginning and most of the middle of the story I wasn’t going to miss the rest of the story! It was captivating.

About 2-3 minutes later the station announced an advertisement break.

The advertisement was for a new company that had just opened by to help with job search! This company promised to “fax your resume to 500 job placement agencies”.

I don’t know why this ad didn’t really register in my brain. My mind was still occupied with the interrupted Florida man story.

The advertisement repeated again. It caught my attention! Faxing resumes to so many agencies sounded great but improbable. “He’s already tried all the agencies, so it will only sending duplicate copy to them. No use wasting money we barely have to hire their service” I thought.

Some other advertisement played. And then there it was again. This Faxing service ad started playing again!!

This time I couldn’t ignore it. This was too strange. It seemed like the same ad was repeating for me to take down its number which is what I quickly did.

“No chance he’ll want to waste any money or time on this fax service” is what I believed.

As soon as I took down their phone number, the talk show host came back on the radio continuing with Florida man story. The host had talked for about a minute and I was getting all excited about the ending of the story when….

The most improbable happened. Suddenly the talk show radio went off and the Indian song started playing again. The same song at exactly the point where it had left off 7-8 minutes ago!!!!

I was shocked. But this point didn’t register so much yet; I was desperate to know the ending of the other story.  I hurriedly moved the dial to tune in to the talk show. I didn’t find it. I moved the dial fast, I moved it slow. I moved it all the way to left. I moved it all the way to right. I didn’t find that talk show.

That’s when it registered in my mind the enormous importance of the phone number of the faxing service because of the way it came to me!!

My husband came home early obviously all dejected. I told him the story around the advertisement. I couldn’t believe it that my husband agreed right away to hire their service.

He faxed his resume to them on Tuesday.

He got a phone call from a lady from an agency that normally doesn’t work with his IT type of jobs. She was getting promoted and leaving to another State. She was busy packing her office stuff to move. She didn’t deal with IT jobs but just shortly before she got my husband’s resume she had gotten this IT offer for job placement. It fit my husband’s resume perfectly and it was in a different industry. Perfect match!

My husband got the job offer on Wednesday for the salary he had asked for, which was same as what he was earning before.

Hurray! We were thrilled! In my heart I thanked my Guru Ji profusely! This happened all too quickly!

But guess what? Thursday morning he got another equally good job offer through another agency but for more pay!

He called the first agency back to inform them. The lady said that she wanted to this to be her last successful job placement before she left Texas so she wanted my husband to wait a day on making his decision.

Friday morning she called back. She invited both my husband and I to lunch and there she told us that the company that had made first job offer had counter offered more money than the second company!

That Friday my husband had a job with more money than he had even asked for!

Suffice to say I got my answer that I had chosen the right path at the right time. (My Guru Ji rarely, if ever, gave me direct verbal answers to me:-))

I learnt the value and necessity of complete faith in Guru.

I learnt Guru is always connected to me and watching over me.

I learnt all is possible with God.

I learnt there are Realities beyond time and space that my Guru Ji, Sri Sri 1008 Mahamandaleshwar Yogiraj Baba Mohandas Ji, could easily summon for any of his devotees and any of his children (as he referred to everyone)

I learnt there is much to be learnt and the more we learn we realize we really know nothing!!

I learnt that all life situations, seemingly positive or negative, are spiritual growth opportunities. We attract just what we need for our spiritual growth at any given moment and that’s the only purpose of any and every moment and situation of our life!

It became an unshakeable faith since then! I am eternally grateful for that opportunity!

By the way, I searched and searched myself and with the help of other friends who were avid radio listeners but never did locate that talk show again!  No one had even heard of such a radio station!!!! The station didn’t exist!!

I think even if somehow we had been able to locate the radio station what about the no-time lapse between where the Indian song ended and picked up again at the same point minutes later?

How can any words describe the glory of a Satguru?

Blessed Be

Ritu

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