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Sai Baba Man of Miracles – Howard Murphet

Mr. T. N. Natarajan lives at Ernakulum, Kerala, and is very active in the Sai Baba movement in that area. His business is that of taxi-owner, but anyone looking less like the typical taxi-man would be hard to find.

Like so many of the Sai devotees, he is gentle and aglow with brotherly love. I have had long talks with him at Prasanti Nilayam about many things, including his miracle cure from Baba.

He told me that in 1957 he lost the sight of his left eye. First he went to his family doctor who sent him to an eye specialist in Bangalore. In that city he actually consulted two specialists (whose names he gave me) but both told him there was no hope of restoring the sight of the blind eye. Not only that, but probably the other eye would be affected in time, and he would lose the power of sight altogether. This was a grim, depressing verdict.

But on the same day came hope. Mr. Natarajan visited a cousin, saw a photo of a man in a red robe with a black mop of hair and asked who it was. The cousin was a Sai Baba devotee, and the upshot was that Mr. Natarajan arrived in Madras to see Baba who was staying there at the home of Mr. Hanumantha Rao.

At the first interview, Mr. Natarajan proffered the letter he had brought from his devotee cousin, but Baba refused to take it, saying:

"Don't worry, I know all about your case. I will cure you. But you must come to Puttaparti for fifteen days."

So he returned to Ernakulum, made all the necessary arrangements, and went straight to Puttaparti. There he was told to come to Baba each morning bringing a short string of jasmine flowers. Baba blessed this on each occasion and then tied it firmly on the patient's eyes. There it would stay for the day and the night. The next morning Baba would throw it away and put on the new jasmine floral string. This went on for about ten days.

Then one evening after bhajan Baba called Mr. Natarajan into a room, waved his hand and materialised a small bottle. From this he poured a few drops of liquid into the bad eye. The liquid stung and irritated the eye, but Baba soothed him by saying: "Never mind, you'll soon be cured." On the following day Baba again sent for him, and this time materialised what the Hindus call a rudraksha, a kind of talisman made from the berries of a tree growing in the Himalayas, used for bringing protection and other benefits. Baba handed this to him with instructions about how to employ it.

A few days later Mr. Natarajan returned to Ernakulum. The sight of his bad eye was very much better and it continued to improve. Within three months it was quite normal, and he has had no trouble in the ten years since then.