Memoirs of the BLESSED COUPLE - RAMA AND SITA

This is a series of short stories from the life of the couple whose life is filled with Guru stories. Enjoy reading the series

Chapter 1

It all started one fine day when Rama had competed his 12th class exams and had been preparing for the Engineering college entrance exams in chennai in the year 1993. The father of Rama came over and advised Rama to go and learn this unique program that teaches Pranayama (Breathing techniques) which he had learned a few months before and had been practicing them and enjoying the benefits. Rama immediately agreed to that with the motivation of getting benefitted from this and enrolled for the 10 days program and started learning new breathing techniques that energizes the system. Along with the techniques of breathing and meditation, Rama also learnt quite a few life lessons which were part of the program. During one of those days, Rama witnessed a Thanksgiving ceremony that was performed expressing the gratitude towards the master who had designed the program. There was a photo of this master kept at the altar and the eyes of this master in the photo was quite attractive and the master himself in the photo was looking quite young. Little did he realize that this very program in future would shape his life itself.

After this program Rama started with regular practice of Pranayama and Meditation which helped him in clearing the Engineering entrance exams and he got into a very prestigious University. After 4 years of study, Rama came out of the college with the engineering degree which secured him a good job in a famous Indian company and was posted in Mumbai. Rama was still practicing all along, the breathing and meditation techniques that he had learnt. The work life steered him to move to different locations. He worked in Pune for a couple of years, then moved onto the Bay Area in California. In some occasions while living in California, Rama again had come across the photo of the same master in certain places while hanging out with friends. He would tell his friends how he had attended this program almost 10 years back and has been reaping its benefits and he even encouraged his friends to go and meet him. But it never occurred to Rama that he also could go and meet this master directly. 

After living in California for 3 years, Rama moved back to India to get married to a woman who he had only seen a photo of but had been chatting over phone for a few months after he got engaged while living in California. He met his wife in person just 3 days before the marriage in the year 2002. After the marriage, they started living in Mumbai which changed their life forever. Once in a while Rama would ask his wife Sita to attend the very same program he had attended 10 years before to learn Pranayama and Meditation. She would simply snub that saying that she would never follow a bearded master. But after about 10 months time, one fine day she came back home from the market holding a flyer in her hand and declared that she has decided to learn this program called The Art of Living, the program designed by the very same master who he had seen in photo 10 years back - Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.

Once Sita learnt this program she also started practicing the pranayama and meditation regularly, but was also practicing something extra that Rama had not learnt 10 years back. So he too went to the same teacher and repeated the program to bring him upto speed. A few weeks later, Sita declared that she is going to the main Ashram in Bangalore where the master stays to learn some advanced meditation techniques. When she came back from the program she was literally glowing and Rama could not resist the temptation to learn the Advanced Meditation himself locally from a teacher in Mumbai. Once he also learnt this, Sita expressed her desire to move to Bangalore so that they can stay close to the Ashram. Rama agreed to this idea, the only problem was Rama was not sure how and when he will get a job in Bangalore. He had been still working with his first company straight out of college for the past 6 years. But as if Sita's prayers were getting answered, Rama got through a phone interview with a multi-national company and got his appointment order to join the work in Bangalore within 10 days time. In a record 10 days time, Rama resigned his existing job, the couple packed stuff and moved to Bangalore. It was a Sunday when they landed in Bangalore and the next day was supposed to be the joining day for Rama in the new company. They decided to go to Ashram on Sunday and see if they can meet the master. They figured out the bus that can take them from the place they were put up to the Ashram and reached Ashram by the evening. Rama felt very different having reached the Ashram. He saw the master coming out of the car - looking very simple with free-flowing hair and walking as if his feet was not touching the ground. It was the same master who he had seen in the photo 10 years before. In an act to show respect, he bent down and touched the master's feet. Being in the midst of a large crowd, as soon as Rama touched the master's feet, he moved away from the crowd and came down from the large structure of "Vishalakshi Mantap" to the empty "Amphitheater" by which time he had lost the whereabouts of Sita. While he was standing there looking for Sita, he noticed the movement of the entire crowd lead by the master coming towards his direction. Rama stayed put in the same place while the master was walking. In a matter of few seconds, he noticed Sita also joined him before the master reached their place. Then the master walked straight to the couple and asked the question to them "ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?". Suddenly a gush of emotion was spreading through Rama and Sita. Rama quickly realized that the master was referring to the prayer of Sita to come to Bangalore and that HE has fulfilled the prayer and was asking the couple if they are Happy Now. Rama immediately touched the master's feet once again and expressed his gratitude and informed him that he was going join the new company the next day. As soon as this encounter was over, the master walked away in another direction along with the crowd that was still following him. The couple stood right there being over-joyous about what just happened and the tears were flowing down nonstop from their eyes.

Chapter 2

After having moved to Bangalore, the couple settled in a small 2 bedroom house about 12 km from Ashram in the city so that it is neither far from office nor far from the Ashram. Sita had not worked in any company from the time she graduated. But she was very much prepared to work having completed a masters degree in Biochemistry. Quite magically, within 3 days of arriving in Bangalore, she was called to join the Ayurveda factory in the Ashram as the Quality Control Head. This was quite unexpected. Sita was super happy and then on began her strong association with the Ashram which only grew by leaps and bounds over the years. In the mean time, Rama attended one more Advanced Meditation program in the Ashram and was feeling very much elevated quite literally.

A whole year rolled by which had seen quite a lot of frequent visits to Ashram and a strong bond emerged between the couple and the Ashram and also with the master. One fine day in the office of Rama, he was told to join a new project which was getting kicked off from Monday onwards. Rama went to the Ashram before that during the weekend and happened to see a person in the crowd who seemed a little familiar, but Rama ignored and moved on. Those days, most people who visited Ashram happened to be the same set and hence the familiarity. Interestingly on Monday during the project kickoff, Rama was quite surprised to see the same person who he had seen in the Ashram, sitting in the kickoff meeting. His name was Rahul. Then they got introduced to each other. In that kickoff meeting, it was decided that about 9 people will travel to Sydney, Australia in order to gather more requirements and do some proof of concept. Rama and Rahul happened to be 2 among them.

This was the year 2004, sometime in February. After reaching Sydney, Rama got the news that Gurudev was going to visit Australia in a month's time after about 7 years and the program was going to be right in the Darling Harbour where Rama was staying too. Hearing this news, Sita also planned for flying to Sydney. Rama started working towards Gurudev's visit along with the local volunteers. As for the project work, since it was only a phase of requirements gathering and initial design, it was pretty lightweight in effort. Rama fully leveraged the ample free time and started giving out flyers announcing Gurudev's visit. Rama and Rahul managed to even hand out whole bunch of flyers inside several bars in the heart of Sydney without any amount of hesitation. After about a couple of weeks, Rahul mentioned that he needs to receive his wife at the Sydney Airport. Incidentally Rama also said he needs to reveive Sita at the Sydney Airport on the same day. For some reason that particular day happened to be some special day and the metros rides were not being charged. Rama and Rahul set out to receive their spouses. They happened to have booked the same flight from the same agency without the knowledge of Rama and Rahul. The spouses were coming to be part of the Grant event with Gurudev.

In the year 2004, in the whole city of Sydney there was only one couple living in the Seven Hills area who were Art of Living of teachers. There were no other teachers. Rama happened to attend the weekly follow up class of Sudarshan Kriya at their home with the help of a local volunteer named Ivan. Both the times, Ivan had driven in a car. Once Sita arrived, Rama and Sita wanted to attend the follow up in the weekend. They hopped onto a metro and reached the Seven Hills station. Those days there was no mobile phone or GPS system to navigate. Once Rama and Sita got down from the metro, they started enquiring on how to reach the Art of Living Teacher's home showing the address they had. Nobody had any clue whatsoever on how to reach this place. One of the persons who had initially declared that he didn't know how to reach this place in the address, came back after about 10 minutes and declared that now he knows the place and that he will drive them to that exact place. Being adventurous, Rama and Sita got onto the car. This stranger drove them to the exact place. Immediately Rama could recognize the house and exclaimed to Sita that it was the same house pointing finger towards it and they both got down from the car. Then it occurred to them that they should thank this person who dropped them there and turned around only to see that the car was nowhere to be seen in either of the directions. It was as if the car had simply disappeared from the place. Bewildered, the couple narrated the story to the satsang of people who had gathered to attend the follow-up class. Everyone was pretty sure that it was Gurudev indeed who had dropped and there was no other explanation. Rama and Sita felt so much grateful about the whole incident.