I don?t think one needs to be religious to believe in miracles. I?m not religious, not at all, but I do believe in a superior power, and miracles. How else would you explain these unbelievable stories?
8th August 2015 would’ve been a day where a young girl’s dream would’ve been shattered. Swathi, accompanied by her mother Thangaponnu would’ve returned back home devastated, and heartbroken. It would’ve been just that, had it not been for a miracle. That morning around 6:30 am, Thangaponnu and her daughter were roaming about lost in the Anna University in Chennai. They were there for Swathi’s counseling session in B.Sc Agriculture, but were unaware that the venue of the same had actually changed from Chennai to Coimbatore. Trying to make sense of it all, the two women were just found dumbstruck by a few local morning walkers.
Thangaponnu, a shepherd by profession, couldn’t figure out a way to get her daughter to Coimbatore in time. Call them mortal humans, or angels in disguise, one of the walkers offered to help by putting them on the next possible flight to Coimbatore. The others, in the meanwhile asked their friends/contacts to inform the registrar about the case. By 7:50 AM they agreed to look into the case. These guys also arranged for a car that would transport them to the venue. Thankfully, the registrar had made an arrangement to ensure that Swathi got a fair counseling.
Brilliant in academics, Swathi had worked very hard to get a score of 1017 out of a possible 1200, and had it not been for these few people, it wouldn’t have mattered. As of now, she is doing a B.Sc. Bio-Technology course in TNAU.
When asked about what had happened, Swathi said, ?It was very kind of them to do so. They came around like an angel when we had lost hope,? Thangaponnu said that they wanted to return the money they spent to buy the flight tickets. How else could they thank them? Miracles do happen in our daily lives.
Mr. Saravanan (SAROV) 84 batch ECE and his friends, Mr.Paramasivam and Mr.Jaisankar are the angels who helped the girl.
"There are miracles. I will tell you an incident that happened with me a couple of years ago in Delhi" says Deepika as she recalls the incident.
She and her friend, staying in Delhi, would pick out, and visit one random place on the Delhi map. Since they didn’t have a vehicle, taking the metro was their best bet. That day, they decided to check out the Lotus temple, the Kalkaji temple, and the ISKCON temple. Now if you recall visiting the temple, you’d know that one needs to cross a rather massive park which naturally becomes quite spooky when dark, thanks to the lack of any street lights. Deepika and her friend had forgotten the way back, and were obviously petrified. To put things into perspective, this was right after the Nirbhaya incident, so obviously, tensions were high.
Deepika recalls, "We took a deep breath, and chose a path on the park and start walking without knowing where this path would take us. It was 8:30 PM, and not only was the park completely deserted, it was pitch dark. We were scared like hell. We had started praying when suddenly a miracle happened. A thin man, somewhere in his 40s started walking in front of us. We were just blindly following him, not knowing where it would lead us to. We were scared at first, not knowing who he was, but noticed he would stop when we stopped. Once we start walking, he would do the same. He didn’t look back even once in the entire time that we followed him. He just kept walking, and we followed him."
The man eventually led the two to the entrance of the park. "Kalkaji metro station waha hai, aap jaa sakte ho (there is the Kalkaji metro station, you can go now)", he said and disappeared. The girls reached home safely that night.
Deepika finally concludes by saying, "Miracles can happen anywhere, all you need is belief."
On May 10, 1977, Bhagwandas Daswani suffered from a massive heart attack. ?I actually died for two minutes and was revived by doctors.? Daswani recalls. Although he came around, there was no improvement in his condition and he was kept under observation in the Intensive Care Unit. Ten days later, he suffered a relapse and started hemorrhaging from the anus. Losing about four pints of blood a day, he had drips in both arms and a pad over his heart. The hemorrhaging continued for three days and by May 24, his family, and the team of doctors had lost all hope of his survival.
?On the morning of May 25, at exactly 4:10 a.m.,? recalled Daswani, ?Sathya Sai Baba walked through the wall of the room and sat on the bed. He showered vibhuti all over me. The vibhuti came pouring out of his hand in a never-ending flow. With the vibhuti bath I suddenly felt a surge of strength all through my body. I was completely baffled by the appearance of Baba in the room, and thought I was dreaming or hallucinating. I therefore said, ?Baba are you really here or am I dreaming?? He said, ?I am here all right. What would you like me to do?? I said, ?Just put me on that couch over there next to the bed, so that I know I am not dreaming.? He then lifted me up as though I was a feather and placed me on the couch. The drips in my arm remained intact, nothing was disturbed.
?I then rang the night bell to call the staff nurse. A horde of nurses came rushing into the room. Their astonishment was beyond description. ?How did you get here?? they asked. ?I walked,? I said, aware that it would be impossible for them to believe the truth. ?Who has been in here? And what is all this dust all over the bed, and all over you?? they asked. I said, ?Don?t ask me. Just collect that dust and put it in a paper bag for me.? They did this and collected one and a half kilograms of vibhuti.
Daswani’s health began to improve rapidly, and the doctors and the staff kept questioning him, but his lips were sealed. On May 29, he was able to walk by himself to another ward. Not only did he make a complete recovery, his diabetes disappeared as well. Bhagwandas Daswani believes he owes everything to Bhagavan Baba.
"When I was eight, I moved to Sao Paulo, Brazil (from Cuiaba, Brazil), where I began to play soccer (football). I have always loved to play soccer. I played on the junior team for Sao Paulo in 2000. We were in the middle of the Paulista Junior Championships when I received a yellow card. I was suspended for the following game, so I took advantage of the free weekend to visit my grandparents, who lived in Caldas Novas at the time. My brother, my parents, my grandparents and I went to a water park.
As I was coming down one of the slides into the pool, I hit my head on the bottom of the pool, and my neck snapped. I fractured the sixth vertebra in my neck. At the time, I had no idea what happened. I came out of the pool with a strong headache, and my brother who had come down the slide right after me, asked me what happened. I told him I hit my head on the bottom of the pool. He saw that I was bleeding and convinced me to go to the first-aid center. From there, we went to the hospital where they took an x-ray of my neck. According to the x-ray, everything looked fine. I got a few stitches in my head and that was that.
I returned to Sao Paulo to train on Monday, as well as on Tuesday, all the while with a broken neck. On Tuesday, I called the coach and the physical trainer and told them that I couldn’t bear the pain any longer. They sent me to see a doctor at the hospital where they took another x-ray. It was in this x-ray that the fracture in the sixth vertebra was shown. Everyone, including the doctors, told me I was very lucky that nothing more serious happened. They told me that I could have become paralyzed and lost my ability to walk and to play football. I believe it was not luck. I believe God was protecting me during that time from anything more serious.
Many people think that I became a Christian after the accident, but that is not true. My parents are Christians and they raised me with biblical values. The accident happened in October of 2000 while I was playing in the "base" position on the Sao Paulo junior team. Throughout November and December, I had to wear a cervical collar and could not play. I began to play again in January of 2001, and after about 10 or 15 days, I was called to play for the Sao Paulo professional team. Because of this, I believe God had a purpose in that accident. It is something that happened just before I had the great blessing of starring as a professional in Sao Paulo and initiating my career as a professional football player.
As I said before, my parents always taught me the Bible and its values, and also about Jesus Christ and faith. I did not have a specific conversion experience, but little by little, I stopped simply hearing people talk about the Jesus my parents taught me [about], and there came a time when I wanted to live my own experiences with God. One of these experiences with God was when I was baptized at the age of 12. This was a very important step in my walk with Jesus and soon after, many things began to happen in my life where I could experience God in a real way.
I need Jesus every day of my life. Jesus tells me in the Bible that without him I can’t do anything. I have the gift and capacity today to play soccer because God gave it to me."
The saying is ?better late than never?, and for Russell Christoff, a photo shoot from back in 1986 ended up scoring him $15.6 million almost 19 years after it had happened. The 58-year-old teacher from Northern California had unknowingly become the face of Taster?s Choice Instant Coffee. While shopping for Bloody Mary mix at a Rite-Aid, he stumbled across a familiar face on the label of Nestle’s Taster’s Choice; it was a younger version of himself peering right back. After doing some investigating Christoff discovered the company had used his pics for about six years (from 1997 to 2003) in at least seven different countries, and had been using his image in Canada since the original photo shoot in 1986. Although he had been compensated for the initial photo shoot, since he was never notified any images were being used, he?d assumed nothing came of it. In 2005, a jury awarded Christoff with $330,000 for the use of his likeness and additional damages in the amount of 5% of the profit from Taster’s Choice sales during the six-year period: a final tally of $15.6 million.
In May 1996, Weathers was one of eight clients being guided on Mount Everest by celebrated guide Rob Hall of Adventure Consultants. However, Weathers, who had recently had radial keratotomy (surgical procedure to correct vision) surgery, soon discovered that he was blinded by the effects of high altitude and overexposure to ultraviolet radiation, high altitude effects which had not been well documented at the time. On May 10, the day of the summit assault, Hall – after being told Weathers could not see, wanted Beck to descend to Camp IV immediately. Weathers, however, believed his vision might improve when the sun came out, so Hall had him promise to wait on the Balcony (27,000 ft, on the 29,000 foot Everest) until Hall came back down to descend with him.
Hall, up high waiting for another client to reach the summit, never came down to assist Weathers and later died high up on the mountain. Weathers eventually began descending with guide Michael Groom, who was short-roping him. When the blizzard struck, Weathers and 10 other climbers became disoriented in the storm, could not find Camp IV, and staggered around the South Col for several hours. By the time there was a break in the storm, Weathers had been so weakened that he and three other men and women were left there so the others could summon help. Anatoli Boukreev, a guide on another expedition led by Scott Fischer, came and rescued several climbers, but during that time, Weathers had stood up and disappeared into the night. The next day, another client on Hall’s team, Stuart Hutchison, and two Sherpas arrived to check on the status of Weathers and fellow client Yasuko Namba. Believing Weathers and Namba were both near death and would not make it off the mountain alive, Hutchison and the others left them and returned to Camp IV.
Weathers spent the night in an open bivouac, in a blizzard, with his face and hands exposed. When he awakened, he managed to walk down to Camp IV on his own! His fellow climbers said that his frozen hand and nose looked and felt as if they were made of porcelain, and they did not expect him to survive. With that assumption, they only tried to make him comfortable until he died, but he survived another freezing night alone in a tent, unable to drink, eat, or keep himself covered with the sleeping bags he was provided with. His cries for help could not be heard above the blizzard, and his companions were surprised to find him alive and coherent the following day.
Weathers was later helped to walk, on frozen feet, to a lower camp, where he was a subject of one of the highest altitude medical evacuations ever performed by helicopter. Following his helicopter evacuation, he had his right arm amputated halfway between the elbow and wrist. All four fingers and the thumb on his left hand were removed, as well as parts of both feet. His nose was amputated and reconstructed with tissue from his ear and forehead. Weathers?s epic survival story was later documented in a feature film titled Everest.
"India! Its wealth disappears miraculously. People vote for the same corrupt politicians who have looted them for years. (Some call it foolishness of voters, I count it as a miracle). Every now & then a scandal comes in to limelight and gullible people fall for it. No other country has people finding comfort in chaos."
