Shree Swāmi Vibhūtī Sākshātkār

The day of ‘Vāman Pooja’ (Dwarf incarnation of ‘Lord Vishnu’) during the ‘Bhāgwat Saptāh’ we made ‘Shreeram Rajahamsa’ grandson of ‘Shree Balgandharva’ (A famous singer and actor of Maharashtra) enact as ‘Vāmandev’ and worshiped him with intense devotion.

After ‘Bhāgwat Saptāh’ got over; we carried ‘Shrimad Bhagwat Grantha’ in a palanquin amidst a big fabulous procession. With ‘Shree Swāmi’s’ grace, we could obtain the palanquin from the ‘Lord Dattatraya’ temple with the help of ‘Shree Bhausaheb Ambavane’. The procession was lead by a ‘Flag- bearer’ and ‘Band’, followed by ladies and then the palanquin and in the end were the members of ‘Bhajani Mandal’ (Group of people singing devotional songs). The route followed by the procession was from places in city namely ‘Mangalwār Peth’, ‘Somwār Peth’ and ‘Kasbā Peth’. In this manner we circumbulated the ‘Old Poona City’. ‘Shree Digambar Kulkarni Guruji’ played some games of ‘Gopa and Gopika’ (The games played by Cowherd boys and the milkmaids of ‘Gokul’ during ‘Lord Krishna’ time.) with the children and ‘Phugadya’ (A traditional dance type where in two people cross hold hands and revolve in a circular motion) was played by everyone. ‘Shree Bhausaheb Ambavane’, ‘Shree Digambar Kulkarni Guruji’, ‘Mr. Arun Agarwal’, ‘Mr. Bhagirath Gogawle’ and ‘Mr. Devidas Chavan’ took a lot of effort to make this programme a success.

‘Guruvarya Nānā Karandikar’ had told me 26 years ago that I will witness an ‘Sākshātkār’ (a miracle; witness something supernatural, superhuman). Similarly son-in-law of ‘Shree Kamlākar Tapasvi’ ‘Shree Shashikant Kulkarni’ had also predicted that by June 2001, I will experience some sort of miracle; to my surprise it really happened!

On the 1^st of July 2001, this happened to be ‘Aashad Shukla Ekadashi’ (A particular lunar phase according to Indian almanac). I felt very hungry at night and I requested my wife ‘Sau. Aparna’ to offer "Naivaidya" (food offered to ‘Lord’) of fruits to ‘Shree Swāmi Samarth’ so that after offering I could eat the fruits as "Prasad". She offered the "Naivaidya" and immediately almost shouted, “Please come here immediately and see for yourself, some "Vibhūtī" is coming out of ‘Shree Swāmi’s hand in the photograph”. Me, my daughter ‘Pradnya’ and my son ‘Shridhar’ ran towards ‘Shree Swāmi’s photograph and what we witnessed was as follows; Three streams of "Vibhūtī" were emerging from ‘Shree Swāmi’s right hand. This "Vibhūtī" was flowing downwards and was collecting on the rim of the photo frame. We were wonderstruck and could not speak at all. My daughter ‘Pradnya' started crying. There was complete silence in the house and all of us were standing there with folded hands and witnessing the miracle.