Mother and Me

My Premonitions

Human beings have always believed that many of them are bestowed with the capacity to foresee coming events. Almost all religions and cultural groups have the same notion. Rishis and saints are supposed to be endowed with this faculty. Once I too started getting premonitions. The saddest part was that I foresaw only ‘bad’ things. Seeing visions of friends and relatives in agony due to sickness, accidents, fire etc., became frequent. To me, the most painful was a premonition of my patients dying; unfortunately, this started happening even in a wakeful state. How would a doctor feel (when he or she is about to discharge a patient from the hospital), if he/she gets a premonition that the patient will die suddenly? Well, these premonitions became too painful for me.

Once I saw one of my best friends sitting near my bed with tears in his eyes, unable to speak. I was neither dreaming nor fully awake but conscious of what I saw. I told my wife what I saw and immediately wrote a letter to my friend asking about his well-being. What really surprised me was that almost at the same time, he had written to tell me that his only sister had died in an accidental fire after which he was unable to speak. He wrote that I should immediately send him a prescription. Imagine, he was in Delhi and I was in Pondicherry!

What are these ‘phenomena’? Psychic, parapsychic, mere imaginations, or some sort of extra-sensory perceptions? So as usual, I went to the Mother for guidance. She told me these were the effects of evil forces and were temporary. Since we are always surrounded by both good and evil forces, sometimes the evil ones come into play. I should pray. So, every day I prayed in the morning and evening, “God, please take away these premonitions.” Within a few days, I became as ignorant as I was and am. I sincerely hope this does not torment me again.

Even before this, I often knew the diagnosis and prognosis of a patient instinctively. This could be my subconscious mind’s deductive logic when I am presented with a situation and a problem. I do not know. But many times I feel as if the disease of a person is looking at me rather than my looking at it. There is one lesson I have learnt from this. Go to the Mother or your ‘Guru’ or God for help. Prayers are heard.