The Power of Truth

Inspired by Swamiji and other noble saints, for a few years I’ve been practicing being truthful in my speech to the best of my abilities and circumstances. To the point that now even response to regular questions like “how are you?” usually does not fetch the default answer “badiya/theek (fine)” unless I’m indeed feeling the same. That said, I’ve not yet taken a sankalpa (vow) of truth because vow once taken shouldn’t be broken regardless of the situation at hand as that reduces the power of sankalpa. I’ve witnessed this power first-hand multiple times in my sadhanas and otherwise and hence the word sankalpa itself is quite sacred to me.

If you want to understand the importance and power of truth on the path of spirituality, you should listen to The Story of Satyavrata and of course listen to the first pillar of attaining siddhis (satyanishtah – truthfulness) on the live page to understand three aspects of being truthful.

As Swamiji mentions in the latter discourse, when you walk the path of truth, eventually you gain the power of speech (vak siddhi) and what you say becomes the truth. This means that your words gain the power of manifesting things in your and others’ life. In Art of Devotion course, Sadhvi Vrinda ji also related multiple incidents of lord listening to her and manifesting things.

You shouldn’t assume for a moment that I’ve attained the said power, however, I’ve witnessed on multiple occasions, my Lord listening to my childish requests and responding very soon with a solution. One such incident I’ll write later as part of one of the entries related to direct experiences of divine grace while battling with Covid.

The most recent incident happened on evening of this August 8th. I was doing my daily meditation and there was commotion in my room as brother was trying to search for Rs. 20000 pack of cash which had been missing after the function at home for his newborn’s Nāmkaran ceremony. Mother was in stress as she was sure that she kept it in the same purse along with another pack of Rs. 50k (which was still there). Brother searched both inside and outside the almirah in which the purse was kept, pulling out the cloths (but without placing them back inside) but he didn’t find it.

I continued my meditation and pooja while words of suspicion being raised for the house maid we’ve recently appointed. Though a reasonable argument against was given by my brother that if she was involved, she would have taken the bigger pack of 50k instead; why would someone steal the smaller amount if larger one is also there? As I recall, being occupied with the tension and investigation, brother/etc couldn’t join me at the stuti/kirtan we do around 07:00 PM daily.

As I rose up from meditation, I also thought of lending a hand and do some searching myself. There aren’t many places to search but as it had happened in the past, my mother could end up placing items in places usually when in a hurry, and later forget about it causing similar commotion and searching. So, I opened unrelated drawer next to the small yet lively temple we have. But understanding my very limited capabilities related to such investigations, I murmured to Bhagavan something on the lines of “mujhko to nahi pata hai lekin aapko to pata hai ki vo kaha hain, to aap hi dhoond do (I don’t know but you know where the money is, so you find it please?)”

I came to the other room where my mother was lying under stress and thinking. My fruitless search continued for the money pack in refrigerator and microwave 🙂 yes, no place is insignificant during investigation IMO. In microwave I found a full plate of food uneaten. “You haven’t eaten your food?” I asked mother, “eat it and you’ll find the money” I said with conviction (which came upon me suddenly).

If I recall correctly, she asked me “So, I’ll be able to find it after eating, how?” she asked and left to the other room to search again. “Yes, eat your food and you’ll get it.” I said.

Not many moments passed this time she found the money pack inside a small plastic carry bag amongst those clothes which my brother left outside during his search (though she hadn’t eaten the food yet but did so soon after the successful find).

Both my mother and brother had already done one round of searching in this area while I was meditating. The bag had only money inside and considering its thin design, it should have been an easy one to spot the way she does this time.

Obviously, the joy of my mother was priceless and she started saying that my words made it happened. I neither took the credit nor told them about the childish demand to the lord I made a few minutes ago.

Such divine interventions and direct actions make you humble and as Sadhvi ji said during Art of Devotion course, one also feels that one should be more careful with one’s words as you know that lord is listening and can end up manifesting them in our life!

Sriman Narayan