my 1st photograph..

"Here is a camera. If you turn the camera towards Swami and turn on the switch, you see the image of Swami. In the same way, use the mind. The mind is the "lens" of concentration. Turn it toward Brahman and activate the switch of intellect, and you will immediately have a picture of Brahman. Our body is a camera, the mind is the lens, our feelings are the picture, intellect is the switch, and our vision is divine.  Once you turn your vision godward, god will come to you,"   Satya Sai Baba.

After the Sankalpa Blessing, I returned home to apply for a long-term visa to continue writing.  Now using those daily writings as reference points and a reminder of details.  I received the two-year extendable visa and returned to India within months. It was granted easily as a “spiritual visa,” partly because of the book I submitted, which included a short essay of mine and many others from devotees in Canada. Satya Sai Baba Blessed that book on the occasion of His 75th birthday. Also included were my work and proof of my anti-poverty company, which I founded after Sai Baba of Shirdi's dream of acupuncture healing on my legs..    From Oct 2002-2012, with intermittent returns to Canada to maintain my time qualifications and create avenues for importing and exporting goods to support this lifestyle, which, simply put, was barely covering my existence.

I had made only acquaintances during the first two years of intense meditations and twice-daily darshans, meditating up to 6 hours a day. Only a few knew about my visa's origins, and I kept it discreet, only mentioning it when needed for extensions, as He was adamant that I stay on past the two years. Amid the many insights Satya Sai Baba gifted, no words can describe the many blissful days of both inner and outer darshans, so immersed in His Ananda, and the exponential healing I experienced during those blissful first two years in Prashanti Nilayam. 

One day, nearing the end of my original visa, outside the ashram, I sat at a western town eatery, located right outside the Gopuram gate. I was sharing a table on the balcony with someone I didn't know. Our seating offered a clear view of the gate and passersby while we waited for our food to arrive. We chatted casually until the stranger said, “I’m leaving today,” and handed me an old digital camera. (We hadn’t discussed photos or photography; the gift came right out of the blue.) "Take it; I have no use," he said, placing it in my hand—a surprising gesture. Moments later, Satya Sai Baba appeared in a car at the Gopuram gate.  

I knew everyone would judge the photograph's quality, but the photograph itself is the message, not its perfection. Defining remembrance and guidance that is spontaneous in a moment, receiving a symbol of artistic expression, I had released, is more important than perfection, transcending others' perceptions of value…His hands together..in the sign of “meeting” or “coming together”….to many a delusion that was a miracle to me….

My first weaving story of another’s heartfelt gift, without any spoken references to the “source” of the giving, as it was clear as a bell to me! A moment of clarity regarding His will and direction, from a stranger whose name I did not know. A gift, reflecting my own inner visions, dreams, and the illusory real world, transformed into a symbolic vortex of grace — that very first photograph and a return to photography with the cheapest camera on the market.. Within me, I felt pure prema shakti pulsing as I saw the avatar's full-body image reflected in the photograph I had just received with my outstretched hand over the balcony railing, without raising the camera to my eyes. No tiresome claims of “who is the doer” and “who is the receiver”, when it was clearly evident to me..a divine Leela, the depth of which could only be known to me. But to share it with another, to even have an inkling of the grace, I have to describe and include the events associated with photographs that led to that divine reflection…the events that led up to that first photograph I took myself. 

Given that I had released Photography as an artistic expression all those years ago, it never occurred to me that I would take a photograph of Him myself…But now I have a camera, He has given me through a stranger… without a qualifying word that would hinder the joyful exchange and spontaneity of life. Actions and symbols speak louder than words to the soul, and the dictate to write the book” to express oneself when one truly cannot with mere words, and the new direction to extend my visa and “stay “ as He walked by me in the darshan that day..with the camera in my bag,.urging me to extend my visa…

The worlds that shaped my life shifted dramatically when He appeared in real life, in a forest all those years ago. Now, that experience was transforming in unexpected ways through creative expression. Receiving a photograph of Him while either of us was "outside" the ashram preserved the rules specific to that activity and felt like a miracle of divine timing.  I couldn't have imagined this until the camera was placed in my hands, just as the Ganesha gate opened and SSB became fully visible from my balcony seating. He was now introducing a meditative concept that offered profound freedom from oppressive beliefs and controlling influences—details about these experiences will be provided later to add context to my viewpoint.  Many claim to channel, often ignoring the subtle teachings He imparts, preferring instead fleeting psychic sensations over true spiritual joy that is within oneself and not derived from an outer source.  Although there were rare instances I’d seen of outer shakti light healing myself and others without words or sounds, with the unmistakable pranamic need to balance its flow as it moves through the universe, like a river flowing down a mountain stream to its source as merging molecules. (That’s the best description I can give).

Satya Sai Baba, Sai Baba of Shirdi, and Babaji had me challenge the superficial interpretations through His dreams, prompting reflection on experiences that may distract from compassion for the suffering and poor.  His grace was expressed creatively through the support of those who recognized His Leela as the source, rather than any intention on my part. While some devotees saw only a poor-quality photograph, to me, it was a deeply creative work of energetic healing, surpassing even Kirlian photography. It conveyed meaningful symbols that informed my soul and intuition, merging into His consciousness in reflection, in remembrance—entirely different from mere channelling.  Having experienced vibrational empathy since my true death experience with Christ, SSB now offered me a new way to remember all the healing I had received: through photographs with the same resonance as the formless healing, but in reflection and tenderness and creation from my own experiences... These photographs transformed pain into bliss and then into laughter I had never known before. He unfolded a tangible path of healing that aligned with the interests I had surrendered to Him years earlier—a miracle in itself. I was further amazed when others also found healing through this Leela in Puttaparthy, even as some residents were unaware. After all, photography was a new medium, and it was under His control if the photographs resonated with someone other than me..I was profoundly grateful when it did..