It wasn’t like it had happened for the first time. But the situation was vastly different this time.
My husband had been laid off from his job before, too. In the industry he was working in in the early 1990s in Texas, the USA, rapid corporate mergers were happening, and it was common to get laid off. But he had been able to find another job within a month or so. It hadn’t hurt as much earlier times because I still had my career. At least there was an income.
But this time, it had already been three months with no job leads at all. It was even worse because this time, I didn’t have an income either!
I didn’t have an income because I had taken a quantum leap to quit my IT career to be a full-time mom to my two toddler babies while giving my focus to more active spiritual growth. We had no family living nearby to help out with the kids if needed. I, personally, couldn’t reconcile with the idea of kids having to go to daycare.
The decision to leave my great IT career had come after years of soul searching and anguish about the uncertainty of the future especially given my husband’s rocky job situation. But in that last year, the decision had become easier and more manageable. I couldn’t neglect the voice within echoing day and night that I have to change my path.
I had hoped to focus on holistic healing and possibly work with it around my kids’ schedules and have an income soon.
This was the time of just landline phones and pagers, the life before cell phones, PCs, laptops, and the internet.
The typical way to apply for jobs was to circle the ads in newspapers or drive to Placement agencies, fill out pages of applications by hand, interview with them, and then come home and wait for any phone call on a landline phone receive a notice in the mail.
My husband was gone all day, every day. He went to practically every agency that dealt with job placement in his job sector. He filled out more than 100 multi-page applications by hand, sent his resume to every job advertisement in the newspaper. Any personal contacts he had could find no job lead either.
There was not enough money left in Savings to even cover the upcoming bills!
Our families living in other States could’ve helped if in dire situations, but that wasn’t the solution I wanted. My husband needed to change his job sector else we’d continue to be in that same situation again and again!
As anxiety-ridden and fearful and practically panicked I was, and as much as I started to doubt my decision to quit my readymade career, I also knew quite strongly that this recurring situation was a test of faith!
I never called India and complained to my Guru Ji, Swami Mohandas Ji, about any rocky life situation, especially to expect or implore him to ‘fix it’ even though he could’ve fixed anyone’s problem in a moment. All his thousands of devotees knew of his Divine powers!
All Change has to begin with me. It’s not the situations that define me; it is my response to them.
What is this situation teaching me? What do I have to learn from it? I wanted Spiritual growth, so my Guru Ji took no time to send me an opportunity!!
I seriously considered going back to the old job that I had quit just two months before. Luckily my ex-manager had been contacting me regularly to ask me to join the job back again. So, I knew it would be no issue to have to job. It was just my decision to join it or not.
I put it in Guru Ji’s hands; I surrendered to him. It was a Monday. I did fervent mental prayers to him for his Divine Guidance in this situation. I told him in my prayers that I thought I had made the correct decision to quit my job and change my life path. I knew the new life path was correct, but perhaps it isn’t the right time for me to be on it. So, as his wish. I decided to wait until the end of the week. Even though it would be enormous anguish for me if my husband didn’t get any job offer, I would call my ex-manager for my old job back.
For the first time, I let it go after putting it in his hands! I did it consciously and deliberately. I wanted to learn to release the problem to Guru Ji and be happy in the present moment.
I was amazed that I could follow through on that resolve and be happy in the present moment without agonizing over the past and future!
By the way, I didn’t communicate any of my thought process to my husband. He was under extreme stress and almost completely withdrawn from all communication.
That Monday went by, and no job leads from anywhere.
Tuesday came by. As usual, my husband left for his job hunt in the morning. I was happy in my present moment. I was singing and cooking with the Indian songs on an AM radio station in our local area.
That solo Indian radio station in our area was hard to locate on analog radios. But once the dial was set, it was a pretty clear broadcast sound.
This was when the mind-boggling miracle happened.
In the middle of an Indian song playing another English language talk show, the radio started broadcasting, loud and clear. It was a station I had never heard of before especially given that they talked about Metaphysical and Supernatural topics. How did I not know about this station?
If this radio station was this close somewhere on the radio dial to Indian station, how come in the last 3-4 years I never caught this while trying to get clear reception on Indian station? “Really Weird!” I thought.
Normally, I would have just fiddled with the radio dial and tried to go back to the Indian station, but this talk show was talking about the story of a man in Florida and his spiritual awakening!! I was hooked on that story already in progress.
I had missed the beginning and most of the middle of the story. I wasn’t going to miss the rest of the story! It was captivating.
About 2-3 minutes later, the station announced an advertisement break.
The advertisement was for a new company that had just opened by to help with the job search! This company promised to “fax your resume to 500 job placement agencies”.
I don’t know why this ad didn’t register in my brain. My mind was still occupied with the interrupted Florida man story.
The advertisement repeated. It caught my attention! Faxing resumes to so many agencies sounded fabulous but improbable. “He’s already tried all the agencies, so it will only sending a duplicate copy to them. No use wasting money; we barely have to hire their service,” I thought.
Some other advertisements played. And then there it was again. This Faxing service ad started playing again!!
This time I couldn’t ignore it. It was too strange. It seemed like the same ad was repeating for me to take down its number, which I quickly did.
“No chance he’ll want to waste any money or time on this fax service” is what I believed.
As soon as I took down their phone number, the talk show host came back on the radio, continuing with the Florida man story. The host had talked for about a minute, and I was getting all excited about the story’s ending when…
The most improbable happened. Suddenly the talk show radio went off, and the Indian song started playing again. The same song at precisely the point where it had left off 7-8 minutes ago!!!!
I was shocked. But this point didn’t register so much yet; I was desperate to know the ending of the other story. I hurriedly moved the dial to tune in to the talk show. I didn’t find it. I moved the dial fast; I moved it slow. I moved it to the left, and I moved it to the right. I didn’t find that talk show.
That’s when it registered in my mind the enormous importance of the phone number of the faxing service because of the way it came to me!!
My husband came home early, obviously all dejected. I told him the story about the advertisement. I couldn’t believe that my husband agreed right away to hire their service.
He faxed his resume to them on Tuesday.
He got a phone call from a lady from an agency that generally doesn’t work with his IT jobs. She was getting promoted and leaving to another State. She was busy packing her office stuff to move. She didn’t deal with IT jobs, but she received this IT offer for job placement shortly before she got my husband’s resume. It fit my husband’s resume perfectly, and it was in a different industry. Perfect match!
My husband offered the job on Wednesday for the salary he had asked for. The pay was the same as what he was earning before.
Hurray! We were thrilled! In my heart, I thanked my Guru Ji profusely! This happened all too quickly!
But guess what? Thursday morning, he got another equally good job offer through another agency but for more pay!
He called the first agency back to inform them. The lady said that she wanted this to be her last successful job placement before she left Texas, so she wanted my husband to wait a day on making his decision.
Friday morning, she called back. She invited both my husband and me to lunch, and there she told us that the company that had made the first job offer had counter-offered more money than the second company!
To our joyful surprise that Friday, my husband had a job with more money than he had even asked for.
Suffice to say; I got my answer that I had chosen the right path at the right time. (My Guru Ji rarely, if ever, gave me direct verbal answers me:-))
I learned the value and necessity of complete faith in Guru.
I learned Guru is always connected to me and watching over me.
I learned all is possible with God.
I learned there are Realities beyond time and space that my Guru Ji, Sri Sri 1008 Mahamandaleshwar Yogiraj Baba Mohandas Ji, could easily summon for any of his devotees and any of his children (as he referred to everyone)
I learned there is much to be learned, and the more we learn, we realize we know nothing!!
I learned that all life situations, seemingly positive or negative, are spiritual growth opportunities. We attract just what we need for our spiritual growth at any given moment, and that’s the only purpose of any and every moment and situation of our life!
It became an unshakeable faith since then! I am eternally grateful for that opportunity!
By the way, I searched and searched myself with the help of other friends who were avid radio listeners but never did locate that talk show again! No one had even heard of such a radio station!!!! The station didn’t exist!!
Even if somehow we had been able to locate the radio station, what about the no-time lapse between where the Indian song ended and picked up again at the same point minutes later?
How can any words describe the glory of a Satguru?
Blessed Be
Ritu
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