At the Pool of Immortality
by Robert Redeen
We spent September in India. It was towards the end of the month that we sat at the edge of the pool at Manav Kendra known as Mansarovar, the pool of immortality. It is on earth a small reminder of another body of water on the third plane where karmas are forever washed away.
As we sat in meditative posture halfway along the edge of Mansarovar, which is larger than a football field, we kept our eyes fixed on Master Kirpal Singh Ji at the far end of the pool. The sun had disappeared but Light enough remained to show us Master’s form reflected in the water.
We looked above and saw the stars shine down. What clouds there were stood at the sky’s edge.
And then the miracle took place.
The rain began to fall quite gently, at first only in the pool, drops spaced, perhaps, a foot apart, and then on us, our gaze fixed on the Master and His image.
The rain fell nowhere else. It hadn’t rained at Dehra Dun the two weeks we had been there. The plea of Portia in ‘The Merchant of Venice’ ran through one’s mind:
The quality of Mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath.
For fifteen or twenty minutes the drops descended as a benediction and then gradually reached an end.
Later, back at Master’s house at Manav Kendra, someone put the question.
Master, was the rain (sawan in the Hindi language) a sign that Your Master Sawan Singh was there tonight?
Said Kirpal Singh,
Those who have eyes, let them see. Those who have ears, let them hear.
It somehow was an echo of another statement at another time, the words of Kirpal Singh to His Beloved Sawan Singh:
Master, I am a mere pipe. It is up to You to send the water.
Early on 28th September we prepared for our return to Delhi. The station wagon was pulled up between the hospital where we had stayed and the Pool of Mansarovar.
The morning sky at 6:15 was blue and cloudless there in the valley of the Himalayan foothills. And as we were driven out of Manav Kendra we looked and saw more raindrops splashing in the pool.