Celestial Chariots
ShastriX
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.—Hamlet, scene v
Old-timers will recall the hullabaloo over the reentry of SkyLab into the Earth's atmosphere in July, 1979. I think it was scheduled for reentry on July 9 (today), though it actually happened a couple of days later.
My grandma was in her place near Guntur and joked with her friends that it would fall on them. She died the next day. I can still see my Mom crying in a chair at the end of the hall, when we got back from play that evening.
My grandma was some lady. She used to test for her blood-sugar levels with a very involved process. Heat a test-tube along with some solution, put the drops of blood in it, and do some sort of litmus test. Can't imagine doing any of that now; the mind balks at a 5-second test! Anyway, she was one tough cookie.
Some years later, my Mom told me a very unusual thing. When my grandpa died sometime in the early 1960s, my grandma saw a celestial chariot waiting outside the house.
My grandpa did a yajna in those days. There are quite a few who say that the general well-being of his descendants is due to his austerities. What can one say, except that i was named after him.
I wouldn't have believed that celestial chariot bit if i hadn't read about it in other contexts.
In the mid-1930s, the impending Second World War was announced to Edgar Cayce by a divine being in a celestial chariot.
This year, i read a detailed account of one arriving to take away the soul of Balaram Basu, a very humble devotee of Sri Ramakrishna. Swami Shivananda narrates: (How to Live with God, pages 78-79)
At the last moment, we were seated around him, while his wife, stricken with unspeakable grief, was in the inner apartment with Golap-ma, Yogin-ma, and others. Just then she noticed something like a piece of black cloud in the sky, which became denser by stages and began to descend. Soon it assumed the shape of a chariot and alighted on the roof of Balaram Basu's house. The Master came out of that chariot and proceeded towards the room where Balaram Babu lay. Soon after, he issued forth, taking Balaram Babu by the hand, and entered the chariot again, which then ascended and vanished in the sky. This vision raised her mind to a very high plane where there could be no touch of grief or sorrow. When she returned to normal she related this to Golap-ma, who came to apprise us of the fact. Balaram Babu had passed away just a little while before.
