As I sit here happy and healthy enough to write about another brush with death, it is hard to believe that only a few of days ago I was once again in the hospital emergency room facing another terminal illness. What only a week ago looked like a fingernail fungus was soon diagnosed as splinter hemorrhages with an almost black open lesion growing across my fingertip, an indication of a highly fatal heart infection called Endocarditis.

After seeing my Doctor, I was rushed directly to the Emergency Room where I was immediately surrounded by doctors and nurses simultaneously taking blood samples from the veins in my hands, placing IVs in my arm and hooking me up to monitors. I noticed they all seemed a bit nervous, but my partner David was next to me with the caring and loving smile that he can give me even in the worst of times.

Despite the chaos, a wave of faith swept over me. Hadn’t I been here before? Eight years ago I’d beat all odds and survived AIDS after the doctors told me I was finished. Through faith in the Grace of Dattatreya Siva Baba and Divine intervention I had a surgical heart procedure without anesthesia while six cardiac stents were implanted in my heart arteries along with a pacemaker after several massive heart attacks. This happened only three years ago. To the doctors I am a walking phenomenon as I live a happy, healthy and active lifestyle with ongoing illnesses that would keep most people bed-ridden.

Faith in Datta and his teachings have brought about tremendous experiences for me that can only be accurately described as spiritual cosmic intervention type of miracles concerning health and wellness. This time, somehow the faith had evolved. In the past I used meditation to attempt to change test results or control the outcome of surgeries while in a state of complete calmness with profound results. This time, that will to control withered away. What arose was the desire to be in acceptance and perceive the results in a healthy way. A realization the Divine was playing out exactly as was supposed to be. I was no longer trying to control the situation. In that moment of greater surrender to the Divine, I experienced a higher level of serenity then ever before. What was previously a belief in the teachings of Datta had reached a level of complete Faith. That same Faith was now a complete knowing. Knowing is a complete absence of doubt.

Results from the myriad of tests would not be in for a few days and the hospital was full. They sent me home with David and I was told to come back if my temperature got too high. What still bothered me was the dark growing lesion on my finger and the excruciating pain coming from it. This dead flesh like gangrene was icy cold and dark blue. The fear of having my finger removed challenged my faith as I returned home to await the outcome.

Later a friend and fellow student of Datta, Aruna, stopped by and gave me a bag of Vibhuti (sacred Ash) from a Danvantri Homa in India (Davantri is the physician of heaven). I showed her my finger and she like most of the people who have witnessed Datta’s miracles in my life, gave me a look of compassion and reassurance that expressed her incredible faith that everything would be okay.

The next morning I was drawn to the Vibhuti, and the question of what to do with the ash whirled in my head. After returning home that afternoon from doctor’s visits, I heard a voice telling me to mix the Vibhuti powder with water and put it on my finger. I had heard many times that no one should ever put it on an open wound, but at this point I didn’t have much to lose as the finger was dying.

I mixed the Vibhuti with water and put it on the open lesion. It burned terribly and I wondered if I’d made a horrible mistake. I rinsed it under water and noticed the lesion was lighter in color. I stubbornly applied some more and went to bed. The pain subsided a little as I fell asleep.

I woke up and rinsed off the Vibhuti. The lesion was almost completely gone. I hurried upstairs to see Aruna and she confirmed that it wasn’t my imagination. The wound had almost completely healed within two hours! By the following morning the lesion had completely disappeared, the natural color was coming back, the warmth of normal blood flow was returning and my fever was gone. All symptoms of Endocarditis disappeared.

Have a complete Faith and knowing in the grace and teachings of this amazing Enlightened Master, Dattatreya Siva Baba. You too will watch your destiny change and miracles abound in all areas of your life as well.

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