Miracles are supernatural events. The experiences are real and perceptible, but their cause—how they occurred—is beyond our imagination. No natural cause can satisfactorily explain such events. Science can only investigate causes that are within the reach of our mind. The cause of miracles, however, is unimaginable to us. So, we are forced to conclude that the cause of such events is unimaginable. It proves that a domain completely unimaginable to the human mind exists. This unimaginable domain itself is defined as God by the Veda (Yato vāco nivartante aprāpya manasā saha). Miracles are thus, the direct proof of the existence of an unimaginable power, which itself is God. In this sense, miracles are the very basis of spirituality.
Miracles compel even atheists to recognize the existence of the unimaginable God. Miracles are like the syllabus for the kindergarten class. They create an initial attraction in the mind, which is necessary to build one’s concentration on the spiritual knowledge. Later on, the syllabi covered for the advanced theists and devotees at the school-level, college-level and the university-level are spiritual knowledge (jñāna yoga), theoretical devotion (bhakti yoga) and practical devotion (karma yoga). Spiritual knowledge, theoretical devotion and practical devotion were emphasized by Śaṅkara, Rāmānuja and Madhva respectively.
The Veda says that God wished to create, and that His wish became creation. Creation operates according to certain laws, which are known as the natural laws. These natural laws are nothing but the wish of God. Yet on occasion, when God wishes to give an initial push to a devotee’s spiritual journey, or when He wants to protect the devotee from some trouble, He violates His own laws. This violation of the natural laws is seen by us as a miracle. There is great variety in the miracles experienced by people, which includes divine visions, healings, materializations, prophecies, and so on. Human Incarnations of God often perform miracles to initially prove their divinity to people. Of course, miracles are not the identifying characteristics of a Human Incarnation of God since God grants the power to perform miracles to devotees, yogis, and even demons, who have performed rigorous penance to acquire the power.
The greatest miracle, however, is the fact that God, who is inherently unimaginable to us, merges with a human medium to become a Human Incarnation. By means of the Human Incarnation, the unimaginable God effectively becomes visible and worshippable to us. This greatest miracle is available to mankind in every generation since God invariably appears as a Human Incarnation in every generation (Sambhavāmi yuge yuge—Gītā). The greatest miracle, therefore, is for a soul who is thirsting, struggling, and blundering in the world to come face-to-face with God-in-human-form. The greatest miracle is also the extraordinary spiritual knowledge given by that Human Incarnation of God. It is the knowledge that fills the heart with divine bliss, causing springs of the purest selfless love for the Divine to come gushing forth.
Although the absolute God is unimaginable and only One, He has effectively become several Energetic Incarnation and Human Incarnations, without actually becoming many. Numerous devotees have been blessed by Swami with divine visions. In these visions, Swami appeared to those devotees as some Energetic or Human Incarnation of God. Swami has also cured the illnesses and physical suffering of many devotees by bearing their suffering on His own body. Apart from these, there have been numerous other miracles performed by Swami.
Read further for numerous thrilling accounts of miracles experienced by the devotees of Swami. Also find the most inspiring stories of their spiritual journeys and the greatest miracle of how they came face-to-face with God.
My wife, Devi, my daughter Arsha, and I have been devotees of Shri Datta Swami since 2005. Some time before we got married, Devi and I had each separately committed ourselves totally to the spiritual path. Our marriage was based on the foundation of dedicating our lives to the spiritual pursuit. We spent the first five years after our marriage in the US, away from our families. Even after that, we never maintained any close contacts...
