Anuradha Chavali

'Athithi devo bhava' meaning Guest is God has been my experience a few weeks back. 

As per instructions of Guruji me and my husband starting taking only tiffin (no rice) for dinner on every tuesday. Whatever tiffin we make we make an offering to Lord Hanuman and invoke him to taste the same and bless us. We have been doing this for a long time and I used to request to Guruji to come and eat the prasad. 

After such repeated requests Guruji and God came in different forms and accepted my offering. 

My husband goes with colleagues (car pool) to office. While coming back he will either come with any one who is coming back to our city. He has been doing this for more than a year and half and it never happened that he was left without a ride. But on one particular Tuesday, he found that everyone has left and there was no one with whom he can come back. Our house is 15 miles from office and he was in a quandary what to do. It was such a rare occurrence. No one checked with him nor he checked with others. It is one of such rare occurrences. But it was a blessing in disguise. 

Finally there was one colleague who agreed to come all the way and drop him at home. This colleague does not stay in the same city, but has go back again after dropping off my husband. My husband called me and told that he is coming with his friend and asked me make to arrangements to offer tiffin to him. 

My husband told me that his colleague made a condition that if he does not find parking place he will not come inside apartment but just drive off. Luckily he found a parking place and came into our house. He spent some time with us and took the tiffin and commented that it is very delicious. We talked for sometime and after he left, we thanked the Lord for coming in a human form and accepting our regular offerings. 

Exactly two weeks later, a classmate of my husband visited our place. He also came on a Tuesday and enjoyed our food and commented that the food is good and felt very happy. 

Both these visits by friends which happened immediately after my request to Guruji convinced me that these are blessings to us and we felt very happy. We experienced the saying "Athithis devo bhava" meaning Guest is God and God gave us opportunity to serve him. 

Jai Sriram, Jai Hanuman

July 2002