Kishore 

A few months back I planned to visit Golden Gate bridge with my family. Golden Gate Bridge is in San Francisco city which is around 50 miles away from my residence. I enquired with friends and came to know that this spot will be crowded and will be difficult to get parking place. If you don't get parking space in regular spot for tourists one needs to go another location and park the car and come back. This will cause some inconvenience. We started at around 3 PM in the afternoon to San Francisco. Going to Golden Gate bridge involves going through downtown of San Francisco. The roads are crowded and very confusing. Despite taking directions I got lost and was circling the place. Finally I stopped at a gas station and asked for directions. I immediately got directions from a cab driver. (This event was exact repeat of similar event one year back, which I will narrate later). After getting directions I was able to get back on proper route and reach parking place. 

As I entered the parking place I found parking lot was full and there were four cars ahead of me which were also circling in search of parking place. I was wondering what I should do next. As I was slowing down, some one signed to me asking me to wait since he is taking out his car. I was surprised at this. What prompted this particular person to invite me instead of all the four cars that were waiting ahead of me. I felt it was divine guidance. 

It would have been thought of as a coincidence in normal circumstances. But when I was talking to couple of my friends telling them that I went to visit Golden Gate Bridge during weekend, their first question was: "Did you get parking space easily?". This really convinced me that whatever happened was due to divine grace only. 

Related to this event was a similar experience one year back: When I visited US alone in May 2000, my classmate Jayakrishna also was in the same place. We planned to visit Golden Gate and started at 6 PM. As we reached San Francisco we got lost and circled for half an hour looking for proper route. At that time also we stopped at a Gas Station and asked for direction. This place was the same gas station I went to after one year as I described above. How do you feel when an event in past repeats itself? This event looks familiar - history repeats itself. I wanted to share this coincidence also along with my spiritual experience. 

Jai Sriram, Jai Hanuman

February 2002