The following incident happened when I was 20 years old. At that age I did a lot of things that you do when you are young and impetuous.
One night in September, I went with my best friend and two other boys to a disco. At one o'clock in the morning, when we wanted to go home, we were all quite drunk. In such a situation, for some reason you think of yourself as immortal and you are not at all expecting that things can go wrong.
We had come in one car, and the driver had a reputation for losing his self-control very easily after drinking. For this reason, my friend asked if he could drive instead, but the driver insisted on driving himself, since he was also the owner of the car.
On our journey home, we were stopped at a traffic light when another car stopped besides us. The driver of this car started to provoke us into joining him for a little race. When the light turned green, both cars speeded up to full throttle. The race led us into a long tunnel, and while the other car fell back, we went on at highest speed. I was sitting behind the driver in the back seat, with my friend beside me. We both began to feel uncomfortable about the whole thing and we shouted at the driver to slow down. But he was totally deaf in that ear and seemed to be completely out of control, as if possessed by madness. All of a sudden, the whole atmosphere in the car changed. The car was filled with electricity and the air was so thick that you could cut it. It became obvious to me that this journey would find no good end.
After leaving the tunnel, there was a dangerous curve and our driver was still driving like a maniac. I became fully aware that an accident was unavoidable, and that an accident at this speed would cause either my death or very serious injuries. I had hardly finished this thought when something astonishing happened: all at once I became totally calm and tranquil and all fear and panic vanished from me.
The next moment, something from deep inside my heart came to the fore, surrendered completely and unconditionally to God and started to pray with utmost humility and devotion. The prayer went something like this: "My beloved Father, I know that I have committed quite a number of mistakes in my life and I am ready to bear the responsibility for this. If it is Your Will that I die now, or if I have to spend the rest of my life in a wheel- chair, then I will accept this fate most devotedly. Thy Will be done."
Right after this prayer, I saw pictures and sequences of my life running very fast like a movie in front of my inner eye. All this took only a few moments, and when I concentrated again on what was happening around me, I saw that the driver had lost control of the car and that we were heading into the left crash barrier. I barely had time to press my knees against the driver's seat and to pull my arms in front of my head.
Afterwards we came to know that the car crashed at about 120 km/h into the left crash barrier, overturned across the two lanes, crashed against the right crash barrier, flipped over it and finally landed on its roof against a small tree. The next thing I remember was that I was lying on my back on the asphalt. I was afraid that other cars would run over me, so I got up as fast as possible and found myself standing on the pavement. Somehow I must have been thrown out of the car window when it overturned. I saw the wrecked car lying there on its roof, and I felt I had to lie down near the car in the grass. My whole body hurt and I felt totally weak.
There was dead silence. The only thing I heard was the dripping of some liquid that was running out of the car. I was afraid that it was gas and that the car would explode. Then I saw the driver and the other boy crawling out of the broken windows of the wreck, and I remembered that my friend must still be inside. I told them to get him out of the car, and they pulled him out by one arm. When I saw that he was still alive, I was able to breathe freely again and to calm down.
I was still lying on my back in the grass, when I found above me the most beautiful starry sky. All the stars and the whole heaven were so close to me, it seemed as if they wanted to cover me, and I felt myself infinitely safe. My heart began to fill with gratitude, and suddenly I felt the presence of God. I felt Him caressing my head two or three times full of love and affection. Then I felt Him saying that my time for leaving had not yet come and that there was still something for me to accomplish in this lifetime. This message was something I felt very intensely, rather than something I heard with my outer or inner ears. My eyes filled with tears and I was overcome with infinite peace and gratitude, and I started praying, full of gratitude to God that He had protected me and saved my life. I can remember feeling disturbed and somewhat disappointed when the first helpers arrived to take care of us, because they interrupted this deep inner experience most abruptly.
The driver and the other boy were completely unharmed. My friend and I were taken to the hospital, but after four days they sent us home. I felt it was an absolute miracle that nobody was seriously hurt or killed. When the driver of the other car, which had raced us, had to give a statement to the police, he told them that he did not think that anybody would leave this car alive, after he saw the car overturning through the air like a sparking ball.
In the following years, I became interested in spirituality and meditation, and after six or seven years I came in contact with Sri Chinmoy's path and became his disciple. After some time, one day I realised that the divine presence that you feel in those special moments when you are inwardly or outwardly very close to Guru was the same divine presence I felt after the accident, when I was lying there in the grass! All at once I became aware that it was Guru who was there that night and saved my life, long before I became a disciple! It was he who caressed my head and who let me know that there was something left for me to do in this lifetime!
I do not know what the Supreme has planned for me in this lifetime, but I do know that I wish to have at every single moment of my life that same kind of unconditional surrender to Him as I had just before the accident. And I wish to have at every single moment of my life that same kind of infinite gratitude to Him as I had just after the accident, when I was lying there in the grass.
Andi (Stuttgart)
