My father’s illness was unknown to me in the very beginning, as I was in New York with Sri Chinmoy and my father was back home in Australia I remember one evening Sri Chinmoy suddenly said to me, “How is your father?” I said I thought he was fine, but I was so surprised Sri Chinmoy was asking me.

It was May 1999 when Sri Chinmoy’s miracles with my father began. I called my father in Australia to see how he was, and he told me he was not feeling so good and had fainted in the shower. Now I realised why Sri Chinmoy was asking me how my father was. My brother Kishore and I felt that Sri Chinmoy had saved my father’s life, as he had probably had a heart attack.

Two months later came Sri Chinmoy’s second miracle. My father was diagnosed with bowel cancer and had to have surgery immediately. After the operation, he was taken to intensive care. During the night, my father was suddenly having serious problems Doctors and nurses were anxiously attaching wires and equipment to him. He said later he felt he was in the middle of an American TV drama hospital series. He did not know he was having another heart attack.

My mother and Kishore were informed, and Kishore called me from Australia with such concern I had to get a message to Sri Chinmoy immediately, but Sri Chinmoy was in the middle of a Peace Concert and I did not want to interrupt him. Minutes, then hours, went by. Finally, Sri Chinmoy was given the message when he went home. Sri Chinmoy read the note and immediately started meditating on my father’s soul. Sri Chinmoy told me later it was not a matter of hours or minutes but seconds before my father would have left the body. My father was extremely receptive to Sri Chinmoy’s force and he recovered from the heart attack. This was Sri Chinmoy’s third miracle.

Sri Chinmoy’s fourth miracle happened four days later. My father developed an infection and a second operation was required. Kishore, his wife Prashanta and my mother were by his side as the nurses prepared him for a second operation. My father pulled the sheet over his face as he did not want them to see his tears.

After this operation, my father described his inner experiences to Kishore — they can only confirm Sri Chinmoy’s inner workings, his love and compassion. At one point, my father saw many guardians around him and around the hospital. He saw a death force trying to cross a river to take him, but the guardians protected my father and it drowned. One guardian was very close to my father and said, “Do not worry. Everything is going to be all right.” My father saw one of the guardians capture a death force with a golden net. My father told us he felt so protected the entire time.

A year had just passed when Sri Chinmoy compassionately saved my father’s life again. In September 2000 there were complications from the previous two operations and now a third operation was necessary. I was competing in our 700-mile race at Wards Island and my family and friends hesitated to tell me about my father’s condition. Finally they informed me, and I spoke with my father a few hours before his operation. He knew Sri Chinmoy was with him and always protecting him. This time, as before, the operation went well.

In August 2002 my mother and father visited New York for ten days. When they first arrived, my father said to me, “Will everyone know I am the miracle?”

During their stay, my father was loved by everyone he met. He seemed to charm everyone with his sweetness, kindness and caring nature. All these qualities and more have come so much to the fore since he developed such a strong inner connection with Sri Chinmoy.

One day Sri Chinmoy honoured my parents in his “Lifting Up the World with a Oneness-Heart” programme by lifting them overhead. My father was weeping, his heart filled with gratitude, as I introduced him and his miracle story. During their visit, Sri Chinmoy said to me, “If it were not for this Indian village boy, your father would have gone to Heaven long ago.”