More than science, I believe in signs. Since childhood, I have been realizing that the super natural power which created this universe showers wonderful signs to us, probably as a cue to realize his existence. Some notice them and some ignore. I acknowledge them and thank the almighty for being around to take care.
However, in general, it’s a never-ending debate whether God really exists or not. Here I would like to share an incident which cemented my belief.
It was way back in 1993, in my home town and I was in schooling then. Our house was under construction and one of my elder cousins, used to visit the site daily, to water the walls under construction. One evening, my sister and I, accompanied my cousin, to our house-in-construction. It happened to be ‘Maha Sivarathri’ that day. On our return by walk at around 5:30 – 6 PM, I suddenly observed a colorful chakra kind of thing in the pristine sky. There were many layers of concentric circles in different colors. My cousin and sister were talking something else and didn’t notice it. But the chakra grabbed my entire attention. As I continued to observe, the chakra started growing in size and it was soon shaping up like a snake. I was shell-shocked and showed it to my sister and cousin. They too were surprised and followed the image in the sky. Very soon the image took the clear shape of a huge snake and continued to grow gradually. With in no time, it grew bigger and bigger and finally faded away. Before we could realize what just happened, it was gone. I was dumbstruck by this experience. When we observed around, everyone else were busy with their chores and no one seemed to have observed this.
It was definitely not a result of random patterns of the clouds or the sun light-rain effect causing colors in the sky. It was not at all cloudy and it was not the effect of crackers or anything of that sort. The snake image was very similar to the Naga idols usually worshipped in the temples. What I saw has registered in my memory and I still feel and recollect it, although 21 years have gone by.
Later my cousin, explained our experience to his mother, who is a staunch devotee. She was thrilled by our incident and clarified that its written in puranas that on the auspicious ‘Maha Sivarathri’ Day, many sages, gandharvas, gods visit earth to explore how humans celebrate the festival and the image that we saw could be one among them who was on a visit to Earth. I had goosebumps on hearing this and felt the justification could be true.
Ironically after this incident, on many festivals, especially on Maha Sivarathri, I make it a point to scan the sky in the evenings and it has been over 20 years that this experience didn’t repeat for me. Nevertheless, I feel gifted to have got it at least once. I cherish it to the core and it boosted my belief in God for the obvious reasons !