What faith can do

A young man was in great distress. His mother had been suffering from cancer for a long time, and her condition was now extremely grave. He knew that it was only a matter of months before she would pass behind the curtain of Eternity. Many, many doctors had given her different treatments, but all had failed.

One day, one of the young man’s friends said to him, “I know how much you care for your mother. Medical science has not been able to cure her, but there is someone who can cure her. A few hundred miles from here there lives a particular sage. He definitely has the occult power and spiritual power to cure your mother. Let me make enquiries as to the name of his village. I will give you directions so that you can find this sage.”

The young man eagerly accepted his friend’s advice and in a few days he set out for the remote village of the spiritual Master. When he arrived at his destination, he found that the spiritual Master had gone to another village because he had a very high fever. The Master had heard that in the other village there was a medical doctor who would be able to cure his fever.

Since the young man had already travelled so far, he decided to go on to the other village in search of the great spiritual figure. He arrived in the village only to find that the spiritual Master had just passed away! All the young man’s hopes were crushed. The poor fellow began crying helplessly because he felt that now his mother would never be cured.

The son of the spiritual Master happened to see the young man crying in the street. He said, “What is wrong with you? Why are you crying so bitterly? Are you crying for my father? You did not even know him. Why are you so grief-stricken?”

The young man said, “Yes, in a sense I am crying for your father. Your father was such a great man. He had so much occult power and spiritual power. My mother is dying of cancer. I came to your place to beg your father to cure her. There I discovered that your father was not feeling well, and for that reason he had come to this village. Now I have come here, but it is too late. Your father has passed away. Now there is no hope for my mother to be cured.”

The young man was swimming in the sea of sorrow. The son of the spiritual Master was astonished. “You fool!” he said. “If my father had this kind of spiritual power and occult power, do you think he would have come here to see a doctor? He was suffering only from a fever. If he had had any power at all, he would have cured himself!”

The young man was shocked. He said, “My friend told me that your father was a great spiritual Master with tremendous power. I had such faith in your father! Because of that faith, I came to your place, and now I have come here. I am so unlucky! Had I arrived just a day or two earlier, I feel he could have cured my mother.”

This time the son could not stop laughing. He said, “This blind faith of yours is so ridiculous. I know my father. He did not have the powers that you ascribe to him. He came here to get a remedy for his fever. He was just an ordinary man.”

The young man simply said, “I had faith in my dearest friend, and my friend had faith in your father. Now my mother will definitely die. What more can I do? Let me go home and take care of her for her few remaining months on earth.”

The young man went all the way back to his own village, where he expected to find his mother sick in bed. Instead, he saw his mother doing housework. With utmost surprise and delight he said, “Mother, Mother, what is this? For months you have been bedridden. Now you are moving about with such energy all of a sudden. Why? Why?”

His mother said, “I do not know what the reason is. One day, while you were away, I woke up and it seemed that I had got a new life. I felt so much better! I got up and began moving around without any pain. For the last few days I have been cooking and cleaning the way I used to do. I feel that in a few weeks I will be completely recovered. It is a miracle! What have you done? Where did you go?”

The son started shedding tears of joy and gratitude. He said to his mother, “This is what faith can do! I had faith in my friend and my friend had faith in a certain spiritual Master. This miracle is all due to the power of faith.”