We all pray for a miracle in one way or another. All religions have a faith in God and all have prayers and rituals that are practised in the hope of a miracle. Often it seems that God doesn’t hear our requests. His followers are sometimes bewildered, but then remind themselves that God has a greater plan, or perhaps they were not worthy of His help. They pray even harder. Sometimes their prayers are answered.

Even if we have no religious belief, we still hope for a miracle.

New age practitioners charge us money to show us ways to reach our goals and substitute the word “miracle” with “manifestations”. We are told that we can create our own realities and that we can manifest our own reality. More often than not, the only thing that manifests is a huge bank account for the new age practitioners involved and yet more disillusionment for their followers.

The fact is that miracles occur every day once we have a true connection with that higher power that some call God and others refer to as a higher power, cosmic consciousness or universal love. Yet when we hear of these stories, we become cynical and filled with doubt. Rational explanations are sought and if none is available, then often, the stories are brushed away as a work of fiction.

The following account of a miracle is the absolute truth. I can assure you that my brain would be totally incapable of creating such a story. If I wanted to create a work of fiction, I would have picked a different topic, such as how I found a million dollars, rather than one about petrol and insurance companies!

What I am trying to say is that this Divine energy that is awakened when we get our self-realisation is far more creative than our human brains could ever be. We can all experience miracles.

In my early days in Sahaja Yoga and after shoe-beating my lack of permanent employment, I found myself living in Muswellbrook, a small isolated country town in NSW.

I wanted to travel from Muswellbrook to Newcastle, on to Redhead, back to Newcastle and then on to Sydney for the Sahaja Yoga program at Burwood. This was roughly a 360 km trip, but I only had ten dollars worth of petrol. I was a little worried, but I surrendered the problem to the Divine.

After reaching Newcastle with almost an empty tank, I stayed with friends. In the morning I went out to the car to get something. I quickly forgot what it was because, to my amazement, I saw a puddle of petrol in the gutter beside my car. On closer inspection, it seemed that petrol was leaking out of the tank. Devastated at the possibility of losing the precious little petrol had left I rang the NRMA.

The roadside attendant was quick to arrive. To my amazement, when he removed the petrol cap, petrol began to spurt up like a fountain. It honestly spurted up about ten centimetres from the tank opening.

The attendant asked me to move the car to the flat where he could accurately measure the pressure in the tank because he thought that this phenomenon was caused by an air lock in the tank. He tested his theories using every tool possible. Finally, he stood up, looked at me and told me that I simply had far too much petrol in my tank.

I explained that this was not possible because I had only been able to fill my car in Muswellbrook and that was with my last ten dollars, and then I had come here, gone to Redhead and then returned. He looked at me with frustration and a little irritation, saying, “You mean that you filled up down the road here when you returned? The tank is simply way overfilled,” as the miraculous fountain of petrol continued to bubble gently. I repeated what I had done. Finally, he looked at me in utter disbelief and said, ” Well, love, I don’t know what you used to get here. It must have been thin air because I’m telling you, the only thing wrong with your car is that it has too much petrol.”

He had to siphon off some of the petrol to stop the fountain. Needless to say, all needs were met those holidays.

LB