What would you say if I told you I met God ?
A recent visit to a village temple left me reflecting on this question.
An unexpected stop
We were passing through a village on our way to another temple when we decided to make an unplanned stop. Inside, I offered my prayers to the deities and noticed a picture of Lord Satyanarayan placed to one side, with flowers and fruit prasad beneath it.
Being familiar with the katha, I was reminded of the importance given to receiving prasad with reverence. I wished to partake of it before leaving.
I asked a few people nearby whether I could take some. They were unsure and suggested that I check with the panditji. I waited for a while, but he was occupied with other devotees, and I could not find an opportunity to speak with him.
Eventually, I left the sanctum area, slightly dejected. It was a small disappointment, but I had hoped to receive the prasad and now assumed I would have to leave without it.
Outside, a few villagers were sitting together, apparently waiting for something. We were preparing to leave when an elderly woman walked up to me and asked where I had come from. I replied that I was visiting from the city. We did not share a common language comfortably yet managed to converse. She said:
“Wait here. The prasad is coming. Do take the prasad before you leave.”
She did not know that I had been asking for it inside. She did not know I had waited, or that I had left feeling disappointed. Yet she came directly to me and offered the very thing I had been seeking.
Overjoyed, we waited. The prasad arrived, we received it, and continued our journey.
At the time, it was simply a happy moment. Only later did its meaning begin to unfold.
Coincidence, or an answer?
There could be an entirely ordinary explanation. Perhaps the villagers were waiting for prasad and the woman was inviting visitors to join them. Perhaps she had noticed me earlier, or someone had mentioned that I was asking for it.
I cannot know.
And yet, the encounter felt like an answer.
I had made a small request, been unable to fulfil it, and then stepped outside. A woman I did not know approached me, crossed the modest barrier of language between us, and told me to wait for exactly what I had wanted.
Nothing supernatural had occurred. There was no vision, no celestial voice, no event that defied explanation. There was simply another human being, arriving at the right moment, with the right words.
I found myself thinking : I met God that day, in the form of that old lady.
Not necessarily as a literal divine manifestation, but as an experience of the Divine through her kindness. The gesture was ordinary; what it awakened in me was not.
The sacred within the ordinary
Hindu tradition offers many stories in which the Divine is encountered through unexpected people and circumstances. A guest becomes an opportunity for seva. A stranger becomes the bearer of grace. A simple offering carries a meaning far beyond its material value.
Perhaps these stories are not only accounts of extraordinary events. They may also be invitations to cultivate a different way of seeing.
We tend to imagine that an answered prayer must arrive in a recognizable form. We expect a sign, a dramatic intervention, or a resolution that leaves no room for doubt.
But faith and reason need not compete over every moment of grace.
What the Satyanarayan Katha reminds us
The Satyanarayan Katha teaches us how a simple vrat transforms lives. Its deeper teaching is not merely that devotion brings prosperity or relief from difficulties, but that receiving blessings also carries an inner responsibility.
Do we remember what has been given? Do we remain humble in abundance? Do we recognize grace, or become so absorbed in what we seek next that we overlook what is already before us?
Prasad expresses this beautifully. Something ordinary is offered to the Divine and returned to us as a gift. Its material value may be small, but the act of receiving transforms our relationship with it.
That day, the prasad was not the only offering I carried away. The woman's kindness, the unexpected timing, and the quiet sense of being cared for became part of the prasad itself.
A Bead to Carry
I sometimes wonder whether I should have touched her feet, thanked her more deeply, or stayed a little longer. Did I recognize the moment only after it had passed?
Sometimes true meaning unfolds later, when an ordinary encounter returns to us with unexpected clarity.
I may not have known what that moment would come to mean, but I received her kindness with joy. Today, I remember her with gratitude. And perhaps the most meaningful way to honour that meeting is not to wish I had performed a particular gesture, but to let it change how I meet others.
If the Divine can reach us through an unfamiliar person, perhaps every encounter is also an opportunity to become an instrument of grace.
The next time someone comes to me in need, may I remember that old lady and offer what I can, with the same simple kindness.
Perhaps this story would help someone out there to know – you are always loved and cared for.
Om Namo Narayanaya.
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