Through hard work and God’s blessings, Shiv Sadan’s harvests are spectacular. The rice paddies are giving 35 quintals per acre this year, compared to a previous record for this area of 22 quintals. Mark Tully, the famous BBC television commentator, says, “Throughout India, I haven’t seen rice like this.” Everyone who comes says the same; not even in Punjab have they seen such heavy rice yields. Elsewhere in this area, some fields were damaged by monsoon floods, and some by drought. We had the same weather here, but with Maharaj’s management and God’s blessings, our rice crop far exceeded the record.
In June, the field in the corner near the guesthouse was planted in rice, but one day the plants were all dry. Water had been standing in the field, but because of the heat of the sun, the plants had become burned. Mukhtiar Singh, the sevadar in charge of the crops, asked Maharaj if he should replant rice. Maharaj closed his eyes, and then reported, “Don’t worry. Take jaal (blessed water) from the havan, mix it with ash from the havan, and sprinkle it on the field.” The sevadars took a bucket and sprinkled the whole rice field by hand with this mixture, and within three days the plants were okay.
At the end of July and beginning of August, the rice was threatened by monsoon floods, but our people had worked night and day continuously packing sandbags along the canal. For three days and nights, no one slept, including Maharaj Ji. Then the sevadars had been divided into shifts to keep the flood waters back. The crop was protected.
The sugarcane was also blessed. Two months ago, the sugarcane in a field near Tejpuri was becoming dry and brown-stemmed. Maharaj was asked what to do. He closed his eyes and received this hukam: “Don’t worry. Wash the inside of Pir Sahib’s dargah, collect that water, add ash from the havan, and spray that on the leaves.” Within seven days, the field was as green as the others.
Something similar happened two years ago with the poplar trees newly planted along the roads. Mukhtiar Singh told Maharaj there was no need to water them, for there was enough moisture in the ground. After two months the young trees were totally dry, apparently dead. Maharaj said, “We have lost a whole year. We’ll have to replant them.” But then he closed his eyes to take hukam, and the answer came: “Take jaal and ash from the havan and put it on each tree’s roots.” They all became green. Maharaj quotes from Guru Granth Sahib: “Sukhe cast harea” (Dry wood becomes green). He says, “Who is doing that? God. He has made it dry; He will make it green.” To a visiting doctor, he explains, “If agriculture is approached as a business, it will not succeed. I am not a healer—I have faith in God.”