A Gray Whale Sends Louix White Roses

I recently joined My Guru, Pranananda, and several of His disciples on a whale watching excursion off the coast of Dana Point, California. At first, I was fairly hesitant to go, as I was concerned about rough seas and motion sickness. Pranananda said I didn’t need to worry; so, when Saturday came around, I was very excited about the prospect of seeing whales that day. I had never gone whale watching before, nor seen them in the wild.

We sailed out from Dana Point Harbor in a small catamaran dedicated specifically to viewing dolphins and whales. The ocean was truly as calm as a lake—which is a miracle in itself (as we were about three miles out to sea), and something Pranananda said He had never once seen or experienced, to this degree, in all His 24 years living in Southern California. After we were cruising for a while, Pranananda turned to me and said, “Is this okay for you?” I laughed, and thanked Him for the calm seas. He invited me to join Him at the bow of the boat, where we stood on a thick net which was about two feet above the water, which we could see right below our often-splashed feet.

Before long, we saw a pod of dolphins feeding up ahead of us. They were jumping out of the water and birds were dive-bombing the fish in a feeding frenzy. The captain steered the boat towards the pod, but before we got too close, some of the dolphin (unbeknownst to us) had left the pod and traveled a couple of hundred yards to our boat and suddenly surfaced—directly beneath Pranananda’s and my feet. What with the netting we were standing on, less than three feet over the water, it felt and looked like we were riding the dolphins! The pair remained there for a minute or so, then moved ahead, beyond the bow, so that we were leaning over the railing, reaching our hands for them, as they kept lifting their heads up and out of the water just beyond our reach. It was amazing to be that close to these beautiful creatures, which were clearly engaging with us on a very personal level.

Soon thereafter, we saw the first whale’s “footprint,” a circular slick which interrupts or overrides the movement of the sea, maintaining a flattened, waveless appearance. This indicates where a whale has just submerged after having surfaced, and it remains for sometimes up to a minute. The boat then traveled in the direction of the footprint, and within 3-4 minutes, she surfaced again… such a beautiful gray whale, about 30 feet long, with spots and barnacles on her back. We followed her for a while, enjoying three or four series of her ascents, each time just arching through the surface, only enough for us to see her dorsal fin and a small portion of her back on either side of it.

The captain started telling us that she was only a gray whale, that gray whales are very shy with people, and that she probably wouldn’t give us much of a show—that she probably wouldn’t even fluke her tail. “They are very homely whales,” he said, “really the only unattractive whale species of all the many kinds of whales,” putting her down. Pranananda exclaimed (to us), “Oh, no, don’t speak about her that way!” He and I were practically in tears, so overwhelmed were we by her love, her beauty, and her majesty.  He then called out to her, “Don’t listen to him. He knows not what he is saying. We love you. You are very beautiful. And we know you will show yourself to us.”  And would you believe—within thirty seconds of His saying that—about a dozen perfect, long-stemmed, white roses appeared in the water on our side of the boat, drifting by us one at a time, sometimes two. They were huge and absolutely perfect white roses, having no sun, cold, or water damage whatsoever, and appearing as though they were just taken out of the refrigerator of a florist shop. As soon as the last rose passed Pranananda, up she came:  the closest she had yet surfaced to us, and she fluked her tail right at us, something she had not yet done (and did not do again for the rest of our cruise). He told me that the whale telepathically thanked Him for His love and His kind words, saying that she had sent Him roses as a “Thank You” for defending her honor.

We followed her for about an hour, all told, enjoying her show. All the while we cruised along, Pranananda was communing with her and telling me where she was, where she would surface—and when!—as He could feel her depth and movement in the ocean, as measured (to scale) from His base chakra to His throat.

Wow! Was I ever overwhelmed by the experience.  It was so beautiful. I was crying then… as I am now, as I remember.

-    Sambodhi