On September 30, 2026, while flying a flydubai aircraft from Dubai to Tel Aviv, Captain Machchhar was attacked by his co-pilot inside the cockpit. According to reporting on the incident, the co-pilot allegedly attempted to seize control of the aircraft and crash it. Captain Machchhar was seriously wounded during the struggle, yet managed to open the cockpit door, allowing others to intervene before the aircraft was eventually brought safely to the ground. Given the alleged attempt to seize control of an aircraft carrying passengers and bring it down, the incident has been described in some accounts as an attempted hijacking and suspected terrorist attack. The precise motive and circumstances remain matters for the relevant authorities to establish.
But this article is not about the politics surrounding the incident, nor is it an attempt to analyse the attacker or his motives. Something else caught my attention.
While recovering, Captain Machchhar spoke with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi by video call on October 2. During that conversation, he revealed that amid the attack and the terrifying situation unfolding around him, he was reciting the Hanuman Chalisa. What makes this particularly meaningful is that the prayer was not something he suddenly remembered because his life was in danger. Captain Machchhar explained that the Hanuman Chalisa was already part of his everyday life. His two-year-old son sits with him during his morning prayers, and he recites the Chalisa with him as part of keeping his child connected to his Indian roots.
The prayer did not suddenly appear because there was a crisis. It was already there.
And perhaps that is where the real spiritual significance of this story begins. What we repeat in ordinary moments can become what we instinctively reach for in extraordinary ones. From the perspective of Guru-Tattva, there is something profound in that.
The Practice Was There Before the Crisis
We often think of prayer as something we turn toward when life goes wrong. A loved one becomes ill, uncertainty overwhelms us, something frightening happens, and suddenly we remember God. There is nothing wrong with this. Human beings have called upon the Divine in moments of helplessness for thousands of years. But there is an important difference between reaching for a spiritual practice for the first time during a crisis and discovering, in the middle of a crisis, that the practice has already become part of you.
That is what makes Captain Machchhar's account so striking. The Hanuman Chalisa was not something he discovered inside that cockpit. Morning after morning, under completely ordinary circumstances, he had already been reciting it. Sometimes his young son was sitting with him. There was no emergency, no immediate danger and no extraordinary courage being demanded of him. It was simply part of the rhythm of life.
Then came a day when life was anything but ordinary, and the mind returned to something it already knew.
This is one of the deeper purposes of daily spiritual practice. We are not merely repeating sacred words because repetition itself pleases a deity. Through repetition, remembrance becomes familiar. Through familiarity, it becomes natural. Over time, the mind learns where to return when everything around it becomes uncertain.
We practice remembrance until remembrance begins to arise by itself.
Samskara: What Repetition Leaves Behind
Indian spiritual traditions speak extensively about samskaras — impressions created within the mind through repeated thoughts, actions and experiences. We often encounter the idea when discussing karma, habits or tendencies that bind us. Yet spiritual practice creates impressions as well. Every time we repeat a Divine Name, recite a prayer, remember the Guru, bow before a deity, meditate or read a sacred teaching, we are cultivating another pattern within consciousness.
One repetition may seem insignificant. Even a hundred repetitions may not produce any dramatic experience. But spiritual traditions have rarely measured the value of practice solely by the intensity of what we feel while doing it. Something can be happening much more quietly. Years of repetition can gradually influence what the mind reaches for spontaneously.
This is why daily practice occupies such an important place across Sanatana Dharma. The practice does not necessarily need to be elaborate. It does not have to involve hours of ritual, advanced mantra sadhana or extraordinary mystical experiences. A simple practice performed consistently can establish a deep inner familiarity. A Divine Name repeated every morning, a Chalisa recited every evening, a few moments spent remembering the Guru — these apparently small acts can slowly create a place within us to which the mind knows how to return.
When suddenly overwhelmed by fear, human beings do not always have the luxury of constructing a new philosophy of life. We tend to fall back upon what has already been cultivated.
That is why the ordinary days matter.
Why Hanuman?
There is something particularly fitting about Hanuman appearing in this story because Hanuman brings together qualities that we sometimes mistakenly separate. He represents tremendous strength, yet that strength exists alongside profound humility. He represents courage without arrogance, intelligence without pride, devotion without weakness and power placed entirely in the service of Dharma.
Hanuman's greatness is never merely about physical strength. His strength has direction. It serves Rama. It serves Dharma. It serves those who depend upon him. This is why generations of devotees have instinctively turned toward Hanuman during periods of fear, uncertainty and adversity. The Hanuman Chalisa, traditionally attributed to Goswami Tulsidas, repeatedly remembers precisely these dimensions of Hanuman — strength, wisdom, devotion, courage and the overcoming of difficulty.
At the same time, we should resist turning Captain Machchhar's experience into a simplistic miracle story. Reciting the Hanuman Chalisa did not replace his professional training. Captain Machchhar himself spoke about the importance of his many years of aviation experience in understanding what was happening. His training mattered. His judgment mattered. His physical actions mattered. Other people aboard the aircraft also had to act.
Yet alongside all of that was prayer.
There is no contradiction here. Spiritual practice does not have to replace practical action in order to be meaningful. In fact, one of the most mature ways of understanding devotion is to recognise that grace and human effort can operate together.
Grace Does Not Always Replace Effort
We sometimes imagine Divine grace almost exclusively in terms of supernatural intervention. A difficulty appears, God intervenes, and the difficulty disappears. Many devotional traditions certainly contain accounts understood in precisely this way, and there is no need to dismiss them. But grace need not always manifest through the removal of an obstacle.
Sometimes the obstacle remains, and grace appears as the strength to move through it.
The frightening situation does not immediately disappear. The pain is still real. The body may still be injured. Fear may still arise. Yet somewhere within the person there remains enough steadiness to continue doing what needs to be done.
This is where the story becomes especially meaningful from the perspective of Guru-Tattva. The Guru principle does not promise that every difficulty will be removed from our path. Sometimes Guru-Tattva manifests as clarity when confusion could have taken over, courage when fear could have paralysed us, or remembrance when the mind could have become completely overwhelmed.
Human effort and Divine grace therefore need not be placed on opposite sides of an argument. We do not have to choose between saying, “His training saved him,” and saying, “His faith gave him strength.” Both can have their place. A person can draw upon years of professional preparation while simultaneously drawing upon years of spiritual practice.
Grace does not always act instead of us. Sometimes grace gives us the strength to act.
The Guru Is Not Always Standing Before Us
When we hear the word Guru, we naturally imagine a teacher — someone who instructs us, explains scripture, gives initiation or guides spiritual practice. That is certainly one expression of the Guru. But Guru-Tattva is larger than the physical personality of any individual teacher. It is the principle through which darkness gives way to understanding and through which the individual is repeatedly directed toward something higher than the limited self.
Sometimes that guidance comes through a living Guru. Sometimes it comes through scripture, mantra, deity, sacred story or the wisdom handed down within a family. Sometimes a teaching is planted within us years before we understand why we might need it.
This is why the image of Captain Machchhar reciting the Hanuman Chalisa with his young son is, to me, almost as meaningful as his remembering it during the attack. A father may think he is simply teaching his child a prayer or helping him remain connected to his cultural roots. But he may also be giving his child something much deeper: a place to return to.
Perhaps decades from now, that child will remember those words during a difficult moment of his own. Perhaps he will teach them to his children. This is how spiritual culture survives — not merely through temples, institutions, books and public teachers, but through countless small acts of transmission within ordinary homes.
A grandmother tells a sacred story. A mother lights a lamp. A father teaches a prayer. A child hears a Divine Name so often that its sound becomes inseparable from home.
At the time, none of these things may appear extraordinary. Yet they create samskaras, and some samskaras accompany us for a lifetime.
Do Not Wait for the Storm
There is a lesson here that extends far beyond the Hanuman Chalisa. Whatever our chosen path may be, spiritual practice works most deeply when it becomes part of ordinary life rather than something reserved exclusively for emergencies.
If your path is Nama Japa, chant the Name. If the Hanuman Chalisa speaks to your heart, recite it. If you remember Dattatreya as Guru, remember Datta. If you worship an Ishta Devata, spend some time in that presence every day. If your practice is meditation, sit. The particular form will differ from person to person, but the principle remains remarkably simple: return regularly to what you want the mind to remember deeply.
It does not always have to feel profound. There will be mornings when the mind wanders, evenings when the prayer feels mechanical and days when absolutely nothing mystical seems to happen. That does not mean the practice is useless. We often judge spiritual practice by immediate experience, whereas its deeper effects may become visible only much later.
A practice can be quietly creating familiarity. It can be establishing remembrance. It can be teaching the mind, day after day: when you are lost, come back here.
We cannot predict what storms life will bring. That is precisely why the practice is established while the sky is clear.
What We Give Our Children
There is also something deeply moving in Captain Machchhar's desire to keep his young son connected to his roots. Parents naturally want to give their children education, security, opportunity and confidence. Yet spiritual inheritance often begins with much simpler things.
A child does not need to understand an entire philosophy before participating in a family prayer. He does not need to comprehend every verse of the Hanuman Chalisa before becoming familiar with its sound. Intellectual understanding can come later. The first impressions are often created through repetition, atmosphere and association.
A child remembers sitting beside a parent during prayer. He remembers the lamp being lit. He remembers the sound of a mantra. He remembers that certain moments of the day became quiet. Long before he can explain concepts such as bhakti, sadhana or Guru-Tattva, something has already been communicated.
This does not mean forcing belief upon children or denying them the freedom to think for themselves as they grow. It simply means allowing the sacred to occupy a natural place within family life.
Captain Machchhar's two-year-old son may not understand the theology of Hanuman. He does not need to. At this stage, what he knows may be something much simpler: this is something I do with my father.
Sometimes that is how a tradition first enters the heart.
When Practice Becomes Instinct
There is a reason Captain Machchhar's story stayed with me. It is not because his experience proves that prayer guarantees physical protection. It does not. Spiritual practice does not make a person invulnerable, nor should devotion ever replace training, professional judgment, medicine, preparation or practical action.
The lesson is subtler and, I think, more useful.
A man had repeated a prayer during the ordinary days of his life. He had repeated it at home, even sharing it with his young child. Then an extraordinary day arrived. He found himself under attack thousands of feet above the ground, facing a situation he could never have expected when he woke that morning.
And amid the fear, injury and uncertainty, the prayer was still there.
Perhaps this is one of the simplest ways to understand sadhana. We practice when life is peaceful so that remembrance becomes natural when life is not. We chant before we desperately need the chant. We remember the Guru before confusion comes. We cultivate courage before circumstances demand courage from us.
Over time, what begins as something we deliberately do can become something that simply arises within us.
That is when practice begins becoming samskara.
And perhaps that is one of the quietest ways Guru-Tattva accompanies us. Not always through some dramatic intervention from outside, but through a sacred remembrance cultivated so consistently that it has become part of who we are.
When the difficult moment finally comes, the mind does not have to search very far.
It already knows where to turn.
Begin a devotional journey with Bhagwan Dattatreya and Anagha Lakshmi Mata as your eternal gurus.