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Between You and Us
Dear Reader,
Sai Ram and greetings from Prashanti Nilayam. Swami has left
for Brindavan, and it is now the turn of Prashanti Nilayam
to wear a rather deserted look. But Prashanti Nilayam was
very lucky this year because we had a fabulously wonderful
March with Swami staying back, most unusually. It was getting
hot but every afternoon we were treated to wonderful programmes
by students, all the way from the Primary School to the Post-graduate
level. And what a variety it was, and how wonderfully and
in simple language they conveyed Universal Truths! One surprising
item was on Moharrum day when the boys chanted the Koran and
then followed it up with meaning in Sanskrit! This was just
unbelievable. The boys had learnt the chant from the Mullah
in Puttaparthi – by the way, we suppose that you are
aware that the Mosque here was gifted by Baba many decades
ago, to help the local Muslims and save them to long trek
to the Bukkapatnam Mosque, the only one in the region then.
Recently, we had a REFLECTION article that dealt with the
story of how UNESCO withdrew its Media Advisory on Swami after
a strong representation by the Government of India. Little
did we know that the matter would not end there. The people
given to slander - and it is just a handful of them - appeared
to have read the H2H article, and promptly dashed off an angry
letter to UNESCO officials protesting the withdrawal and making
all kinds of demands including reinstatement. We cannot go
into all that they said but may be we can mention just one
point. They say [in part], “A number of Vice Chancellors
(e.g., University of Flinders and University of Adelaide)
and other major institutional heads having given credence
to the Media Advisory concerning Sathya Sai Baba …..”
The rest of the sentence is not really relevant at this juncture
because it merely says that it was on the basis of this support
that the UNESCO issued the Advisory.
Two Vice Chancellors are referred to. Did they ever visit
Prashantinilayam and see for themselves in person and in depth
what is going on, before associating themselves with the sponsors
of the negative propaganda? One wonders. As against this,
about THIRTY Vice Chancellors from various Universities in
India actually met here recently to deliberate on Value Based
Education. The meeting was presided over by the Chairman of
the University Grants Commission and one of the attendees
was Mr. Ranganth Mishra, former Chief Justice of India, and
also former Head of the Human Rights Commission in India.
[The former Chief Justice has been active in promoting values
in education, and that was why he was here.] The meeting lasted
three days, and the delegates had plenty of opportunity to
meet faculty and students – in fact, all the hospitality
work was managed entirely by our students. Then again, a few
years ago, the Parliamentary Standing Committee for Human
Resource Development came here as a part of its study on educational
institutions committed to the promotion of character and values,
and in fact in the final report submitted by the Committee
[and accepted by the Government, incidentally] they made the
Institute’s core values as the central point of their
recommendations. Later, the Supreme Court, in a verdict given
in a Public Interest Litigation, had the occasion to strongly
endorse this view. We also can mention names, and many of
them too [we shall not list all but only a few]. Professor
David Gries, Professor of Computer Science in Cornell [a Ivy
League university as they say in America] has been coming
here regularly for over a decade to teach our students. Professor
George Ordal, Professor of Bio Chemistry in the University
of Illinois too has been coming here regularly. Every December
will see him here teaching for nearly a month and some of
you may remember we have broadcast a radio interview with
him once. Then there is Dr. Samuel Sandweiss of the University
of California, San Diego Campus, who has been coming for over
thirty years, yes thirty years. Dear Reader, are all these
people gullible and being taken for a ride?
What about Justice Bhagavathi, former Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court of India, later Chairman of the Human Rights
Commission and Member of the UN Human Rights Commission. Justice
Bhagavathi is, as many know, also a Member of the Central
Trust. He has been coming for over thirty years; has he been
fooled all along? There is no need to belabour the point but
we might mention that the Indian Prime Minister Mr. Vajpayee
has been coming to Swami since 1977, when he first came for
delivering lectures in the Summer School. We have pictures
taken on that occasion. (See Down memory Lane). Since then
he has come many, many times, the latest being 14th April,
2004, just very recently. Surely he is not being taken for
a ride?
There is much that we can say but there really is no need
to. Those who want to firmly adhere to the negative will go
on doing so; that is their fate and we can only pray that
instead of maligning they devote themselves to service as
our students, for example, are doing. By the way, we hope
you have read the article on student service in Kovalaguttapalli
– how inspiring that is! That is the transformation
that studying in Swami’s college brings about it, and
just think of how many thousands of students have studied
here.
People said the earth was flat but today who believes that?
People said that it is the Sun that goes round the earth but
today who believes that? Truth will always prevail, that is
its power; be assured of that.
JAI SAI RAM
SGH TEAM.
Between You and Us
Dear Readers,
We would like to inform you that the feature ‘GETTING
SPIRITUALLY BETTER’ shall be discontinued temporarily
for the next few issues. We are working on more topics and
shall restart it once the material is ready. We are extremely
grateful to you for the deep appreciation that you have shown
for this feature over the last eight months.
H2H team
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