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Spreading His Message: The
Digital Dimension
In
the inaugural issue, we wrote that things are beginning to happen
that we never dreamt of. This article will take you behind the
scenes and tell you how the Lord makes things happen, and quietly
too, all in His own way of course. And there is a message behind
it, which is that things will happen only when Samayam and
Sandarpam are right, meaning the time and the circumstances must
be right.
Many
years ago, a devotee from America brought a team of about seven or
eight people. The members of theteam seemed to be important,
judging from the attention given to them in veranda seating! They
of course also got an Interview. At that time, we did not know
anything else; it was only later we learnt that the group had come
with a view to persuade Swami to give His blessings to put up a
radio station here in Prashanti Nilayam, as a part of a chain of
radio stations the world over, spreading religious and spiritual
teachings. We don't know if the general idea took off, but this we
do know; no radio station came up in Prashanti following this
visit, which means that Swami ignored the idea of a radio station
at that time.
Meanwhile,
there were constant attempts to "talk Swami into" agreeing to have
a web site and make that the vehicle for the dissemination of His
Message. People said, "Swami, this web business is a great thing.
All spiritual organisations have it. You must bless one for us
also." Swami just smiled. But Internet addicts would not take the
hint; they started their own web sites, many of which often became
gossip and rumour sites! So much so, in one Discourse, Swami went
to the extent of saying what we need is INNERNET and not Internet.
Many
grumbled: "Swami does not understand how useful the Internet is.
Why is He so much against computers?" Is Swami against computers
as such? If so, how come there are so many computers in His
hospitals? How come the Central Trust uses computers extensively
for its administrative and accounting work? Would these computers
have got in without His permission? How come there is even a
Master of Technology [M.Tech] Course on Computer Science in Swami's
University, the Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning? The
answer is loud and clear. Swami is NOT against computers as such
but their irrational and irrelevant use.
Cut
now to September, 2001. One afternoon that month, a group of four
people came from Bangalore for Darshan. Two were from overseas and
two were from India. They seemed like important people because
they were seated right in the front. Swami came out for Darshan,
and these people were duly granted an Interview. Nothing very
special in that since this sort of thing happens from time to
time. But this time, there was something different. That became
known a few days later when Bhagavan Baba announced that one of
those who came earlier was Dr. Samara, the Chairman of the
WORLDSPACE Corporation, and that he had offered free a radio
channel on his satellite the ASIASTAR, for digital broadcast of
Swami's Message, 24 hours a day. It happened just like that - no
one here asked for it or even dreamt about it, and yet it happened
because the time had come!
It
was decided that the radio service would be up on Birthday, 2001,
and that Swami would inaugurate the service that morning. All this
was fine but no one here knew anything about broadcasting, and
much less digital radio broadcasting via satellite! But now, we
had to know all that and there was so little time left! That is
how He always tests us; as He says, "Test is taste for God!" We
here sure know what that means!
So
hurriedly a radio team was formed with just two people to start
with, and hardly any equipment dedicated for this purpose. But
living in Prashanti, we know how to improvise and come up with
something or the other in the last minute. And thus it was on
23.11.2001, RADIO SAI came on the air when Bhagavan pressed a
button in Sai Kulwant Hall, as a part of the Birthday celebrations.
When Swami pressed the button, a message was flashed from the
Mandir to Melbourne in Australia by cell phone - we had two cell
phones just in case one of them failed! - and the person in the
Melbourne uplink station of WORLDSPACE switched on the computer
which then started sending a pre-recorded program to the
satellite. That program was received by a receiver we had set up
in the Mandir, and this signal was fed to the Public Address
system. Thanks to all this, the people assembled in the Sai
Kulwant Hall heard the inaugural program, which lasted seven
minutes - we had arrived! By the way, when Swami pressed the
switch, a big board that was kept in the Hall lit up and that was
the symbolic inauguration.
In
spite of all the announcements made, few really understood that
the program that they heard that morningACTUALLY came via
satellite from Melbourne and that it was a part of the Radio Sai
activity. In fact, even after a year or so, many still did not
have the foggiest idea about Radio Sai, though they had witnessed
the inaugural function.
Going
on the air seemed difficult, but once we were up, that looked like
child's play; it was staying on the air 24 hours a day that proved
difficult. In those days, we did not have a studio for recording
or even proper microphones, and many would not believe that we got
by using just a tie clip mike! But we went past this seemingly
impossible difficulty of staying continuously on the air, and
believe it or not, to celebrate our 100th day, we had a marathon
20 hour program covering the entire life of Swami. This program
was entitled SATHYAM, SIVAM, SUNDARAM, and Swami heard a part of
it on the radio installed in His chamber, the African trip part,
to be precise!
Looking
back it all seems amazing and unbelievable, even to us. It just
goes to show, that somehow things fallinto place and start
happening, though we do not know how. We now move to the summer of
2002, and Swami in His own way, was bringing some other
instruments of His into the picture; and the instrument that
helped us to take a giant leap forward was Mr. Gopal Srinivasan,
Director, TVS Electronics, a leading hardware manufacturing
company in India. Brother Gopal was not only an ardent devotee of
Bhagavan, but also an audio-video buff, and blessed with a keen
desire to make his knowledge and resources available for the
benefit of Swami's Mission. God has a way of recognising selfless
desire calculated to bring Ananda to all, and pretty soon, with
Swami's blessing, the building previously known as the EHV
Building [where Mr. Hejmadi had his office and morning talks used
to be given], was taken over for conversion into a modern digital
studio.
Gopal
and his dynamic team now swung into action. During the whole of
summer while Bhagavan was away in Brindavan, carpenters,
electricians, air-condition mechanics, sound engineers and what
have you, transformed the old EHV Building into not a modern but a
dream studio! And we who had worked earlier with just one computer
and two tie clip mikes, were knocked out flat.
You
wouldn't believe it; once a listener asked us, "Why don't you give
a postal address? Some of us do not havecomputers, e mail and all
that. How do we communicate with you?" And do you know what reply
we gave? We said, "Sir, even people here do not know we exist! We
have no room of our own. If we give a postal address, the Postman
would not be able to find us!" We don't know if the listener was
satisfied with the answer, but that was the truth!
On
29th August, all that changed. At last, thanks to Brother Gopal,
Radio Sai at last had a home! In the morning, after Darshan, Swami
accompanied by Gopal, drove to the new studio. There He was
lovingly and ceremoniously received, and walking up the entrance,
Swami set His Divine Feet in the Studio premises. We felt truly
blessed, and it was a wonderful, moment for all of us. We can't
exactly you how exactly we all felt, but you can get an idea of
how happy we must have been by looking at the pictures that
accompany this story. Swami was so relaxed and happy! He took His
time to tour the facilities, asking questions here and there, and
patiently saw all the things we were eager to show Him. It was
funny, when you come to think of it - He it was who had made it
all happen; and yet here we were trying to show Him what "we had
done"! The Lord in His Infinite Love puts up with up all this and
allows us to imagine we were the doers!
After
walking round, Swami went to the main recording hall where He sat
down on a chair that had been specially placed for Him. He then
conversed in a most leisurely manner with one and all, in the
process drawing attention to how Mr. Gopal had worked tirelessly
to create these wonderful facilities. All this was being done in
order to spread Ananda; spreading Love and Ananda must be the aim
of one and all, and Gopal had shown how everyone can use his
skills and endowments in his or her own way to be part of the
Lord's Mission. As a sign of Divine Blessing, Bhagavan then
materialised a Rolex watch for Brother Gopal! Some more remarks
and advice, and it was time for Aarathi and departure. Swami had
spent full forty minutes but it seemed like just forty seconds!
So finally, we had a
wonderful studio. With Swami's blessings, it was named the
Prashanti Digital Studio. Nice place, wonderful air-conditioning
and all that. But we could not relax! More work and more
challenges ahead! Birthday was fast approaching, and it was
decided that on 23.11.2002, the first anniversary of Radio Sai, we
would broadcast live for the first time! When we decided to go
live on Birthday, we had little idea of the problems involved.
Gopal and his team worked closely with us, as did Mr. Venugopal
and his team from WORLDSPACE and Mr. Madhav Murthy and his team
from S.N.Informatics [with whose help we are running the Radio Sai
web site and our audio download cum streaming service]. Many
things did not quite go the way we wanted, and our BP was going up
all the time. We prayed furiously of course, but glitches kept
popping up. On the morning of 22nd November, things seemed to work
out well, and we did a successful trial "live" broadcast. But that
afternoon, when we went live with the Convocation function, the
broadcast had hiccups; it was not 100 % OK. A sleepless night
followed, even as phone calls flew all over the place, from here
to Bangalore, form Bangalore to Melbourne and all that.
Birthday morning. We
assembled in the Mandir, where the Bhajan Hall had become our
studio. 6.15 A.M., the hiccups were still there. Swami was due
shortly and how we could we have this problem when He was giving
His Discourse? We simply did not know what caused the problem,
much less the way of fixing it. We just prayed. Swami came, gave
Darshan and went to the dais. He started speaking. Believe it or
not, the broadcast went through perfectly, not one single hiccup!
Truly, it was miracle! The world simply did not know how thrilled
we all were!!
The miracles seem to
go on, for now we have four new developments. First, we now have a
service to Africa and Europe, on the Afristar, as most of you are
already aware. And this again we owe to Dr. Samara. Next, we have
not only a web site of our own but also a download service that
greatly benefits people living in Australia, New Zealand, and the
America Continent, which are outside the foot prints of the
WORLDSPACE satellites. Third, a TV channel [Sanskar TV] is now
carrying our video programmes three times a week, and this time we
are able to broadcast Bhajans sung in Swami's presence. This is
something absolutely wonderful; earlier, video cameras were simply
not allowed inside the sanctum but now, Bhagavan has graciously
permitted us to video tape Bhajan programmes, so that viewers all
over India can experience the Prasanthi atmosphere intimately -
that is His Compassion.
Meanwhile, the
ever-active Gopal, has created more new dream facilities involving
high-bandwith connectivity and all that. Some of these are related
to the new Information Technology Centre inaugurated by Swami
recently - we carried a report on that in our last issue. Thanks
to these facilities, we expect to soon telecast events over the
web, web Darshan as Gopal refers to it. So wonders are happening
all the time. Who knows, we might even have live telecast on
Sivarathri night! Just imagine what an impact that would have!
Blessed are all of
us here on the SGH Team, who have been given a chance to be
associated with all these momentous events. We offer our
reverential and most grateful salutations to our Beloved Swami for
blessing all of us in this manner and to give us all a chance to
serve the world in many different ways, using the tools of modern
technology.
Jai Sai Ram.
SGH TEAM.
Source:
Radio Sai
E-Magazine, September 15, 2003
http://media.radiosai.org/Journals/Vol_01/02SEPT15/CoverStory/CoverStory.htm
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