Subject: MY “SAI SURPRISES” IN PRESIDENT MANDELA’S OFFICE Mr. VivekAnanda
Naicker
MY “SAI SURPRISES” IN PRESIDENT MANDELA’S OFFICE
Mr. VivekAnanda Naicker
South African teacher, later journalist-turned-diplomat, Mr. VivekAnanda
Naicker was spokesman for Interim Independent Electoral Commission in
“liberation” election of 1994. During Mandela’s term of office, he was in
charge of media affairs for President’s State Visitors’ Programme and other
Parliamentary matters.
Called to India twice by Swami, he has lived in Whitefield, Puttaparthi
and Tiruvannamalai for ten years since his retirement from Public Service in
2002. Of Tamil and Telugu descent, he is third generation South African with
Overseas Indian Citizen status. Besides being a writer and editor, he paints in
oil and water colours for relaxation, and is presently in SA, intending to
return to India in 2014.
As millions around the world mourned, one of the world’s most popular and
universally-loved statesman of all time, Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, lovingly
called by his Xhosa tribal name Madiba by many around the world, was laid to
rest in his rural home village of Quno in the Eastern Cape on Sunday, 15th
December, 2013.
Appearing on the world stage at a time when humanity was mired in a morass of
racial dis-crimination and bigotry, Mandela restored their lost dignity to
millions of oppressed people not only in post-apartheid South Africa but
throughout the world. In doing so, he became the most widely-known liberator
the world has ever known.
As one television commentator remarked when the South African Air Force C-130
carrying Mandela’s body on its final journey landed in Umtata on that Sunday,
he was not only the President of South Africa, he seemed to be the President of
the World, for his name and his reputation were known in the remotest corners
of this planet.
In my ten years on the spiritual path in India, I learned that everything in
existence throughout the cosmos vibrates in accordance with a Divine harmony.
Everything has its place; there are no stray notes, no anomalies. Nothing
happens at random, for within the seeming chaos of the cosmic explosion, there
is Divine order. God as awesome energy is the Conductor of this Divine Harmony,
and His baton is unconditional love.
Believing implicitly as I do that the constant reincarnation of all life on
earth and throughout the cosmos is linked to karma and the evolution of the
human spirit, I have known that beloved Madiba was an elevated soul that
reincarnated in South Africa at this time to fulfil a crucial universal role.
This once unhappy country was only the classroom, its apartheid ideology only
the object of a profound lesson. The real target audience of Mandela’s teaching
was humanity across the length and breadth of this planet, for what applied to
South Africa applied equally to the world. Such refined and elevated teachers
have always incarnated throughout the history of mankind to instruct and to
guide.
As much as he will continue to live in our memories, Mandela leaves us with a
weighty yet inescapable responsibility. He sacrificed much to stand up for his
beliefs which had to do with the inherent dignity of all mankind. He fought not
for his personal liberation but for the liberation of the human spirit. Ours
and future generations not only in this country but world-wide will have to
live up to his call for universal love and peace among men. We cannot do
otherwise without desecrating his memory.
This tribute was written as the world’s attention was focused on South Africa,
as final preparations were being made in Quno to lay Mandela’s body to rest. It
occurred to me that this was an appropriate moment to place on record my own
little part in the great saga of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela and to take this
opportunity to ask a pertinent question.
As the world mourned the passing of South Africa’s great son, I searched
through my computer files for entries relating to him in my working journal
kept over his years in office. I was at that time a senior official of the
South African Communication Service. My main function was to oversee and
facilitate the national and international media coverage of State matters.
The following is an extract from my journal for 1995 and was written not long
after he became the first black President of the Republic of South Africa. My
question follows the extract quoted below:
When I arrived at the block of offices known as 420 Plein within Parliamentary
precincts to take office in January, 1995, a young Afrikaner policewoman met me
at reception to process my Parliamentary ID card. As I filled the forms after
my photograph had been taken, she remarked that my name was the same at that of
her commanding officer. I was intrigued by the coincidence.
She was stationed at the Parliamentary Police Station, which looks after
security within the environs of Parliament. When she came to my office later to
hand me my Parliamentary Pass, she said that her commander Brigadier V Naicker
(exactly the same as my name) would like me to join him to tea that morning at
ten. She offered to fetch me at 9.45 a.m. to guide me to his office.
She came to my offices promptly at the agreed time and we walked through the
famous Parliamentary Gardens and between the various buildings in the security
area around Parliament. The Parliamentary Police Station is one of the oldest
buildings in Cape Town. It is a quaint, Dutch-style cottage built during the
time of Jan van Riebeeck, the first Governor of the old Cape Colony which grew
over the centuries into South Africa. It is now classified as an historical
building.
Dressed in an impeccable civilian suit, the Brigadier was talking on the
telephone when I was led into his office by the policewoman. He returned her
salute and gestured to me to sit down as she left the office. As he rounded off
his conversation on the phone, I noticed the ring with Sai Baba’s portrait on
his right hand. After he put down the phone and shook my hand, I held up my own
right hand so that he could see my own ring which was exactly the same as his
and is common in the shops outside the gates of Prasanthi Nilayam. He promptly
put his palms together and exclaimed, ”Sai Ram, brother!”
Although we had the same first name initial and surname, his first name was
Vadi while mine is Vivek. We became friends and the following week, he invited
me to a vegetarian dinner at his home on a Thursday evening to meet his wife
and children. Afterwards we went to a service at a Sai centre in Rylands, where
he introduced me to the assembled devotees and invited me to talk to them of my
first interview with Swami in February, 1993.
Another surprise awaited me the following day when I went to meet the
President’s personal staff. I was told beforehand that his Private Secretary
was the most important in the President’s Office. As his Girl Friday, she made
and monitored all his appointments. If one were not on her right side, it was
almost impossible to see the President.
She had been referred to only as Priscilla by my guide and so I had no idea
what to expect. When we arrived at the President’s suite and I was introduced
to her, I was somewhat surprised to see that she was Indian, Priscilla Naidoo.
I was even more intrigued when I was told later that she was a Sai devotee. I
was to interact often with Priscilla over the years of President Mandela’s term
of office.
So President Mandela’s Private Secretary Priscilla Naidoo, his Chief
Parliamentary Security Officer Brigadier Vadi Naicker and I, then in charge of
media affairs for the President’s State Visitors’ Programme, were not only
Indian South Africans, but also all Sai devotees.
Later, towards the latter part of President Mandela’s term, when I left the SA
Communication Service to join the Independent Electoral Commission to help
prepare the country for the first election in a democratic South Africa in
1999, I handed over in Cape Town to a young Foreign Affairs officer who was to
take over my media duties in Parliament. He was also Indian, and also, as it
turned out, a Sai devotee.
And now for my question: Was all this mere coincidence or clear indication of a
minutely-conceived, numinous cosmic blueprint?
Dear Reader,
Even though we have no knowledge of whether President Mandela ever heard
about the Sathya Sai Avatar or read His teachings, what is definitely sure is
that he was guided and goaded to steadfastly pursue the path of truth,
forgiveness, peace and non-violence through the power of the Cosmic Sai, the
same Divine Consciousness which conferred all the strength, fearlessness and
courage to Mahatma Gandhi. By the grace of the Divine, time and again
personalities emerge in our history who demonstrate to us in unequivocal terms
that infinitely greater than the strength of the body or the intelligence of
the mind is the power of the Spirit! The account by this devotee from South
Africa gives us a hint, that values dear to Swami are sure to have suffused the
office of President Mandela through these many devotees working there. After
all the unrelenting adherence to these values is what we celebrate the life of
Madiba for!
With Much Love
Radio Sai Team
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