Swami, The Grand Project Manager
Om Sri Sairam! My dear readers, loving Sairam to all of you. I would like to take you through a sojourn that some of us have been enjoying, and soon all of us will.
For decades now, the Sai family has been growing. Anyone who has helped arrange, or has attended, the annual retreats can plainly see that more people are joining Swami’s fold. Some of us have all along felt that we need to have a building in this area where the Sai family can get together and celebrate major events. Those of us who saw this need sent a prayerful request for permission to Sathya Sai Baba through a devotee traveling to Puttaparthi.
Swami took the letter from this person and asked what it was about. He responded that this was a request for permission to construct a building in the U.S. Swami was very happy with that and said that we should go ahead and do it. This was in 1992. After that, we approached the Sai organization through the then regional president so that we could use the tax-exempt status of the organization for the funds being donated. The answer was that no special projects were being undertaken due to lack of volunteers. So, we formed a freestanding, not-for-profit organization, incorporated in New Jersey by the name, Sri Sathya Sai Service Center, Inc.
Later at the advice of the regional president, we changed the name to Sarva Dharma Service Center, Inc. We authored full-fledged by-laws and an executive table of organization with duties and responsibilities following the Sai Organizational philosophy. We obtained federal tax-exempt status, and soon Sai family members started sending in donations. Almost every year, we sent progress reports to our beloved Bhagavan through some of the visiting devotees. Each time, Swami would examine what we sent and encourage us by saying, “Good project, do it, you must do service.”
With this inspiration, we started looking for properties around New Jersey. We tried to concentrate on lots in Central Jersey with the belief that it would be roughly equidistant to N.Y. and Washington D.C. Finally, in 1995, by Swami’s grace, we found a nine-acre plot of land in Howell, N.J., about five miles south of Freehold, N.J. It is a very serene flat land surrounded on three sides by tall trees and located 400 feet deep from the local road.
Soon after that, we came up with a vision of the way the building should look and commissioned a drawing in two phases for construction. To make it presentable to the township, we hired a professional architect and a site engineer. With the help of these two professionals, details of the location of the building on the land, electric, sewage, and water connections and landscape details were finalized. At this time, we made an application for approval from the Township of Howell. After getting the approval, we hired a construction engineering company to oversee the construction process. This was a long a tedious process and took us into 2006.
The construction of the building began in July of 2006. Workers under the watchful eyes of the construction management company cleared the land, leveled it, and dug the foundation. Just as we got ready to pour concrete into the foundation, two weeks of incessant rain brought everything to a halt. We were hoping the rain would not damage all the work that was put in until then. Fortunately, in less than a week, all was clear and the damage was minimal. After that the pace of work picked up and within a few weeks, the foundation and basement walls were ready. Steadily construction continued, the ceiling of the basement was poured, and the engineers erected steel steps to the basement, and a wheel chair ramp. Outside the building, waterproofing and backfilling was done. This happened in November 2007.
At this point, we made a trip to Swami in Parthi. As in the past, this time we took photographs in electronic and traditional formats. On December 12, 2007, Swami spoke to us, first in the verandah of the mandir [temple] and the next day in His interview room. Both times, He told us not to do anything for the next two years since ‘the days are not going to be good,’ that ‘America will go through turbulent times,’ and to ‘start again after January, 15, 2010.’ After returning, we stopped all work on the building and put a fence around the building to protect it from trespassers.
The entire process has been a continuous experience of our mere physical presence while Swami was making everything happen. The fact that a nine-acre plot of land was bought for a mere 105,000 dollars starts His miracles. The preliminary approval process was another of His miracles. The township had seven members on its building approval committee. We needed a two-thirds vote for approval. That meant we needed at least five members on the committee to agree to have this building constructed. We knew two were in favor, two were clearly against and three were on the fence.
On the day of approval, before our presentation for approval began, the township attorney made a statement informing the members of the committee that the U.S. Congress made a law three weeks earlier that if any committee denies or tries to delay applications by faith-based organizations without a valid reason, the committee members will be answerable in courts. He even said, “if anyone tries to stall the applications like the next one, they could go to jail.” In the following two hours, the project was presented, discussed at length, multiple questions were answered, and when the time came to vote, our application was approved unanimously.
We picked an architect from among the three that we had short-listed. After about a month or so, we came to know that he is the grandnephew of Sri Poornachandra, the man whom Swami had permitted to build the Poornachandra hall in Parthi in the 1960s. After this, the structural engineer, the mechanical, and HVAC engineers came and asked us if they could help with the project. We did not know them earlier although they all lived in N.J. Help, they did, saving the project tens of thousands of dollars by volunteering to plan and draw their part in the overall design of the building.
We needed to get water to the site to start construction. When we approached the county officials, we were told that the water main was about 200 feet away and that would cost us nearly $ 70,000 to get it near our construction site. We picked up the application filled it out and took it to them for filing it two months later. At that time the county official told us that in the past few weeks, a professional builder had applied for the approval to run the water line for his purpose and that we could draw water from the same line as soon as the pipe was installed. Incidentally, that pipe ran right in front of Swami’s property!
We picked a construction manager after interviewing three companies. Later we come to know that he is from Bangalore and he knew Swami and has great respect for Him. In fact, since then he has accompanied us twice to Parthi for Swami’s darshan. A site engineer that was hired for this project was not aware of his assignment till the day he came to work. It turned out that he is from a village not too far from Parthi and his parents were very close to Swami, and he always wanted to be associated with Swami’s construction project. He did not got a chance in India, but here Swami gave him that chance.
The neighbor is a real Sai devotee in action. Although he and his family do not know about Swami, he took care of the property for many months before construction got underway. Once the construction started, he was there to provide anything we needed. He let us use his RV [recreational vehicle] as an onsite office for a nominal charge and gave us water and electricity connections anytime we needed. He even helped us move some earth with his new equipment!
Then there is the other neighbor who bought her land after we did. She was not very pleased to know what was coming up next door to her and she made no secret of that. But, when we needed a right of way through her property, she happily parted with that small piece of her land!
There are many such miracles that took place and are still taking place. We strongly feel it is Swami that is getting this construction started and going, supplying the right people at the right time for the right job. This fact was amply proved when we showed Swami the photographs of the building on December 13, 2007. He closed the album and said, “I know all this.”
So, here we are, by His grace, in the middle of uncovering His miracle, waiting for January 15, 2010.
Let us commit to our beloved Bhagavan Baba that we will all work on this project with unity and love and pray to Him to make us complete it as He has scheduled it. Jai Sai Ram!
~Andavolu Rao, New Jersey
