Sunday, November 6, 2011



THE EXPERIENCE OF ALLAH IN SAI
- HOW BABA'S MESSAGE AND GRACE MESMERIZED THE HEART OF MR. FIZE MOHAMMAD
PART - 03


On a subsequent trip to India, Bhagawan again graciously granted me an interview. The hurt was fresh in my mind and I requested Swami to speak to me privately. He took me inside, made me sit and pinched my cheek and said, “You must speak on SAI experience and morality.” I said, “Swami, I don’t use any reading material and I tend to close my eyes as I speak about You.” He said, “Go ahead and speak and I will be there inside you.” And He said that with so much emphasis that I promised to Swami that I will forget everyone else and think of only Him while speaking. Then I asked what kind of service I should do. He asked me to teach the children, help the old and visit hospitals. So with Swami’s grace I have been a Balvikas teacher since 1981 and have tried to follow what He has asked me to do. Now I know I am just an instrument and His message is being given through me rather than by me.
   
  
   
 
RS: How has this influenced your professional life?
FM: During the period I came to Swami, I was studying to become an accountant and was working in an international firm called Pricewater House. As is the habit in this profession, all boys would go for drinks on Friday afternoons. But after I came to Swami the influence was so strong that I gave up eating meat and drinking alcohol. I used to be a joke for my colleagues! But I withstood all the peer pressure and never smoke or drank. But later they respected me and would say, “Fize doesn’t drink or smoke but he has such a good time.” At times when some of them used to over-drink and fall sick the next morning, I used to be of good help. Thats how I tried to practice Swami’s teachings in my professional life. One of Swami’s teachings is that “Politics without principles, education without character, science without humanity, business without morality is not only useless, but positively dangerous”. We have seen in very recent times how many Indian and international firms have collapsed by practicing business without morality.
RS: In an accounting firm there is plenty of scope to practice Swami’s teaching of “Business with morality”. In fact the absence of morality in business is the cause for the entire economic crackdown and collapse that we are witnessing recently. Was it a big challenge to adhere to these principles in your professional life?
FM: Definitely so. There were many people in my profession who were doing unrighteous things. When I was striving to do things in the right way, I was opposed by such people. It was very difficult. But I held firm to my beliefs and principles knowing very well that this is what Swami wanted. As Mahatma Gandhi said, “Truth in the minority of one is truth, untruth in the majority of millions is still untruth.” Now when I meet these former colleagues whose lives have changed for better, they tell me how they admired me for standing up to what was right.
   
  
   
RSSo it took a while, but in the end truth always triumphs.
 
 Mr. Fize and his mother
FM:Yes, Swami has had an influence on my family as well. I come from a broken home – my father was an alcoholic and my brothers were drug addicts. There used to be fights at home off and on and it used to pain me a lot. After one of my trips back from India, I told my parents that I would live separately in a room built in the backyard of my home. I did this because meat used to be cooked at home and there was also alcohol. And there in my room I used to do my sadhana by chanting the Gayathrimantra, reading spiritual literature, and so on. But every time I would have a quarrel at home it used to hurt me.
One day I prayed: “Swami, I will give myself to doing Your service but You must promise me to restore peace and unity in my family”.  Lo and behold! Few days after that my elder brother who was a drug addict and had this long hair came to me with a pair of scissors and asked me to cut off his hair! And my eldest brother who was a chronic alcoholic told me that he had given up drinking. The most amazing thing was that my father too gave up alcohol and involved himself with an agency, the alcoholic anonymous, that helps people give up alcohol! I saw Swami’s work here. Slowly my family gravitated towards His teachings. We started having Satsang about Bhagawan at home! The miraculous effect of transformation that Swami causes overflowed from myself to my entire family and today my mother visited Prasanthi Nilayam for a third time and my brother is on his second trip.
RS: These are wonderful examples of transformation in your family as well as amongst colleagues. Coming back to your involvement in the Sai organization, as the Spiritual Coordinator of Trinidad and Tobago, what are the various events in which you are engaged in this small 'Sai land', if I can call it so?
FM: Swami once said to a devotee that “There is a little island in the Caribbean that is the jewel of my eye – that is Trinidad”! The population is very diverse – our forefathers came from India about 165 years ago. Half the population is African and the rest Indian. Among those of Indian descent, there are Muslims, Hindus, and Christians. We have about 52 Sai Baba centres and for an island of the size of Trinidad and Tobago, the activities are remarkable. With Swami’s guidance, amazing things happen in this island. There are two TV stations in the country which screen Swami’s work from the DVDs that we give them twice in a week (an hour on Sunday and Thursday). And one of this is National TV, which is seen in every home. We have many Indian radio stations, but on two of them there are one hour programs twice a week that disseminate the message of Bhagawan.
Mr. Fize and other devotees of the caribbean doing seva
RS: What kind of impact do these programs have there?
FM: We have screened the project about the miracle school in Africa and also on the water projects. People now enquire about the organization. Some of them feel encouraged to contribute to the projects and join the organization. They appreciate the universality of the message of Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba. Interest has been generated as to who Sai Baba is and about His teachings and philosophy. We conduct medical camps in Trinidad’s remote villages on a regular basis. We do Grama Seva and just before coming for the 84th birthday celebrations, we identified 84 poor families to receive groceries, food hampers, and cooked food. We give scholarships to the poor. We clean beaches and visit prisons and hospitals. On the educational front, we conduct Bal Vikas and EHV classes. We have trained teachers who can go back to the school and disseminate EHV. We are currently working with Trinidad and Tobago’s education ministry to incorporate EHV into the educational curriculum. Every day there is bhajan going on in at least one of the Sai centres in Trinidad. We have excellent Bal Vikas teachers. So in Trinidad and Tobago, there is a great awareness about who Sathya Sai Baba is and about His work.
RS: Can you tell us a little more about the EHV program? Because through this program Swami’s message has travelled to many countries in Latin America. What impact it has had on the children, parents, and the society at large?
FM: Swami has said:
“If there is righteousness in the heart, there will be beauty in the character,
If there is beauty in the character, there will be harmony at home,
If there is harmony at home, there will be order in the nation
When there is order in the nation, there will be peace in the world.”
He has also said, “If there is a bad student, it is not so bad, but if there is a bad teacher, it will make generations of students bad.” So in Trinidad and Tobago we have an EHV Institute of the Caribbean. We have a central coordinator who coordinates the entire West Indies, which includes Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Barbados, Jamaica, and Curacao. In Curacao a presentation was done to the Ministry of Education. They were so impressed with the content and the effect, that they have adopted EHV for all the schools in Curacao. We are striving to do a similar adoption of EHV into the curriculum in other countries too. But once Swami told us that it was still not time. Even if EHV hasn’t been integrated into the curriculum formally, there are so many devotees of Bhagawan who teach the SSC classes throughout the country; they have already integrated EHV into the way in which they teach. Thus Swami’s teachings have started to take root in Trinidad and Tobago.
 
RS: Please tell us about the activities in the spiritual front.
FM: We have programs at the national, regional, and central levels. We have a national spiritual retreat for about three days at particular sites that involves the entire organization. The programs in this include nagarasankeertanbhajans, study circles, video presentations, and so on.
 
RS: What generally happens in the study circles? Are there people of all faiths?
FM: The spiritual retreat is usually for devotees, but we have another program where we call the people of other faiths as well; its an ecumenical programme where we invite people of different faiths to talk to each other.
 
RS: The reason I asked this is because Islam is a very profound religion that worships the formless and starts at the level of advaitha. Unfortunately it is misunderstood by large sections of population. Since you have such a beautiful and universal approach to God, we are keen to know if there are efforts to spread such understanding of the religion so that that way there can be more peace in the world.
FM: This used to trouble me a bit when I initially visited the Sai centres. Bhajansused to be sung and there were only Hindu idols on the altar. It was a bit of conflict to me and I used to imagine how a Muslim or a Christian would feel if they come here. Bhagawan Himself has said: “Let the different faiths exist. Let the glory of God be sung in various ways.” Hence few of us got together and modified it to suit the diverse nature of our country and to reflect the universality of Swami’s message. If you ask someone in Trinidad who Sai Baba is, they would reply He is a Hindu. Therefore there is a need to modify the singing, the altar, the message and so on to convey the universality of Swami and His message.
 
In Islam there is a verse, “La ilaha illallah muhammadur rasulullah” which translates as: There is no God but Allah and Prophet Mohammed is His messenger. This is the orthodox translation. But mystical men such as Imam Al-Ghazali interpret it as “There is nothing but Allah” rather than there is no God other than Allah. Even the Holy Quran says Allah is closer to you than your jugular vein, which must mean that Allah is within you. Prophet Mohammed once said, “He who knows himself, knows God.”
 
RS: I am reminded of a simple and sweet definition Swami gave of ISLAM – I Shall Love All Mankind! So what other spiritual activities are carried out in Trinidad and Tobago?
FM: We have Gayathri mantra chanting, bhajans singing and training, and ecumenical sessions. We celebrate all the major festivals such as Makar Sankranti, Maha Sivarathri, Ester, Guru Pournima, Eid, Diwali, Swami’s birthday, and Christmas. In one of the festivals, we invited the Indian High Commissioner. He gave a talk and was very impressed at what he saw and commented that the universality that he experienced was the true work of Sai Baba.
RS: You have been blessed to be a wonderful instrument in Swami’s hands and you speak so well. Do you sing too? We can end this conversation on a musical note!
FM: Yes, I will sing an Islamic song, which I dedicate to my loving Mother Sai. It was locally composed in Trinidad.
  
   
  
   
simply means that there is only one God and Prophet Mohammed is His messenger. Glory be to the God!
RSThank you so much for being here with us today and sharing your wonderful experiences.
RS: How was it when you got back? Did you face any problems from your Muslim community?
   
  
   
 
FM: Yes, from the time I embarked on my India trip, I had to face a lot of challenges; especially from the people at the mosque. I was the vice president of the Muslim youth group and used to lead the namaz, the daily prayers at times and I also used to call the Azan (the holy call to prayer). Some of them came to know that I had started believing in Sai Baba and had gone to India to meet Him. One of the nights during the holy month of Ramadan, Laylat al-Qadr,Muslims are supposed to keep vigil and chant hymns and the Holy Quran in the mosque. On that night I had gone to the mosque. I carried a book of Sai Baba along with other scriptures. One of the management board members saw me reading the book on Baba and it upset him. They called the mosque board meeting and chastised me for praying to a man as God. They took away my vice president position and banned me from leading the prayers and calling out the AzanThe people who used to treat me as their very son now shrugged their shoulders and turned away. There was a hostile environment and I was treated like an outcaste who had converted to another religion!
RS: What did this do to you?
FM: I felt really hurt at all this; I did not deserve this treatment. I also understood the cause for their behaviour. I was praying to Sai Baba now as I accepted Him as my Guru. As I continued praying to Him, I realized I was becoming a better Muslim at heart. After a while I thought, “Swami, my visits to the mosque seem to agonize these people, so let me stop going.” However I had to drop and pick up my mother who was going to the mosque regularly. Swami works miraculously! After a year or two, my mother organised a Quranic reading session, an exercise in which you invite the members of the mosque to read and interpret the holy Quran and sing Islamic devotional songs. I requested my mother for a chance to speak after everybody had finished. Very lovingly I told them: “Whether you call Him Rama, Krishna, Allah or Jesus, it is the same God. The most important thing is not our belief in God, but how that belief overflows into our conduct and behaviour. God is going to look at the purity of our heart and intentions; our conduct is more important than what religion we follow. No religion is greater than the other as all of them belong to God and He has no favourites!” And the most amazing thing happened after that. The Imam came up and said, “Brother Fize, what a wonderful message you have given!” I was shocked! I thought, “Oh Swami, these are the same people who discarded me from the mosque.” When I enquired a little further, I came to know that some of these Muslim brothers had attended the talks I had been giving all over the country about the message and teachings of Bhagawan Baba and that His universal message had taken root in their hearts!
There was an old man in the mosque who was celebrating his 70th birthday; he called me over the phone and asked me to give the fete address in the mosque! I weaved into the talk some of my favourite sayings of Bhagawan such as 'Love All, Serve All', 'Help Ever, Hurt Never', 'There is only one religion, the Religion of Love', and so on. I did not utter Swami’s name, but put His message about the universal tenets of religion. After the talk, people started asking me where I read these beautiful teachings! I told them that there is a Divine Master walking on the face of the earth.
   
  
   

 
 
They were benefitting from the message of Swami even without knowing about Him.
RS: Swami was transforming them, working in His own way. What happened after that? Did you make any more trips to India?
FM: By Bhagawan’s divine grace and will, this is my 28th trip to Puttaparthi. On an average I visit Bhagawan once a year and by His grace, I was blessed with eight interviews.
RS:  Can you share some of the interviews with us?
FMSure. The first interview was in 1983. Prior to that I had met with a major motor accident in June that year. June 19 is a public holiday in Trinidad. We went for bhajan on June 18 and the next day being a holiday we sang bhajans throughout the night. The next morning, as we were driving back with three other devotees, we smashed into another car coming at a very high speed in the opposite direction. The steering wheel hit me in the chest. I coughed out blood and lost consciousness. I was hospitalized and devotees who came to see me in the hospital were chanting the Gayathri Mantra. The strangest thing is that I was feeling no pain at all and was discharged in three days. I was chanting the mantra too.
After I came in contact with Bhagawan, the only mantra that I would chant in meditation was the Gayathri.
In October that year, 45 of us from Trinidad came to Prasanthi Nilayam and were granted an interview during which I was sitting two feet away from Swami. As soon as I sat, He said, “It was I who saved you from that accident!” I felt so grateful to Bhagawan. Here He was thousands of miles away when that accident happened to me, but this was the first thing He told me. He put His hand on me and said, “You drive too fast. Start early, drive slowly, reach safely." His hand went in the familiar clockwise circular motion and out came a pendant! I bowed my head thinking He was giving it to the gentleman behind me. He said, “It’s for you!” and dropped the silver pendant with His form on one side and Om on the back in my hand. And then when He took groups of people to the inner interview room, the other people wanted to see the pendant. As I was showing it to them, He came back, slapped my shoulder and said: “No exhibition!” I hid it away immediately.
From H2H Archives:
There was an elderly gentleman in the interview room who was always concerned about me. He got up when Swami came back and asked, “Swami, don’t You think we should get brother Fize married?” I was only 23 then. I got up and said, “Swami, I will marry only if you decide the person!” Swami said, Nahin nahin nahin (no, no no), let parents decide, I will bless.” It took eight years before that person came to my life! But I was not sure that Swami had blessed this.
 
In 1991 He was in Whitefield and I was sitting in my last darshan for the trip and was holding my prospective bride’s photo and a letter in which her name and wedding date were written. I thought if He took the letter, I’d think He has blessed the wedding, otherwise it was not to be. Darshanbegan and Swami came towards where I was sitting. I had the letter ready in my hand. When Bhagawan was only fifteen feet away, He turned and started walking away. I folded the letter and kept in my pocket thinking that He did not approve, when suddenly He turned around, came straight to me and plucked the letter from me! I fell at His feet and cried. That is how my marriage was approved in October 1991. My wedding happened in about a month’s time on Novermber 24.
I wanted to visit Prasanthi Nilayam immediately after, but I did not have enough money to come back. So I started praying and this is what Swami did. Air India had a promotion in which they randomly picked the names of people who had traveled to India during a specific time period and gifted them a trip to India. So one fine day I got a call from Air India, and they said, “Is this Mr. Fize Mohammad? Congratulations sir. You have won a trip to India!” We got married on November 24 and on the 27, we were traveling to Puttaparthi!
Swami granted an interview on December 16 to our group and also to my wife and me. The first thing He did was, He took the wedding rings in His hand and said, “I bless, I bless, I bless!” He then said marriage is 23 hours and 55 minutes of pain and only 5 minutes of pleasure. He asked my wife and me, “How many children do you want?” I said, “Swami boy first!” He said, “Why do you want a boy?” He joked, “Boys only think of mother-in-law and father-in-law! Girls are better, they take care of the parents. They have more love and consideration.” Then He said, “Ok, I’ll give you one boy and one girl”, I said, “Swami, it’s Your Will.” And what happened was that, we got two girls! In a subsequent interview I asked, “Swami, You said we’ll have one boy and one girl, but we have two girls?” He replied in true Trinidadian style, “What can I do?” and then added seriously, “I have given you very good children.” 
After I returned from India I continued to share Swami’s messages. But I lacked self-confidence and that would make my whole body sweat and my heart pound every time I would give a talk. But as I would start speaking, my eyes would close and Swami’s message would come on its own without my intervention! One day I got a call from a person very close to me who was also a prominent doctor in my country. He did not like my way of speaking off the cuff and his criticism seemed very insulting. I felt very hurt.
On a subsequent trip to India, Bhagawan again graciously granted me an interview. The hurt was fresh in my mind and I requested Swami to speak to me privately. He took me inside, made me sit and pinched my cheek and said, “You must speak on SAI experience and morality.” I said, “Swami, I don’t use any reading material and I tend to close my eyes as I speak about You.” He said, “Go ahead and speak and I will be there inside you.” And He said that with so much emphasis that I promised to Swami that I will forget everyone else and think of only Him while speaking. Then I asked what kind of service I should do. He asked me to teach the children, help the old and visit hospitals. So with Swami’s grace I have been a Balvikas teacher since 1981 and have tried to follow what He has asked me to do. Now I know I am just an instrument and His message is being given through me rather than by me.
   
  
   
 
RS: How has this influenced your professional life?
FM: During the period I came to Swami, I was studying to become an accountant and was working in an international firm called Pricewater House. As is the habit in this profession, all boys would go for drinks on Friday afternoons. But after I came to Swami the influence was so strong that I gave up eating meat and drinking alcohol. I used to be a joke for my colleagues! But I withstood all the peer pressure and never smoke or drank. But later they respected me and would say, “Fize doesn’t drink or smoke but he has such a good time.” At times when some of them used to over-drink and fall sick the next morning, I used to be of good help. Thats how I tried to practice Swami’s teachings in my professional life. One of Swami’s teachings is that “Politics without principles, education without character, science without humanity, business without morality is not only useless, but positively dangerous”. We have seen in very recent times how many Indian and international firms have collapsed by practicing business without morality.
RS: In an accounting firm there is plenty of scope to practice Swami’s teaching of “Business with morality”. In fact the absence of morality in business is the cause for the entire economic crackdown and collapse that we are witnessing recently. Was it a big challenge to adhere to these principles in your professional life?
FM: Definitely so. There were many people in my profession who were doing unrighteous things. When I was striving to do things in the right way, I was opposed by such people. It was very difficult. But I held firm to my beliefs and principles knowing very well that this is what Swami wanted. As Mahatma Gandhi said, “Truth in the minority of one is truth, untruth in the majority of millions is still untruth.” Now when I meet these former colleagues whose lives have changed for better, they tell me how they admired me for standing up to what was right.
   
  
   
RSSo it took a while, but in the end truth always triumphs.
 
 Mr. Fize and his mother
FM:Yes, Swami has had an influence on my family as well. I come from a broken home – my father was an alcoholic and my brothers were drug addicts. There used to be fights at home off and on and it used to pain me a lot. After one of my trips back from India, I told my parents that I would live separately in a room built in the backyard of my home. I did this because meat used to be cooked at home and there was also alcohol. And there in my room I used to do my sadhana by chanting the Gayathrimantra, reading spiritual literature, and so on. But every time I would have a quarrel at home it used to hurt me.
One day I prayed: “Swami, I will give myself to doing Your service but You must promise me to restore peace and unity in my family”.  Lo and behold! Few days after that my elder brother who was a drug addict and had this long hair came to me with a pair of scissors and asked me to cut off his hair! And my eldest brother who was a chronic alcoholic told me that he had given up drinking. The most amazing thing was that my father too gave up alcohol and involved himself with an agency, the alcoholic anonymous, that helps people give up alcohol! I saw Swami’s work here. Slowly my family gravitated towards His teachings. We started having Satsang about Bhagawan at home! The miraculous effect of transformation that Swami causes overflowed from myself to my entire family and today my mother visited Prasanthi Nilayam for a third time and my brother is on his second trip.
RS: These are wonderful examples of transformation in your family as well as amongst colleagues. Coming back to your involvement in the Sai organization, as the Spiritual Coordinator of Trinidad and Tobago, what are the various events in which you are engaged in this small 'Sai land', if I can call it so?
FM: Swami once said to a devotee that “There is a little island in the Caribbean that is the jewel of my eye – that is Trinidad”! The population is very diverse – our forefathers came from India about 165 years ago. Half the population is African and the rest Indian. Among those of Indian descent, there are Muslims, Hindus, and Christians. We have about 52 Sai Baba centres and for an island of the size of Trinidad and Tobago, the activities are remarkable. With Swami’s guidance, amazing things happen in this island. There are two TV stations in the country which screen Swami’s work from the DVDs that we give them twice in a week (an hour on Sunday and Thursday). And one of this is National TV, which is seen in every home. We have many Indian radio stations, but on two of them there are one hour programs twice a week that disseminate the message of Bhagawan.
Mr. Fize and other devotees of the caribbean doing seva
RS: What kind of impact do these programs have there?
FM: We have screened the project about the miracle school in Africa and also on the water projects. People now enquire about the organization. Some of them feel encouraged to contribute to the projects and join the organization. They appreciate the universality of the message of Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba. Interest has been generated as to who Sai Baba is and about His teachings and philosophy. We conduct medical camps in Trinidad’s remote villages on a regular basis. We do Grama Seva and just before coming for the 84th birthday celebrations, we identified 84 poor families to receive groceries, food hampers, and cooked food. We give scholarships to the poor. We clean beaches and visit prisons and hospitals. On the educational front, we conduct Bal Vikas and EHV classes. We have trained teachers who can go back to the school and disseminate EHV. We are currently working with Trinidad and Tobago’s education ministry to incorporate EHV into the educational curriculum. Every day there is bhajan going on in at least one of the Sai centres in Trinidad. We have excellent Bal Vikas teachers. So in Trinidad and Tobago, there is a great awareness about who Sathya Sai Baba is and about His work.
RS: Can you tell us a little more about the EHV program? Because through this program Swami’s message has travelled to many countries in Latin America. What impact it has had on the children, parents, and the society at large?
FM: Swami has said:
“If there is righteousness in the heart, there will be beauty in the character,
If there is beauty in the character, there will be harmony at home,
If there is harmony at home, there will be order in the nation
When there is order in the nation, there will be peace in the world.”
He has also said, “If there is a bad student, it is not so bad, but if there is a bad teacher, it will make generations of students bad.” So in Trinidad and Tobago we have an EHV Institute of the Caribbean. We have a central coordinator who coordinates the entire West Indies, which includes Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Barbados, Jamaica, and Curacao. In Curacao a presentation was done to the Ministry of Education. They were so impressed with the content and the effect, that they have adopted EHV for all the schools in Curacao. We are striving to do a similar adoption of EHV into the curriculum in other countries too. But once Swami told us that it was still not time. Even if EHV hasn’t been integrated into the curriculum formally, there are so many devotees of Bhagawan who teach the SSC classes throughout the country; they have already integrated EHV into the way in which they teach. Thus Swami’s teachings have started to take root in Trinidad and Tobago.
 
RS: Please tell us about the activities in the spiritual front.
FM: We have programs at the national, regional, and central levels. We have a national spiritual retreat for about three days at particular sites that involves the entire organization. The programs in this include nagarasankeertanbhajans, study circles, video presentations, and so on.
 
RS: What generally happens in the study circles? Are there people of all faiths?
FM: The spiritual retreat is usually for devotees, but we have another program where we call the people of other faiths as well; its an ecumenical programme where we invite people of different faiths to talk to each other.
 
RS: The reason I asked this is because Islam is a very profound religion that worships the formless and starts at the level of advaitha. Unfortunately it is misunderstood by large sections of population. Since you have such a beautiful and universal approach to God, we are keen to know if there are efforts to spread such understanding of the religion so that that way there can be more peace in the world.
FM: This used to trouble me a bit when I initially visited the Sai centres. Bhajansused to be sung and there were only Hindu idols on the altar. It was a bit of conflict to me and I used to imagine how a Muslim or a Christian would feel if they come here. Bhagawan Himself has said: “Let the different faiths exist. Let the glory of God be sung in various ways.” Hence few of us got together and modified it to suit the diverse nature of our country and to reflect the universality of Swami’s message. If you ask someone in Trinidad who Sai Baba is, they would reply He is a Hindu. Therefore there is a need to modify the singing, the altar, the message and so on to convey the universality of Swami and His message.
 
In Islam there is a verse, “La ilaha illallah muhammadur rasulullah” which translates as: There is no God but Allah and Prophet Mohammed is His messenger. This is the orthodox translation. But mystical men such as Imam Al-Ghazali interpret it as “There is nothing but Allah” rather than there is no God other than Allah. Even the Holy Quran says Allah is closer to you than your jugular vein, which must mean that Allah is within you. Prophet Mohammed once said, “He who knows himself, knows God.”
 
RS: I am reminded of a simple and sweet definition Swami gave of ISLAM – I Shall Love All Mankind! So what other spiritual activities are carried out in Trinidad and Tobago?
FM: We have Gayathri mantra chanting, bhajans singing and training, and ecumenical sessions. We celebrate all the major festivals such as Makar Sankranti, Maha Sivarathri, Ester, Guru Pournima, Eid, Diwali, Swami’s birthday, and Christmas. In one of the festivals, we invited the Indian High Commissioner. He gave a talk and was very impressed at what he saw and commented that the universality that he experienced was the true work of Sai Baba.
RS: You have been blessed to be a wonderful instrument in Swami’s hands and you speak so well. Do you sing too? We can end this conversation on a musical note!
FM: Yes, I will sing an Islamic song, which I dedicate to my loving Mother Sai. It was locally composed in Trinidad.
  
   
  
   
simply means that there is only one God and Prophet Mohammed is His messenger. Glory be to the God!
RSThank you so much for being here with us today and sharing your wonderful experiences.
FM:I thank Bhagawan for this opportunity. Sai Ram.http://media.radiosai.org/Journals/Vol_09/01AUG11/05_fize_03.htm

 - Radio Sai team



THE EXPERIENCE OF ALLAH IN SAI
- HOW BABA'S MESSAGE AND GRACE MESMERIZED THE HEART OF MR. FIZE MOHAMMAD THE EXPERIENCE OF ALLAH IN SAI - HOW BABA'S MESSAGE AND GRACE MESMERIZED THE HEART OF MR. FIZE MOHAMMADhttp://media.radiosai.org/Journals/Vol_09/01AUG11/05_fize_03.htm
On a subsequent trip to India, Bhagawan again graciously granted me an interview. The hurt was fresh in my mind and I requested Swami to speak to me privately. He took me inside, made me sit and pinched my cheek and said, “You must speak on SAI experience and morality.” I said, “Swami, I don’t use any reading material and I tend to close my eyes as I speak about You.” He said, “Go ahead and speak and I will be there inside you.” And He said that with so much emphasis that I promised to Swami that I will forget everyone else and think of only Him while speaking. Then I asked what kind of service I should do. He asked me to teach the children, help the old and visit hospitals. So with Swami’s grace I have been a Balvikas teacher since 1981 and have tried to follow what He has asked me to do. Now I know I am just an instrument and His message is being given through me rather than by me.
RS: How has this influenced your professional life?
FM: During the period I came to Swami, I was studying to become an accountant and was working in an international firm called Pricewater House. As is the habit in this profession, all boys would go for drinks on Friday afternoons. But after I came to Swami the influence was so strong that I gave up eating meat and drinking alcohol. I used to be a joke for my colleagues! But I withstood all the peer pressure and never smoke or drank. But later they respected me and would say, “Fize doesn’t drink or smoke but he has such a good time.” At times when some of them used to over-drink and fall sick the next morning, I used to be of good help. Thats how I tried to practice Swami’s teachings in my professional life. One of Swami’s teachings is that “Politics without principles, education without character, science without humanity, business without morality is not only useless, but positively dangerous”. We have seen in very recent times how many Indian and international firms have collapsed by practicing business without morality.
RS: In an accounting firm there is plenty of scope to practice Swami’s teaching of “Business with morality”. In fact the absence of morality in business is the cause for the entire economic crackdown and collapse that we are witnessing recently. Was it a big challenge to adhere to these principles in your professional life?
FM: Definitely so. There were many people in my profession who were doing unrighteous things. When I was striving to do things in the right way, I was opposed by such people. It was very difficult. But I held firm to my beliefs and principles knowing very well that this is what Swami wanted. As Mahatma Gandhi said, “Truth in the minority of one is truth, untruth in the majority of millions is still untruth.” Now when I meet these former colleagues whose lives have changed for better, they tell me how they admired me for standing up to what was right.
RSSo it took a while, but in the end truth always triumphs.
Mr. Fize and his mother
FM:Yes, Swami has had an influence on my family as well. I come from a broken home – my father was an alcoholic and my brothers were drug addicts. There used to be fights at home off and on and it used to pain me a lot. After one of my trips back from India, I told my parents that I would live separately in a room built in the backyard of my home. I did this because meat used to be cooked at home and there was also alcohol. And there in my room I used to do my sadhana by chanting the Gayathrimantra, reading spiritual literature, and so on. But every time I would have a quarrel at home it used to hurt me.
One day I prayed: “Swami, I will give myself to doing Your service but You must promise me to restore peace and unity in my family”.  Lo and behold! Few days after that my elder brother who was a drug addict and had this long hair came to me with a pair of scissors and asked me to cut off his hair! And my eldest brother who was a chronic alcoholic told me that he had given up drinking. The most amazing thing was that my father too gave up alcohol and involved himself with an agency, the alcoholic anonymous, that helps people give up alcohol! I saw Swami’s work here. Slowly my family gravitated towards His teachings. We started having Satsang about Bhagawan at home! The miraculous effect of transformation that Swami causes overflowed from myself to my entire family and today my mother visited Prasanthi Nilayam for a third time and my brother is on his second trip.
RS: These are wonderful examples of transformation in your family as well as amongst colleagues. Coming back to your involvement in the Sai organization, as the Spiritual Coordinator of Trinidad and Tobago, what are the various events in which you are engaged in this small 'Sai land', if I can call it so?
FM: Swami once said to a devotee that “There is a little island in the Caribbean that is the jewel of my eye – that is Trinidad”! The population is very diverse – our forefathers came from India about 165 years ago. Half the population is African and the rest Indian. Among those of Indian descent, there are Muslims, Hindus, and Christians. We have about 52 Sai Baba centres and for an island of the size of Trinidad and Tobago, the activities are remarkable. With Swami’s guidance, amazing things happen in this island. There are two TV stations in the country which screen Swami’s work from the DVDs that we give them twice in a week (an hour on Sunday and Thursday). And one of this is National TV, which is seen in every home. We have many Indian radio stations, but on two of them there are one hour programs twice a week that disseminate the message of Bhagawan.
RS: What kind of impact do these programs have there?
FM: We have screened the project about the miracle school in Africa and also on the water projects. People now enquire about the organization. Some of them feel encouraged to contribute to the projects and join the organization. They appreciate the universality of the message of Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba. Interest has been generated as to who Sai Baba is and about His teachings and philosophy. We conduct medical camps in Trinidad’s remote villages on a regular basis. We do Grama Seva and just before coming for the 84th birthday celebrations, we identified 84 poor families to receive groceries, food hampers, and cooked food. We give scholarships to the poor. We clean beaches and visit prisons and hospitals. On the educational front, we conduct Bal Vikas and EHV classes. We have trained teachers who can go back to the school and disseminate EHV. We are currently working with Trinidad and Tobago’s education ministry to incorporate EHV into the educational curriculum. Every day there is bhajan going on in at least one of the Sai centres in Trinidad. We have excellent Bal Vikas teachers. So in Trinidad and Tobago, there is a great awareness about who Sathya Sai Baba is and about His work.
RS: Can you tell us a little more about the EHV program? Because through this program Swami’s message has travelled to many countries in Latin America. What impact it has had on the children, parents, and the society at large?
FM: Swami has said:
“If there is righteousness in the heart, there will be beauty in the character,
If there is beauty in the character, there will be harmony at home,
If there is harmony at home, there will be order in the nation
When there is order in the nation, there will be peace in the world.”
He has also said, “If there is a bad student, it is not so bad, but if there is a bad teacher, it will make generations of students bad.” So in Trinidad and Tobago we have an EHV Institute of the Caribbean. We have a central coordinator who coordinates the entire West Indies, which includes Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Barbados, Jamaica, and Curacao. In Curacao a presentation was done to the Ministry of Education. They were so impressed with the content and the effect, that they have adopted EHV for all the schools in Curacao. We are striving to do a similar adoption of EHV into the curriculum in other countries too. But once Swami told us that it was still not time. Even if EHV hasn’t been integrated into the curriculum formally, there are so many devotees of Bhagawan who teach the SSC classes throughout the country; they have already integrated EHV into the way in which they teach. Thus Swami’s teachings have started to take root in Trinidad and Tobago.

RS: Please tell us about the activities in the spiritual front.
FM: We have programs at the national, regional, and central levels. We have a national spiritual retreat for about three days at particular sites that involves the entire organization. The programs in this include nagarasankeertanbhajans, study circles, video presentations, and so on.

RS: What generally happens in the study circles? Are there people of all faiths?
FM: The spiritual retreat is usually for devotees, but we have another program where we call the people of other faiths as well; its an ecumenical programme where we invite people of different faiths to talk to each other.
RS: The reason I asked this is because Islam is a very profound religion that worships the formless and starts at the level of advaitha. Unfortunately it is misunderstood by large sections of population. Since you have such a beautiful and universal approach to God, we are keen to know if there are efforts to spread such understanding of the religion so that that way there can be more peace in the world.
FM: This used to trouble me a bit when I initially visited the Sai centres. Bhajansused to be sung and there were only Hindu idols on the altar. It was a bit of conflict to me and I used to imagine how a Muslim or a Christian would feel if they come here. Bhagawan Himself has said: “Let the different faiths exist. Let the glory of God be sung in various ways.” Hence few of us got together and modified it to suit the diverse nature of our country and to reflect the universality of Swami’s message. If you ask someone in Trinidad who Sai Baba is, they would reply He is a Hindu. Therefore there is a need to modify the singing, the altar, the message and so on to convey the universality of Swami and His message.

In Islam there is a verse, “La ilaha illallah muhammadur rasulullah” which translates as: There is no God but Allah and Prophet Mohammed is His messenger. This is the orthodox translation. But mystical men such as Imam Al-Ghazali interpret it as “There is nothing but Allah” rather than there is no God other than Allah. Even the Holy Quran says Allah is closer to you than your jugular vein, which must mean that Allah is within you. Prophet Mohammed once said, “He who knows himself, knows God.”

RS: I am reminded of a simple and sweet definition Swami gave of ISLAM – I Shall Love All Mankind! So what other spiritual activities are carried out in Trinidad and Tobago?
FM: We have Gayathri mantra chanting, bhajans singing and training, and ecumenical sessions. We celebrate all the major festivals such as Makar Sankranti, Maha Sivarathri, Ester, Guru Pournima, Eid, Diwali, Swami’s birthday, and Christmas. In one of the festivals, we invited the Indian High Commissioner. He gave a talk and was very impressed at what he saw and commented that the universality that he experienced was the true work of Sai Baba.
RS: You have been blessed to be a wonderful instrument in Swami’s hands and you speak so well. Do you sing too? We can end this conversation on a musical note!
FM: Yes, I will sing an Islamic song, which I dedicate to my loving Mother Sai. It was locally composed in Trinidad.