Ganesh Chaturthi at Hague
During the week of 21 and 27 August, 2017 the “World Ganeshaa Foundation” in the Netherlands organised a Ganesha Festival during the auspicious week of Ganesh Chaturthi in the majestic city of The Hague in The Netherlands.
One of the events during the festival was a multi-cultural and multi-religious fair during the weekend of the 26 and 27 August, 2017 where different spiritual and religious societies and organisations (in different booths) could display their own activities and convey their message to the public. Even though the names and forms were many, the message of love was one and the same!
Sri Sathya Sai Anandam Foundation of The Netherlands had the opportunity to have a booth at this fair to promote the Sai Anandam Library which Swami gave for doing Seva and graciously inaugurated during His Divine visit to the Netherlands in April 2016. The library hosts over 3000 records of books from different religions, philosophies and spiritual masters.
The aim to be part of the Ganesha Festival is to make such a Divine marvel visible to the public and invite visitors to the booth to become library members and eventually visit the library and borrow books.
The youth led the library work group with the help of devotees and actively prepared for the event by carefully selecting books (around 200) from different categories (such as from different religions, philosophies, and so forth.). At the booth, they further displayed a video showing a collage of different video clips and photos from different spiritual paths. They further circulated flyers for the general public for further information and our website (http://saianandam.nl/bibliotheek/). As people visited the booth, the youth would explain to them the mission of the library, describe the collection and invite them to become members, while giving out some books for free (around 20) of which the library had already too many copies.
It was delightful to see in the visitors’ faces their astonishment about the purpose of the library and all that is being organised totally free of charge, and constantly praising the team. It is only Swami’s work and He is the Doer and Enabler of all this!
One of the visitors at the booth had a wonderful experience. She was eagerly looking for a book about the Bhagavad Gita, since she was going to India to follow a course on the Bhagavad Gita and wanted to do some reading beforehand. She saw a book on display about Sai Baba on the Bhagavad Gita. She was excited to see it and wanted to even buy it. Volunteers had to explain to her that they do not sell the books and that they can only be borrowed. Furthermore, the books on display were carefully selected to give an overview of the library and that they can only be borrowed once they become a member (for free) and borrow it from the library. She was quite disappointed. As she was signing-up to become a member, Sai youth offered her to choose a book out of the small stack that had kept aside. By that time, youth probably had around 15 books left to give away. Lo and behold! In that small stack was a copy of the book “Sai Baba on the Bhagavad Gita” to be given away for free! She was really happy! Swami showed His presence and it is only Him who planned this book for her.
Pray to Swami to continue to guide us in His Mission in promoting and increasing the access to the Sai Anandam Library to the world!