Baba
How AM books were made in the 1950s
Namaskar,
Making book with the help of handwritten notes: Sadguru Baba founded AMPS in 1955 and began delivering DMC and GD discourses that year itself in Hindi. Those days AMPS did not have the financial means to purchase recording devices, which is why AMPS relied upon notetakers in those very early days. Certain designated margiis would sit in the front row and note down His DMC discourses. After Baba completed His discourse, those Bengali speaking and Hindi speaking note-takers would convene, review and collate their notes, and form one cohesive version to present to Baba. Unfortunately, they could not do the job properly, so Baba would then redictate the discourse in Bengali and add more points to make the topic accurate and comprehensive. A few of those early Subhasita Samgraha books were made by this method. However, this proved to be a very time-consuming process, and Baba had numerous projects going on and had no scope to spend hours and hours on this laborious approach to publishing the books.
Summary: In the very early days of AMPS, before we had access to recording devices, the discourses were noted down, rechecked and redictated by Baba, and finally printed.
One other thing to note, unfortunately in that era before reel-to-reel recordings, only Baba’s DMC discourses were documented. Those sadhakas thought only the DMC discourses were very important. As a result, all those dharmic talks and stories told during His fieldwalks were not documented, and many of His general darshans were not documented.
In Him,
Gopal Chattopadhyaya
Summary: Only DMC discourses were documented those days, not Baba’s darshans, fieldwalks, etc.
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How AM books were made in the 1960s
Making book with the help of reel-to-reel recorder: Baba created the requisite pressure, and AMPS purchased a reel-to-reel recording machine. From that point onwards, Baba ended the system of note-checking and redictating His discourses, and instead gave the order for Publications to make a proper book by using those reel-to-reel recordings. They were supposed to be extremely meticulous in checking and confirming the text with the recorded discourse on those reel to reel tapes. Verily, the printed discourses for the Hindi, Bengali, and English editions were made by transcribing those reel-to-reel tapes. Baba did not have time to review those books. The only issue was that those in-charges failed to repeatedly review and check the audio recordings. The end result was that those AMPS books were filled with numerous errors. Indeed, when those in-charges printed the books they made all kinds of mistakes, and Baba did not have time to review their work. So if a discourse was recorded then no review was done - just it was the duty of the Publications Dept to transcribe and print it. Yet all along those in-charges were giving the false report to Baba that the books were done properly. Ultimately, those mistake-laden books were sold to margiis.
In Him,
Gopal Chattopadhyaya
Overview: Once reel-to-reel tapes came on the scene, Baba stopped the lengthy process of checking discourse notes, and it became the norm to print the discourses by transcribing them directly from the tapes.
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Story: how AM books made after 1977
Post-jail period: Indeed, by 1978 audio cassettes had come into vogue so those in-charges no longer had to rely on the old reel-to-reel machines. Despite the convenience of the new cassettes, the recording work was still not being done consistently. Then, on 14 Oct 1978, Baba expressed His feigned anger and demanded to see the audio recordings of those 71 general darshan discourses from the prior several weeks. The Dadas presented 35 recorded audios, but had no answer for about 36 discourses which they had failed to record, and could only stand there in their own shame. Baba told that He would not give any further discourses until they collected the discourse notes from those attendees. (Some of those are from August 5 - 9, 28 - 30 1978 and September 21 - 26, 1978.) Baba’s wish was to make proper books using those audio tapes. Ultimately, this gave rise to the Ananda Vacanamrtam series, which is a collection of Baba’s general darshan discourses. By Baba’s pressure, the recording of Baba’s discourses became routine. Baba’s standing order was to make proper books using those audio tapes. Due to His extremely busy schedule, Baba did not have time to review those publications. Just it was the job of Publications to print them in book form by again and again checking the cassettes. Yet all along those in-charges were giving the false report to Baba that the books were done properly. Ultimately, those mistake-laden books were sold to margiis.
In Him,
Gopal Chattopadhyaya
Overview: The Ananda Vacanamrtam series began in 1978 but initially those in-charges were not sincere in recording those discourses. For this reason, Baba strongly pointed them out and made them promise to record. The aim was to have those discourses transcribed and printed, after meticulously comparing and checking with the audio cassettes. Yet those in-charges did not attend to this properly; hence, mistake-laden books were sold to margiis.
