He Is Listening

Many years ago, in 1982, the Times of India published a report titled ‘Careful, Uncle Sam May be Listening’. It was about a book by a former officer in the NSA, the American secret service agency. The name of the book was The Puzzle Palace.

The book contains some very interesting anecdotes and information. It relates that the number of telephone calls and telex and telegram messages (this was before the age when email became popular) sent every day from America is enormous. These messages are first received by what is called an Earth Station. From there, they are sent to a satellite, which revolves around the earth at a height of some 2300 miles. This entire process is over within less than a second!

This means that every such message that is sent out from America or that enters America from elsewhere, reaches an American government agency before it gets to the intended recipient. If you were to make a telephone call from Washington to someone in Delhi, an American government agency would hear your words even before your friend in Delhi could! And so, if the American secret service agencies want to intercept the messages someone is getting, all they need to do is to supply that person’s number to the office of the Earth Station, where all the telephonic conversations and messages of the person are being automatically recorded.

Developments like these are signs of God. They happen so that people can learn how to control their tongue and use it in a controlled way. If someone says something wrong or bad to someone else, he imagines that he is speaking to just one person.

But he should know that even before what he says reaches the person he is addressing, it has already reached God.

This story should serve to alert us that we ought to be careful and aware, for God is listening to each and every word that we utter.