“Ashtadasa puraneshu Vyasasya Vachana dwayam
Paropakaraaya punyaya, paapaaya parapeedanam”

Sage Vyasa is said to have summarized the 18 puranas in two sentences. Serving others earns one merit and to hurt them is a sin.

“My life is my Message” “Help Ever Hurt Never” “Love all Serve all”

How often have we heard these exhortations from Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba and True to the name Divinity chose, His life has been that of eternal service. Even the organisation that He created to carry forward the mission of Service to God through Service to man is named Sri Sathya Sai Seva Organisation. Service is the cornerstone on which an entire edifice has been raised, brick by brick, each brick being one willing heart, beating only to serve its fellow being.

Education, Healthcare and Water were the three gifts the Blessed Mother Easwaramma asked of her God Son Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba, and what started off as a school, a dispensary and a single water tank atop a hill in the hamlet of Puttaparthi has now grown to a University SSSIHL, two Super Specialty hospitals SSSIHMS, a general SSSGH and a mobile hospital SSSMH, and a massive water project SSSDWSP that quenches the thirst of millions across once arid lands. “Paropakaaraartham idam shareeram” This body exists to serve others is a counsel from the Upanishads. Bhagawan reinforced this as a way of life in his message and mission. As Jagatguru, Bhagawan taught the world how to translate Pure Love into Selfless Service. After the Gujarat earthquake, when Bhagawan had sent scores of trucks filled with food, clothing, tents and above all, His divine blessings, He had said “You always give with the feeling that you are giving to the public, but I give with the feeling that they are mine”. What a beautiful lesson in giving selflessly – by treating others as “mine”.

BHAGAWAN, STUDENTS and SEVA

“My students are my property” Bhagawan has often said. More than a blessing, these words are a responsibility. To the students who are most blessed and fortunate to receive His attention His instructions are, “In this college the medium is discipline. The first, second and third languages are love, service and sadhana (spiritual discipline)”. And His caution, “…My walking amongst you is a gift yearned for by the Gods of the Highest Heaven and here you are receiving this Grace. Be grateful. But also remember that to whom much is given – from him much will be demanded.”

Bhagawan was very particular that “Seva” was ingrained into every student’s day to day life. Be it daily self-reliance duties, or be it initiating Grama seva as an annual activity, Bhagawan ensured that the students were practically groomed to appreciate the value of service. The Guru of all Gurus that He is, “Practical wisdom” was his motto.

Sri LaxmiNarayan Kote one of the students of the early 1980s fondly remembers how Bhagawan initiated the students into seva activities:

“During the 1977 summer course Bhagawan used to fix days (for service). Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) buses used to come to Brindavan and Bhagawan used to select leaders for each bus and we used to go to the Bangalore city – Kalasipalyam, City market, Russell market, Shivaji Nagar market and few other places. We used to go with broom sticks and spades and clean the whole place. Bhagawan used to invariably come and encourage us. One of the biggest works was cleaning up the drain behind Brindavan campus. It was stinky and dirty, but the boys went and cleaned the whole drainage. Bhagawan personally came and got down from the car to inspire the boys. He was so happy. Every year during the Summer Course, Bhagawan used to take the boys to the city and make them clean these marketplaces”.

He remembers how Bhagawan used to encourage self-reliance activities in hostel, even though in the early days of the institution, it was not an official part of the curriculum, “Bhagawan used to come and encourage boys to participate in bakery, chapatti making, vegetable cutting, plumbing and other maintenance activities or gardening”.

While recollecting how Grama seva started he recounts “Once the institute was established in 1983, during the holidays, Bhagawan said, ‘We should do Grama seva’. Bhagawan started taking all of us to the villages. So many villages. Bhagawan used to send the boys and then follow us in the car. So many times He even joined us in the buses.” Being one of Bhagawan’s chosen singers, he continues “… and there Bhagawan would take Hirok and myself and make us sing Ramakatha on a small stage in those villages before His Divine discourse.” 

Bhagawan’s exhortation to the students has always been to live up to the highest ideals of sacrifice and service. In His own words “If you have three morsels of food and you find another man with no food, you must cultivate the spirit of serving and parting with one morsel of food for the other man.” In a clarion call to the students Bhagawan says “Students must step into the field of yoga, spiritual practice and achieve success. What is this yoga? Service is the yoga; service to the society is yoga. There is nothing nobler than service to the society”

BHAGAWAN, TEACHERS and STUDENTS

Bhagawan taught not only through His Divine Discourses and Interactions and His own Example, He turned the Hostel and the University into crucibles to purify, chisel and shape the lives of His students – the blazing fire of His wisdom, the cooling breeze of His love, the hammer of His discipline and calming waters of His glance, applied as needed, to let the gold of the Self within each of His students, shine through the shells of body and mind. God’s chosen goldsmiths in this mission are the Teachers, many of whom were handpicked by Bhagawan. If Bhagawan is the Sun removing the darkness of ignorance, the teachers and wardens of SSS institutions served as the lighthouses guiding generations of students through turbulent and rocky years of youth.

Over the years, as many generations of students have passed out of the portals of the Sathya Sai University, we have seen the manifestation of this spirit of service across many platforms. Be it as a part of Sathya Sai Seva Organisations or in personal capacities in groups of local regional Sai students or as different groups representing academic batches in the university, Sai students across the globe have carried Bhagawan’s message of seva into their lives beyond their years as students of SSSIHL.

Bhagawan said “One is born in the society, grows in society, lives in society, then how can one stay away from society? Whatever one has experienced or achieved is because of the society. Isn’t it imperative for one to show gratitude towards the society that has bestowed so much? Shouldn’t one help the society? When one is ready to accept shouldn’t one be ready to give too? Therefore one must be ready to give for that is the true human quality.”

With Bhagawan’s blessings, Alumni service activities begin on 1^st January every year, in the hallowed Precinct of Prasanthi Nilayam as part of our annual Premabandham and are carried on throughout the year. In continuation of a tradition from our stay in Bhagawan’s Educational Institutions, senior alumni lovingly welcome the newer pass outs, as the seva activities go from strength to strength year after year. It is inspiring to note how our seniors have enshrined Bhagawan’s words and instructions in their hearts and show the path to selfless service by personally leading these initiatives.

While planned and ad hoc seva activities throughout the year find strong participation from the alumni of SSSIHL, there are many alumni who have even chosen career paths in the development sector and there are others who have started NGOs and are thereby practicing the teachings of their Beloved Master. 

SAI STUDENTS and the CORONA VIRUS PANDEMIC (COVID19)

2020 was a year of devastation and the barrage continues into 2021. A microscopic virus brought the world to a grinding halt affecting lives across the board. People responded or reacted to the turn of events reflecting their evolution on several fronts – physical, mental, intellectual, emotional and spiritual. “I always tried to turn every disaster into an opportunity,” said D Rockefeller. But of course his vision was materialistic, several followed suit and turned the devastation into a money making opportunity. The government did its utmost but it was obvious that the effort to “take care and stay safe” was, is and will be an individual effort.

India continues to be a land of villages and the diaspora stretches across the economic spectrum. The rich, powerful and influential were mostly unaffected, though the grim reaper did visit them and collected his toll. The well-heeled found their ways through the situation. The upper and lower middle class, lost jobs, life savings and lives; and the poor as in every event in history suffered the most.

The poor have been the recipients of the love and grace of Bhagawan as they are the ones in real need. Bhagawan taught his students when they studied at SSSIHL that, service to man is service to God. The alumni of SSSIHL too considered the disaster an opportunity. An opportunity to serve! Individual and collective efforts started pouring to address the different needs of the society. The scale of seva by students ranged from local Narayan seva to help feed the needy and unemployed to a nationwide concerted effort to help channelize real time information and resources to get critical medical help to the patient at the right time and thereby save countless lives. While some led from the front, an army of unnamed Sai students joined hands, heads and hearts in this supreme Yoga of service to society when it was most needed.

Seeds of preparation

Sri. Venkatdesikan recalls how Swami’s Divine hands was mobilizing and training alumni long before any pandemic was even conceived of as a possibility. It was right after 2016 Premabandham, that the core team, organizing different Seva activities as a part of the alumni meet, received a feedback from the recently passed out batches, that, having come to Prasanthi Nilayam from all corners of the country, they wanted to feel more involved in the different streams of activities during their Premabandham stay. It triggered a lot of thought on how to bring all hands to work.

Sri. Venkat fondly remembered how in the initial days of Premabandham, certain seva activities like medical camps in different villages use to evince lot of curiosity and encouragement from Swami. “His eyes used to light up when we mentioned the names of the villages like Mamilakunta. In fact Swami used to enquire about the village sarpanchs even. He knew them by name! After all, these were His childhood playgrounds”, mused Sri. Venkat.

Consequently, it was felt that the best platform which had the power to involve all the alumni present in Premabandham was Seva. Thus, by the following Premabandham in 2017, Sri. Venkat and others were able to organize alumni participation in different Ashram activities, like serving in Ashram canteens or Ashram cleaning, for a couple of days leading to 1^st January. This received warm welcome from both Ashram authorities and alumni alike. In the following Premabandham meets, the alumni seva participation moved from 2 days to a week in 2018 and then 15 days in 2019. Swami had already sown the seeds of making Seva even more central to alumni activities. There was a storm coming and the boys were being trained to weather it while it was still a breeze.

2019 was very special recalls Sri. Venkat. “2019 was the year where more than 100 students physically came together to help Kerala flood victims. Also, in 2019 by His grace, we were able to successfully come to Puttaparthi and participate in Seva activities for 2 days in every month involving ourselves in different seva activities.” In fact, from Nov 2019 till the time COVID hit India in mid-March 2020, Sri. Venkat and other alumni were visiting Puttaparthi for seva every weekend. This was apart from participating in the mid-year alumni meet, increasingly driven by several collaborations with SSSSO as well. “This was gathering momentum week on week into a bigger snowballing force” reflects Sri. Venkat on how Swami was bringing together alumni and preparing them to take the next level challenges lying ahead. In his own words “Bhagawan the driving force within all of us was nudging us towards that”.

Serving Migrant workers

The lockdown halted all service activities, or so one thought. Alumni regularly going to Prasanthi Nilayam week after week suddenly found the pause disconcerting. They did not want to miss the wonderful opportunity of offering their services at Prasanthi Nilayam. During one such days, recalls Sri. Venkat, he received a communication from Sri. Manoj Gadi.

With all Commercial and business establishments closing shop, hundreds of migrant workers were left without income. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Obviously unable to bear the living costs in cities they began returning to their hometowns. And with all transport services shut down, people had no choice but to walk hundreds of kilometres and journey for days to be with their family members. It was one such instance where one could actually see desperation of agitated minds on one hand and quiet acceptance and resilience of the human spirit on the other. Sri. Manoj visited one such exit points in Bangalore with packets of Thepla (spicy Indian bread), Chikkis (peanut brittle) and candies for the migrant workers and their children, the least that he could do. It was evident that to extend even basic help to the migrants was a daunting task.

In this context Sri. Manoj contacted Sri. Venkat and together they plunged into service. They started coordinating with other NGOs including Sai Krishna Charitable Trust and YouSee run by SSSIHL alumni, to organize food distribution at all the exit points from Bangalore. What started with a few packets soon grew to be twenty one thousand packets of Thepla and other food like Gud-poori (deep fried Indian bread with Jaggery) along with water bottles every day.

Through June and July 2020 more than 220 alumni came together to distribute 1.5-2 lakh food packets and facilitated 5-10 lakh workers to travel home, all this seva in addition to food distribution to COVID19 patients in hospitals. Sri. Venkat summarized with a smile, that now every home was Prasanthi Nilayam with enormous need and opportunity of Seva. Over time, alumni initiatives gathered momentum into different streams – helplines, plasma banks, hospital call centres and more.

Sai Krushna Charitable Trust (SKCT)

SKCT, came into existence with the direct command, blessings and instructions of Bhagawan, to serve the underprivileged with love and provide them a life of purpose and honour. SKCT comprises of highly qualified, experienced and accomplished individuals from corporates, government and social sector striving to make a change in society. Sai Krushna Charitable trust was registered on September 23, 2010, with Bhagawan as the Chief Patron.

Sri. Vinod Cartic and his team from SKCT had jumped into COVID19 related service activities early on during the first wave of the pandemic. In an article from Vidyullekha written in Nov 2020 Vinod says, “Whether it is the migrants’ food service or distribution of ration kits, the setting up of help desks or establishing the Bangalore Free Plasma Bank – all of these have been enabled through the zeal of innumerable amazing volunteers”. 

This was long before the devastating second wave hit the nation. During the months of April and May 2021 the nation’s healthcare system was overwhelmed by sheer numbers of COVID19 afflicted. Acute shortage of hospital beds, oxygen and medicine, lack of information and increasingly circulating misinformation confounded the entire nation.

When social distancing became necessary to prevent contagion, the team turned to harness technology.  In His Divine Discourse on the occasion of Christmas at Prasanthi Nilayam in 2006, Bhagawan spoke about technology.

“Man today is pursuing high education. He is learning science and technology. But today’s “technology” is mere “tricknology”. What you read may not remain in your brain. Only what you have actually put into practice lasts long. It is enough if you put into practice at least one aspect of what you have read. That will help you in every way.”

Following His words, His students have put into practice what they have learned; using the ‘tricks’ of technology to serve forming cross functional teams across disciplines, to leverage technology to serve during the times of the Wuhan Virus.

Amidst chaos and constraints of stringent lock downs SKCT launched its bold initiative of the COVID19 helpline. It was not just a helpline, but served as an extended family to the ones desperately in need of help when it was most scarce. The helpline provided free and validated information support to access COVIDcare essentials ranging from beds, plasma, ambulances, teleconsultation, counselling even food distribution services.  Hundreds of volunteers joined SKCT in its efforts across multiple states in the country.  They included men Alumni, women Alumni and Sevadals. SKCT currently has Covid helplines serving 9 states – Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana in the South, Orissa and West Bengal in the East, Maharashtra in the West and the helpline in North covers Delhi NCR, Chandigarh, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh.

With the second wave of COVID19 came fresh complications of Black Fungus and White fungus, both consequences of extended hospitalization and Hospital Acquired Infections (HAI). Patients required extended oxygen support and not all could afford it in  hospitals. Enter the role of portable Oxygen Concentrators and home oxygen cylinders. SKCT began this service with a focus on the former. Currently Oxygen Concentrator service is being rendered in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

Oxygen concentrators used in COVID seva by volunteers of SKCT in different parts of the country

Harnessing technology that bridges multiple service providers: telephone services, Cloud Services, WhatsApp and the Google suite, the tech team created a seamless workflow right from the time a patient or beneficiary makes a phone call to the helpline asking for an oxygen concentrator, through booking, allotment, consent, pick-up or delivery, use and return to the SKCT team and a feedback mechanism to close the loop. With a think-tank at the backend working and ironing out the medico-legal aspects and conforming to Government regulations, SKCT streamlined the process to cover all bases, digitally document and track the services as well. Very much needed in this age of data.

Bhagawan had told Vinod when he was tasked with the responsibility of starting SKCT, “You just be there in the village and things will happen. I will do it. Whenever any noble work is done, all resources will come as if drawn by a magnet towards the same.” Today it’s not just a village. Bhagawan is working through His students for the whole nation.

Sri Sathya Sai Gramin Jagriti

While SKCT was leveraging technology and putting it to the service of the nation, Sri. Amar Vivek, on the other hand, became Bhagawan’s instrument to build a 50 bed mini Covid Care Centre (CCC) in Chandigarh. Created by Sri Sathya Sai Gramin Jagriti, the rural development program which Bhagawan had blessed Sri. Amar Vivek to start in 1990, the CCC opened in the sports complex of Government Senior Secondary School, Sector 8,

At a time when different parts of the country were under strict lockdown, opening a CCC was a herculean task. But when God’s blessings are with you everything falls into place. Bhagawan only asks of us to be available, He does the rest.

In the late 1980s, when Sri. Amar Vivek went to Bhagawan with a project plan for a rural development program which would include a free hospital, a school and vocational training centre, he submitted to Bhagawan that the project needed 27 acres of land; Bhagawan patted his shoulder and said, “You need my hand, not land”. Needless to say, over the following days since Bhagawan blessed the program, Sri. Amar miraculously found himself with the village head of Darwa, a small village in Haryana, signing a resolution for a land of 27 acres to be used for the welfare programme as per the plan. Thus started the journey of a multi-dimensional rural welfare programme – Sri Sathya Sai Gramin Jagriti. Sri. Amar Vivek says, “The latest service project of the CCC is born off the Abhayahastha of Bhagawan’s grace. When His ‘Hand’ is there, all things else fall in place”.

Bhagawan had also explained the significance of the name – “Sri Sathya Sai” is the companion, “Gram” is the dham (the place) and “Jagriti” is the Kam (the work). A profound thought so simply put – Do your work where it is needed with Sai as the companion.

50 bedded COVID Care Centre by Sathya Sai Gramin Jagriti, run by Sri Amar Vivek, inaugurated in Chandigarh in May 2021 by by VP Singh Badnore, UT administrator, as COVID cases overwhelmed the healthcare systems

CONCLUSION

During the 21^st Convocation of the University, Swami, had emphatically exhorted the students to sacrifice their lives in the service of the nation. Swami had said “You should serve your own country with all your energy. Your entire life must be devoted to serve the country in which you are born and brought up … Serve society. Bring honour and glory to your motherland, Bharat. Attain the glory that ‘this student is a hero in action and sadhana (spiritual discipline)’.” Those words were the parting command and instructions of Bhagawan as the Greatest preceptor and as the Chancellor of the University as students prepared to join the wider world beyond the portals of SSSIHL.

His life transformed ours and our single biggest expression of gratitude would be to use this gift of life to make a difference to the world around us – be it individually or collectively, as a part of His Organisation. True to His word and command, today Sai students are engaged in Seva in various different capacities. When the nation was in the throes of unprecedented crisis, alumni rose to the occasion and plunged into this supreme yajnam of Manava seva, living up to the exhortation of our Guru and Lord. Alumni now actively contribute in the seva activities of the SSSO. Many among them are now office bearers, shouldering important organisational responsibilities. Swami always said “My life is My message”. By living a life dedicated to the service of the nation and the society around us, we have an opportunity to make our lives His message. Seva gives us the opportunity to see Him in everyone and serve Him through everyone. Is there any other Guru Dakshina that we can offer to our Paramguru? He gave His life to us and we offer ours at His lotus feet through service.