It is my expectation that all of you will succeed in winning the grace of Swami through your dedicated and successful service and thus sanctify your lives. I am blessing all of you. (LIC, pp. 107-108)
If the Unity Principle emanates from the heart, then the force and source is proper and the organization will become strong. Office bearers should remove their own weaknesses and become pure and strong. There must be genuine enthusiasm and cheerfulness while participating in activities. This will result in your lives becoming happy and meaningful, with progress on all fronts bringing good name and fame.
Be firmly convinced that what you are doing is something sacred. All of you should like a row continually to develop the seva (Service) organisations. Let all join in the activities. Treat all as the children of one god. Whomsoever you may serve, consider you are serving god. Then you will experience the Divine.
Never give up the organization. Regard it as the breath of your life. Having this firm resolve become exemplary leaders. This is My sole desire, Swami’s love will accompany you everywhere. (LIC, p. 150)
How should we recognise the truth in the Organisation? How would we get more and more results? We have to deliberate on these matters and decide. Swami does not think of the numbers in the organisations. It is divinity in the organisation that is important. You will be happy if you recognise this fact. It is for your own good, for your own welfare. Swami does not get anything if the organisation increases. Swami has the same feeling always. Swami is the very form of bliss.
Some one said Swami, Happy Birthday. Swami said I am always happy. Since you are not happy, take back your happiness. You don’t need to say Happy Birthday to Swami. Swami is always happy. They are only the illusions of the body and not the truth. Develop love having been called embodiments of love. That sacred love is enough. No other spiritual practice is required. Love all. Do not have difference of mine and thine. All are children of God. All are related to God. All are the sparks of the divine. Swami wishes that you have that equal mindedness. What is the path to develop that equanimity? How to conduct ourselves? How to understand? We have to deliberate and discuss along these lines and take some decisions in connection with the 70th birthday and spend the rest of the life that way.
The Madras President, Krishnamurthy said Swami we want to serve you when you come back as Prema Sai. You take care of the present. Why do you worry about the future? The present is very important. Past is past. Forget the past. The future is not sure. Don’t worry about the future. The present is very important, not ordinary present but omnipresent. It is out of this seed that both the past and the future emerge. So do it well in the present. You don’t need to desire. You will get the future. So don’t think of the future. Do your duty given to you now. Our organisation will be ideal when you know this truth and conduct yourself accordingly. (DTB Vol.3, p. 16)
The Organisation was started to know one’s own self. What is the main aim of the organisation? All are the sparks of the divine. You are not the spark of the body, not the world. You are the very Atma - Self.
mamaivamso jiva-loke
jiva-bhutah sanatanah
manah-sasthanindriyani
prakrti-sthani karsati
You are the spark of the divine. The Organisation is started with the sole purpose to know this truth, share this truth with everybody all around. This is not the one that could be changed or converted.
All speakers said that Swami is bringing about transformation of minds. When do you expect transformation? Transformation is possible only after receiving information. Therefore, to know the spirit of the self-Atma, you should gain information. The Organisation is started with this purpose of gaining this information and passing on this information by sharing it with others.
The main thing is service. We have to understand first truth that the body is gifted to render selfless service. Paropakaram Idam Sariram. The body is not for selfishness and self-interest. It is meant to render selfless service. You develop broad feelings through this selfless service. It kills the ego. It originates bliss. Service confers infinite bliss. It also teaches the principle of brotherhood for man. We can understand this information if only we have the two principles of Brotherhood of Man and Fatherhood of God. We should not end with that alone. (DTB Vol.6, pp. 3-4)
It is only when you have a mind cool as the moon, a heart soft as butter, and speech sweet as honey, will you be a worthy member of the Organisation. When these qualities are present, there will be Divinity. (NNSG Vol.2, p. 18)
Every worker in the Organisation must rid himself of the idea of separateness or distinction, between one person and another, on the basis of caste or creed, poverty or richness. He must always be eager to share the sorrows – and what is more difficult - the joys of others.
My desire is that whenever any sight misunderstanding arises among you, you must set it right among yourselves, exercising love and tolerance. You should not lose yourselves into passion over it and let things blaze into a quarrel or a fractional split. Recognise that you are engaged in the exercise of widening your hearts, or reaching the Feet of the Lord through the expression of love. Unless you cultivate Love, Tolerance, Humility, Faith and Reverence, how is it possible for you to realize God?
Love is the scarcest article today! There is no love in the home between husband and wife, between brother and brother. Is love to be scarce, between member and member, in our Units too? No. You have to prove by your conduct and attitude that Love, based on the realization of the One Atma, can cure all problems of the world.
Be lamps of love. That contains all. Then there is no need for Japa or Tapa. Love; loving service of others (who are forms assumed by the Divine) will provide you the Grace of God. Therefore, resolve today to enshrine Love in your heart, to cultivate it; make it universal, free from selfish desire. Become Premaswaroopas, embodiments of Love.
I am interested in the work, in the loving heart, in the selfless service. There are Units that exist only in name. There are others that function in ways quite contrary to our purposes and ideals. Instead of allowing these to continue, it is best they are wound up, immediately. Better to have two or three that function well than hundreds that function badly or not at all. Two ounces of cow’s milk are preferable than to a potful of donkey’s milk.
Consider well the qualities you have to retain, the qualities you have to discard and, act this very day to give up the undesirable and cultivate the desirable. Look forward; recondition yourselves and march on.
Office bearers of all Units! You are about to read the Objectives, the Rules and Regulations; but you must consider and make certain the answer to a basic question: Why are we in this Organisation? What is purpose of all this? You must have the firm belief that the aim of all the activities of this Organisation is to remove the obstacles that keep man away from God, that separate Manavatva (humanity) from Madhavatva (divinity). There can be no human; it is all divine. This organisation must elevate the human into the divine.
What is primary purpose of the Sai Organisations? It is to make the people realize that they are sparks of the Divine and not embodiments of the physical products of Nature. The Organisation has been established, not for publicising any person or the creed, nor to provide berths for some ambitious individuals, from which they can exercise authority over others. It is as a means of spiritual discipline that the Organisation is to be understood. Take it in that attitude. Do not consider the rules as restrictions imposed by Me or by the Organisation as shackles on your freedom of action. They are devised to help you and others in the spiritual practice you have entered upon.
The Sathya Sai Organisation has been established to provide sacred tasks for every moment of wakeful life, to make people conscious of the vagaries of the mind and to ensure the reign of pure intellect, by which alone the One behind all this multiplicity can be realised as the only Reality.
The Organisations are meant to broaden your love, to canalize your activities along lines of constructive service performed as worship; not to confer on some people more power over others, or greater control over the activities of other members, or for the display of the devotion of some people.
The Organisation must help people to realise the Unity behind all this apparent multiplicity, which is only a superimposition by the human mind on the One, that is all this. The Vedas proclaim that God is One, that goal is the same and that Truth stands self-revealed when the veil of the world is cast away or torn off.
Do not imagine that your task is to propagate Sai and speak of Sathya Sai and His Message. This is not right. But, through the name of Sathya Sai and the emphasis on the message, aim at the promotion of Godliness and of the Faith in God. Create the spiritual attitude; promote spiritual discipline. It does not matter what Name they use, or what Form they concentrate upon. Through some Name and some Form, lead them into the path of faith and spiritual practice.
Your Organisations must endeavour to promote faith in God. If that base is absent, worship. Devotional singing, ritual worship, good works – all become meaningless automatic rituals, under social compulsions. Inner transformation, which is the fruit, can be acquired only when these are done with faith. Faith can grow only from the root of inquiry. Faith is made firmer by inquiry. You must encourage inquiry by the members whom your contact and welcome their efforts to gain first- hand experience. All Sathya Sai Seva Units must work as a single entity like the fingers in one’s palm. Seva Samiti is the thumb; Mahila Vibhag is the pointing or index finger; Seva Dal is the middle finger; Bal Vikas is the ring finger, and Bhajan Mandali is the little finger. Can you eat a meal with a single finger? When the five fingers work in unison, the stomach is filled in five minutes! (NNSG Vol.2, pp. 23-27)
God is all Names and all Forms, the integration of all these in harmonious charm! Gods designated in different faiths, adored by different human communities, are all limbs of the One God that really is. Just as the body is harmonious blending of the senses and limbs, God is harmony of all the Forms and Names that man gives Him! Only those who are ignorant of the Glory of God will insist on One Name and One Form for His adoration and what is worse, condemn the use by others, of other Names and Forms! Since you are all associated with Sathya Sai Organisations, I must warn you against such silly obduracy. Do not go about proclaiming that you are a sect distinct and separate from those who adore God in other Forms and Names. Thereby you are limiting the very God whom you are extolling. Do not proclaim in your enthusiasm ‘we want only Sai; we are not concerned with the rest’. You must convince yourselves that all forms are Sai’s; all names are Sai’s. There is no ‘rest’ all are He. (NNSG Vol.4, p. 20)
Drops of rain do not reach the sea – unless they form into streams and rivers. In the same way, the devotees of God are drops of rain from the ocean of ananda. So, they have to form themselves into streams and rivers to reach back to their source, The Sathya Sai Seva Organisation is the stream that brings together devotees from various parts of the world, irrespective of their language, religion, caste, colour or nationality, taking every Sai sevak back to Divinity. (SSSm Vol.5, p. 292)
Do not give room for differences and misunderstandings among yourselves in the organization. Work with unity. Love Divinity. Serve the needy and helpless and sanctify your lives. Do not become slaves of material wealth. Do not allow politics to enter our organizations. Do not depend upon or have any thing connections with the Government for carrying on organizational work Serve society according to your capacity. When you need money, those among you who can afford should come forward and accept the responsibility to provide funds. In any case, never resort to the deplorable and unbecoming practice of issuing subscription lists. Sanctify your physical, mental and all other faculties by using them for the service of society.
This is what Divine expects of you. Do not be lured by the attractions of worldly honour, name and fame. Promote harmony and unity among yourselves. Give up likes and dislikes. Look upon service to society as service to God.
None can be a leader without being a good follower. Do not hanker after power, position and authority. Broaden your hearts through service and adherence to Truth. Do not regard yourselves as separate from each other. You may call yourselves by different names, but you are all reflections of the same Atma in different bodies. When you remove mirror, the reflection disappears, but not the object. Likewise, when the mirror of the body is removed, only reflection disappears, but the Atma or God remains. Recognise this truth that God is in every one of you. (SSSm Vol.6, pp. 324-325)