It is a call and a challenge for you, to provide comfort and consolation to those in need, to seek out means and methods to increase the ways in which you can help others and contribute to their joy.

Be worthy of this gift of Grace; maintain the high ideals of the Seva Dal organisation. This opportunity has been given to you out of sheer Grace; it is not given as a consequence of some rule or claim. It does not bind you; it gives you distinction and duty, both. If you have it with you, and yet, withdraw from service or hesitate to render it, you are on the wrong track. People come to this Presence to get rid of sin and accumulate spiritual merit; if you dishonour the badge, you will be retaining the sins and accumulating a lot more. Remember, with each act of hate and grab, you are moving farther and farther away. The ideal of service must inspire those in authority, those who possess riches, those who are endowed with skills and intelligence, leisure and health. Serve the community and the community will serve you. Exploit it and it will exterminate you. Put an end to laziness; bury your clamorous ego, bury the greed for power and pelf; then you get the qualifications needed for a member of the Seva Dal.

The hardest heart is slowly softened into the softness of butter by the opportunities that the Seva Dal offers.

Do not select Seva Dal members for any qualification other than the Spiritual discipline by which they are aware of the Divinity in each individual. (S, p. 119)

Seva is the adoration of the Lord as having the multifaced Form and Immanence in the entire Universe. The Vedas described Him as ‘thousand headed, thousand-eyed; thousand footed. The thousands of hands and eyes and feet that have come here for the Festival are all His, the Lord’s. Worship Him; that is the purpose of your Seva. And he is none else than your own self. Do not count an individual as just an individual; he has God in him as his Reality, Be aware of that.

The name ‘Dal’ that you bear, has another greater significance. ‘Dal’ means the petal of a flower. The lotus has as many as a thousand petals. They all emanate from the central pericarp. Each petal draws its strength, sustenance, colour, fragrance, and charm from the pericarp. Detached from the pericarp the petal cannot survive. That attachment and that affection can be secured when the petal clings to the ideals of Sai and the lessons of Sai. In My Message to you, there is no scope for your seeing differences or distinctions among those you serve. (S, p. 146)

You have to understand another factor in the organisation. You have all participated in the Conference. One important thing is that the service rendered by Seva Dal to maintain cleanliness in the campus cannot be estimated in a way. Seva Dal members are the true Sevaks. There are lakhs of workers in our Organisation who are prepared to sacrifice. But we should not have the feelings of a worker. All are workers. Everyone is a servant here. You think you are a master. No. You think you are a President. You are not a President. This is because basically everyone in this world is a servant. (DTB Vol.6, pp.12-13)

It does not mean you are a Seva dal volunteer only when you wear the badge, or when you are allotted some work. Everywhere Seva dal volunteer must be on the look out for opportunity to serve. You are a full time ‘sevak’, a man dedicated to service, and all your resources, physical, mental, financial, have to utilised for serving others. (Sathya Sai Baba- God in Action, p.4-5)