Children of Sathya Sai Alumni Meet on 6th September, 2015

                                      Aum Sri Sairam
The Lord is the infinite one and the eternal one without any birth and death. He has neither a beginning, nor a life and nor an end. He is never born and He never dies.

Embodiments of the Divine Atma!

There is only one atma which pervades every living being. The Eternal Lord, He himself, becomes the individual soul in everybody and behaves in a human way. Out of love and affection for mankind Lord comes down to the human level and He lives with them and works with them. In truth whether it is Sri Rama or Sri Krishna or Buddha or Jesus all of them are Divine incarnations. But you may think are we not very ordinary human beings? If you are really ordinary human beings why would I address you as the embodiments of the Divine atman? My path is Truth. My path is Righteousness. The word of Sai is the eternal truth. When I address you as the embodiments of the Divine atma, it is my view that you are manifesting your Divinity through the body. Therefore, all of you men and women are Divine incarnations and you are not ordinary men and women.

But because of our ego, attachment, greed and also infatuation we behave like human beings without knowing our Divinity. When you light a lamp you can see the light, the flame burning there. When you put a glass cover on the flame, because of the lamp’s soot, you cannot see the flame. Though the lamp is burning you think you are in the darkness. When you clean up the glass cover of its black soot then you can easily see the flame burning. Though the flame of the atma is ever burning, because of the glass cover of the body consciousness, we are not able to recognize it. Since we believe that this body made up of the 5 elements is the ultimate truth, we are in ignorance, we are in the darkness, we are not able to understand the truth of our own Divine atma. 

At such times the teachings of a Divine master is very important. Only when we understand the lesson properly and practice it, implement it in our life, then we can understand the Divine truth and cross over this samsara. But in today’s world we don’t have such type of masters or disciples. In the same way as a blind man leads another blind person, ignorant gurus today are trying to lead ignorant disciples.  The true guru is one who has realized the atma and experiences his own atma. 

 Guru is the one who removes the darkness of ignorance and lights up this flame of prajnana or wisdom of the atma. The one who leads us from the darkness of body consciousness to the light of Divine consciousness is the master. But in today’s world, education in all the educational institutions do not have the sense of spirituality. They only teach about science and knowledge not about wisdom. They are only teaching them material education not spiritual education. Therefore the students are immersed in body consciousness and they have never understood the wisdom of the atma and they are leading their lives in darkness. Because of such ignorant masters and ignorant disciples you find all kinds of trials, tribulations, adversities and hardships happening in the world. 

In our institution only it is not education  given, educare is given. Education teaches us about external things. Educare is that which brings us to face to face with the inner truth. It draws out the wisdom that is inside the students and teachers. True education is atmavidya, spiritual education, therefore one should be taught to recognize the inherent Divinity. 

Narasimhamurthy keeps saying that he is going around building educational institutions and campuses but this is a mistake. They are not educational campuses they are educare campuses They are the educational institutions which  grant spiritual education along with material education. We are building such great institutions. All of you should take part in these institutions and find fulfillment in your lives. I don’t like to tell all these to outside people. Our work should be done by our children not by people outside. Our family is growing. Today it is growing and finally it  will get transforms into world family.  This is Fatherhood of God and Brotherhood of man. True atmavidya is spiritual education is to broaden our horizons and to ultimately consider the whole world as our family. 

 If a child is hungry the mother undertakes cooking with all difficulties. For whom sake is she doing that? Is she doing that for the child? Is she doing that to remove the hunger of the child? Maybe that is true. But more than that the mother does this in order to remove her own suffering and sorrow. When the mother looks at her child being hungry she can’t sit quiet all alone. Her Love gets transformed into service and gives her child good food. 

When I built the Sathya Sai University earlier a lot of people came to give me good advice. What was the advice? They gave me a bad advice telling me Swami already you have so much of work, why do you want to build this University and take the burden on yourself? If listening to their advice if I had not built the university then what would have happened to all of you? Now, you are also questioning what is the need for Swami to build the educational Institutions at this great pace? Why is Swami attempting to give health care to all the people, establishing many more hospitals? When we built the Raipur Hospital I told Srinivas that we have to start the hospital within a year. The place Raipur is full of lot of hardships and difficulties. It is not as easy to build a hospital as in bangalore. With great effort and difficulties Srinivas did quite a lot of things but finally he came and told me that within one year no surgery is possible. If your child had to undergo this surgery and the surgeon comes and tells you that he is not going to perform the surgery would you accept this? You have to think that other children are also yours. When you have so much concern with your own child you should have concern for other children too whatever the difficulty maybe - you have to do this. He understood Swami's pain and he arranged an emergency operation theatre, intensive care unit and all other facilities. The hospital is started with one operation theatre, now it has three operation theatres and in the future there will be five operation theatres. 

The health care that we are granting in Raipur is so very essential that within 2 years we have performed more than 1000 surgeries. Our hospital has safe guarded and protected the lives of 1400 children. Suppose I had listened to the advice of Srinivas and permitted him to build the hospital in three or four years. What would happen to these children? Many hospitals are started and it usually takes seven years to complete and some are started and stopped in middle.. When I thought of building the Gulbarga school I told Narasimhamurthy we should complete all facilities within 6 months, admit children and give them all good education. Within one year we have to build computer labs, dining hall, kitchen and all things required for the children. If you go to Gulbarga and see what is happening there you will see how difficult it is to build an institution there. In a deserted village 40 kms from Gulbarga such a glorious and majestic building has been built. If the determination was not undertaken to build this school, could a boy be able to come from there now and talk on this stage? If we had not built the school, at that point of time, what would have happened to the future of this boy? Nobody can say. He would have fallen into bad company and spoilt and ruined his whole life. Therefore, whatever we undertake there should be a time frame that we target ourselves. Suppose we say that you would get your dinner at 12 midnight. Would you accept this? We will be feeling hungry at 8 p.m. and we will suffer as food is not given to us. I have the hunger to give this type of education and to give this type of healthcare till my hunger is satisfied. It is my will that such a thing happen within a time frame. Can we bare our own children suffering without getting admission to this kind of school or getting this type of health care? To the extent possible we have to stretch ourselves. Because my children are not yet ready I am going at a very slow pace and  If you get ready then I will go  fast. Enthusiasm, sense of adventure, courage, intelligence, strength and bravery - when all these 6 qualities manifest themselves then comes the help of God. Your effort and my Grace, when they get together all these things can be achieved. 

                Even like Hanuman, who was not aware of His own strength and was hesitant to cross over the ocean, in the same way you don’t know the truth of yourself and therefore you feel difficult. Similarly you identify yourselves with the bodies - you don’t know your real strength. You are therefore confining yourselves. You are not the embodiment of the body, you are the embodiment of the Divine! You have already the six qualities such as enthusiasm, valour, adventure, courage intelligence and strength, you have to put them to good use. To the extent you realize your own real strength you will be able to participate in the service activities. We have to get out of the darkness of body consciousness and get the light or wisdom of the Divine Consciousness and see to it that you work for the world's welfare. 

Children of Immortality, you are the children of Immortality! You should have the kind of conduct and  behavior that should match the name. when you are born as a tiger cub and behave like a kitten it is not correct. You are cubs of a tiger! You are the embodiments of the Divine!  Therefore lead your lives with that kind of courage. You do my work and I will do your work. If you do my work with complete faith, all things belonging to your welfare I will look after. Every moment I will confer on you what is good for you. Develop that kind of belief and faith!  As Yogeswara, I am always ready. You should also become a Partha with a bow and take part in this war for Dharma. 

All of you have discussed, for a long time, how to carry forward this mission and have come up with some conclusions. With one finger we cannot lift a handkerchief. When five fingers get together you can achieve great things. Today I have the courage because all the 5 campuses have come together. In one year you will see the kind of transformation take place. Since last year when we have had the Children of Sathya Sai meet till now, a lot of things have happened. From this year to the next year what ­­­things will happen you can’t even imagine.

My girls will work and do more than my boys! Because of their Shradah, sense of purpose. Woman with sincerity of purpose will attain everything. I have got faith that my girl students will do a lot of work. Don‘t think I am ­­arranging competition, you should do it in co-operation. I don’t like competition. Everybody belongs to me. All of you should work unitedly as brothers and sisters.