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Touching thousands of hearts in
thousand different ways - Part V
Part 4
Meanwhile,
Swami would be out in the veranda, seemingly involved with the
afternoon Darshan; but one could
clearly see the Mother in Him, anxiously awaiting the return of
His dear children. And when He heard their roar, how His face
would glow with delight! For their part, the students would just
jump out of the trucks without even waiting for them to stop and
dash into the Sai Kulwant Hall - wash-up could wait until later!
As they rushed in, Swami would walk forward to meet and greet them,
plying them with various questions like: "Did you all eat?", "Are
you tired?", "Where all did you go?". To the poor and destitute
villagers He is Compassionate God but to His students, He is the
Loving God and Loving Mother combined!
Ten
days had passed and all the villages mentioned by Baba had been
served. It seemed that all that one had to do was now to relax a
bit and get ready for the Akhand Bhajan,
due to start on Saturday, 11th November, 2000. The day prior to
that, Swami was out on the veranda in the company of students, and
a few of them were asked to speak. It was rather like the Trayee
session, but in Kulwant Hall, and in the presence of the entire
audience of devotees. At the end of the speech-making, Baba
announced that in response to the prayers of devotees from other
places, He had decided to include also Penukonda and Dharmavaram.
These were not villages but towns, and much bigger than even
Puttaparthi! According to official statistics, the population of
Penukonda was over forty thousand. Over night, food had to be
prepared and fifty thousand packets had to be made. But with Sai,
the impossible becomes possible. When Swami came out for
Darshan on the morning of the 11th,
He told people on the veranda, "Our girls worked all night and
have prepared fifty thousand food packets and
laddus! All set for Penukonda service!!"
With that remark, He gave a gentle nod and the familiar procession
got under way.
Penukonda is about
forty kilometres to the west of Puttaparthi. A few centuries ago,
it was one of the places patronised by the kings of the
Vijayanagaram Empire. It also has a sizeable Muslim population. On
account of its extent and the population, Penukonda posed
challenges of its own. However, there was one advantage; being a
town, here one could seek the help of the Administration. Needless
to say that all the Officials and the Police were most helpful. In
fact, they expressed a desire to participate in the service
themselves - such was the infection of Swami's Love!
Penukonda
was a tough assignment in every way. The town was big and long
distances had to be covered by the boys distributing food door to
door. There were also a large number of shops that had to be
visited. Being a trading centre, there is always a large floating
population that could not be missed out. And people in the Bus
Stand too had to be taken care of. Besides all this, there were
two unusual departures from the earlier routine that merit special
mention. Firstly, taking the permission of the Police, one group
visited the local jail and distributed
Prasadam to the prisoners! Next, there were a large number
of Muslim colonies. Every one of them was visited and
Prasadam was distributed. Later, when
Mr. Chiranjeevi Rao went on his monitoring rounds, he found a
large number of destitute people in one Muslim locality. These
people could not go the place where clothes had been distributed
earlier. Spotting a Mosque nearby, He promptly located the Mullah
there and sought his help in identifying the deserving. About
seventy to eighty such people were identified, and preparations
were commenced to distribute sweets, food, and clothes to these
people. Just then, it started raining. Till this time [and in fact
after this too], no rain was ever encountered. Everybody ran to
the Mosque nearby to take shelter, and arrangements were made to
do the distribution there. Suddenly, the devotees involved in the
distribution recalled Shirdi Baba, who spent all His life in a
Mosque. It seemed as if the rain was Divinely ordained to make
everyone recall the earlier Avatar of
Sai! Understandably, this part of the service was performed with
special vigour and enthusiasm, with not only the usual cry of "Sai
Ram", but also "Allah Malik" [God is the Master], a favourite
saying of Shirdi Baba.
After the break
provided by the Akhand Bhajan, it was
now the town of Dharmavaram, reportedly having a population of
over eighty thousand! All that had been done up till now paled
into insignificance! But such is Sai's Grace that one more peak
was conquered, thanks especially to the wonderful co-operation
from both the town officials as well as the local Seva Dal
Organisation. For years, these Seva dal volunteers had been
silently providing various types of assistance to pilgrims coming
to Dharmavaram, en route to
Puttaparthi. Now, they had the chance to mingle with those sent by
Swami for service in their town.
In Dharmavaram too,
there was an unusual group that had to be served. For years, this
town acted as the outpost for those journeying to Puttaparthi by
rail. Passengers had to get alight at Dharmavaram Railway Station,
and make their way to Puttaparthi by road [distance of about forty
kilometres or so]. Finally, the Ministry of Railways woke up to
the needs of Puttaparthi, and sanctioned the construction of a
loop railway track from Dharmavaram to Penukonda, via Puttaparthi.
This track was getting ready, and people were in fact working
furiously to have the line inaugurated before the Seventy-fifth
Birthday [it was inaugurated on 22nd November, 2000]. As happens
always, many people had to be moved out of their land to make way
for the railway track. In India, people who are displaced by dams
and railway projects often face hardship. Remembering this, a
special effort was made to visit the colony of displaced persons
in Dharmavaram, and give them all food and clothing. It was
mid-day and the Sun was scorching from above; yet, volunteers
trudged up and down to locate all the displaced families - over
two hundred of them - and bring them Baba's loving
Prasadam.
The events of
November 2000 are very distinctive and unique, and carry their own
subtle message. Many may perhaps wonder: "All this business of
going to the villages might sound great; but what is one day of
service going to do the perpetual problems of these people?" In a
similar vein, many young people argue, "Look, I have this special
skill and training. This country does not offer any opportunities
for pursuing this line. So, I have to go out." In its own way,
these ten days of village service cured most people of such doubts
and misgivings. For the first time, thousands of young men and
women had an eye-ball to eye-ball confrontation with grim poverty
and difficult living conditions. They understood that they are in
a privileged position because thousands of others have sacrificed
quietly and unnoticed. Swami had told them countless number of
times: "After completing your education, do not run away to other
countries in search of greener pastures. Stay back and serve your
people. You are what you are because of what you have received
from your society. You owe it something in return." Thus far, it
was just another piece of advice, like many others; it had hardly
sunk in. But now it was different. Those words of Bhagavan meant
something very important. At one stroke, almost all students of
the Institute turned their eyes from far off lands to their own.
As one student told his teacher who asked him what he thought
about it all, "Sir, this is just a curtain raiser. For me, the
'show' starts when I graduate from the Institute. I have now
realised, that life is meant to be spent in service, here, in this
country. We owe so much to so many."
There are also the
nobler and spiritual aspects of service that are often lost sight
of. Significantly, Swami never uses the term poor-feeding;
instead, whenever food and clothes are distributed, He always
refers to it as Narayana Seva,
meaning service to the Lord. When one serves the poor, one's
vision must not be purely superficial; one must not see a poor
person but the Lord Himself, disguised as a poor person!
When in addition one realises that the same Lord is also the
In-dweller, then service is rendered to the Omnipresent Self -
the Self as one particular body serves the Self coming as another
body. A few days after it was all over, Baba told the students
that this is the spirit in which service really ought to be done.
When
Swami says LOVE ALL, it really means: "See God in all and Love
that Omnipresent God who is also in you." This is the inner
meaning of Swami's saying: "I separated Myself from Myself in
order to Love Myself!" And when Swami adds, SERVE ALL, it implies
that one must serve fellow beings with the feeling that one is
really serving the Universal Self who is in us as also in
everything else in the Cosmos.
In short, the 'Silent
Revolution' of November 2000 brought home the lesson that Love and
Service are like the two wings of a bird; flight is not possible
with just one wing alone. Through the instrumentality of His
students and devotees, in those ten days or so, Swami touched
thousands of hearts in a thousand different ways, giving new depth
and meaning to the familiar adage: LOVE ALL, SERVE ALL.
Source:
Radio Sai E-Magazine,
December 15, 2003
http://media.radiosai.org/Journals/Vol_01/08Dec15/08_WINDOW_TO_SAI_SEVA/sai_seva.htm
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