LETTER FROM THE EDITOR’S DESK

Loving Sairam

In His Guru Poornima Discourse in May 2000, Swami spoke about the essence of Buddha’s teaching, by expanding on the famous Buddhist chant.

Buddham saranam
Dharmam saranam gacchami.
Sangam saranam gacchami.

Swami said, “these three maxims imply that firstly, one must sharpen the intellect and the capacity for spiritual discrimination. Next, intelligence has to be used in the service of society. Thirdly, service must be based on dharma or righteousness. If these three steps are followed, they would lead to Bliss. Never harm any living creature in any way whatsoever. Help ever, hurt never – this is the essence of Buddha’s teaching.”

In this edition, we see several aspects of service. Our cover story details how Swami inspired us to do service activities while we were in Bhagawan’s physical presence as students in the university, and how He continues to inspire us.  Love in Action focuses on the service activities done by alumni during the pandemic.

In the Gratitude Column, Dr. G Raghavender Raju, the Director of Prasanthi Nilayam Campus uses a powerful analogy to make an important point. “Even though a tyre goes through a lot of testing at the manufacturing plant, it is only when the automobile is driven and goes through various terrains across various weather conditions, can one see the quality of tyres. Similarly, the real testing for any Sai student is only when he steps out of the portals of the institution and lives up to His expectation of being Socially responsible, Spiritually aware and Professionally sound as an outcome of the training at the institute.”

In From My Diary, Brother Ramesh Agraharam shares an incident highlighting a guiding principle for all of us. He writes, “Once Swami asked a group of us, “Do you know what I want from you all?” One said Bhajans. The other said meditation. Swami said, “Even if you don’t do all that, I don’t bother. I want you to be good human beings in society.” Then, Swami put His hand forward and all of us put forward a hand to meet His.”

Let’s pray to Bhagawan that our head, hearts and hands are always in a deep connection with Him.

Offering this edition at Swami’s Lotus Feet
Team Vidyullekha
Sri Sathya Sai Alumni

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