Swami stresses on the three important aspects of life: Work, Worship and Wisdom. Continuing from the previous edition’s coverage of Seva activities during the trying COVID times, we bring to you in this edition of Love in Action – glimpses of Work, Worship and Wisdom practised by Sathya Sai alumni as service to the society. For the alumni, this pandemic has presented a massive opportunity for the alumni to reach out to the most affected sections of society to make a difference.
Seva activities by alumni in Bangalore
Beyond serving migrants, the Sai Krushna Charitable Trust (SKCT) has also collaborated with other NGOs and consortiums to ensure that no one went hungry. SKCT is supplying lunch to 70 doctor warriors who are treating COVID-19 patients at the Bowring and Victoria hospitals. It has also set up a Plasma Bank Helpline in association with Victoria Hospital for organizing Plasma to save critical COVID-19 Patients. Through this, recovered COVID-19 patients can sign up to donate their plasma at Victoria hospital to save lives. In order to motivate all COVID-19 patients to donate their plasma, SKCT has created flyers and awareness videos to disseminate information about plasma donation.
Many students in rural areas do not have access to computers, laptops or high-speed internet connections to access online classes. Keeping this in mind, the volunteers and teachers have put together almost 1500 byte-sized videos in about four months. These study videos have been created from scratch and are being shared with the Sai Krushna Vidya Mandir school students via Whatsapp. These have also been uploaded onto Youtube in the SKCT Open Learning Resources Portal so as to ensure that every student has life-long free access to the entire library of 1500 videos (with a few hundred being added every month) irrespective of their location. There are many videos centred around life skills. All the videos undergo a rigorous process of qualification and editing to ensure a certain standard of content is maintained. To reinforce the learning of students, the volunteers have also created many quizzes, which are being administered on smartphones to all students, to track their learning outcomes. The students are also being motivated to learn through the Virtual Parenting program which makes it feasible for volunteers to constantly interact with them to achieve their goals.
To participate in these Seva activities please contact Vinod Cartic on the email id vinod.cartic@gmail.com
Seva activities by alumni in Tamil Nadu
Sri Sathya Sai alumni from the state have been actively contributing to the ongoing Amrutha Kalasam project of the Sri Sathya Sai Seva Organisation (SSSSO) of Tamil Nadu even during the pandemic. Under this project, provisions for a month are provided to entire needy families. The beneficiaries of the Amrutha Kalasam project number more than 30,000. The pandemic also posed a new challenge of getting a bed for non-COVID emergency cases. The alumni and SSSSO found an opportunity in facilitating hospital admission to both COVID and non-COVID emergency cases during these tough times. Apart from conducting Narayana Seva in their localities across the state, the alumni also mobilised funds for the Nithya Narayana Seva at the canteen allotted to the SSSSO in Chennai.
With the lockdown restricting the movement of people across states, many devotees felt shortage of Vibhuti. The alumni and SSSSO took this as an opportunity to distribute Vibhuti packets to homes of each and every Sai devotee. People were overjoyed on receiving the Vibhuti packets delivered at their doorstep which was considered as a sign of Bhagawan’s grace. This Seva has now expanded beyond Tamil Nadu to the home of each and every Sai devotee in the country. This has brought tears of joy to one and all who were in dire need of Swami’s Vibhuti. A total of 36500 Vibhuti packets have been distributed as a part of this Seva.
Collective chanting of Sai Gayathri Mantra
Swami has always emphasized that collective prayers are more beneficial than individual prayers. Honouring this dictum, the alumni are having collective chanting of Sai Gayathri and Samastha Loka Sukhino Bhavantu daily in their respective homes from 9:00 PM to 9:15 PM for world peace. This was started on 22 March 2020 and it continues even today.
To participate in these Seva activities please contact Prasanna Sai at +91 9840039505.
Online Satsang organised by alumni from Mumbai
What started out as an online Satsang on 3 April 2020 to deliberate and contemplate on the Ramakatha Rasavahini turned out to be a bi-weekly Satsang on Tuesdays and Fridays, wherein eminent speakers from the Sai fraternity would share their learnings and experiences with Swami. With the increase in viewership, there arose a need to shift this to the weekends. So from July onwards, these sessions are being scheduled on every 2nd and 4th Sunday apart from the regular Samarpan sessions. The speakers consist of eminent personalities of the Sai fraternity around the world, like Shri. Amay Deshpande, Shri. Ravi Kumar, Shri. Anil Kumar, Shri. Venu Srinivasan, Smt. Rani Java, Smt. Geetha Mohan Ram and so on. The sessions take place in the Zoom video conferencing app and are subsequently being uploaded to the Youtube channel Sai Sessions. The average viewership for these sessions is 300 – 400 people which at times reached a peak of even 5000. The speakers would generally speak for about an hour followed by a Q&A session. This format is kept flexible based on the speaker and the audience. These sessions are being organised by Sri Sathya Sai Alumni from Mumbai.
Enhancing the cover of greenery in and around Puttaparthi
Since 2002, the Sathya Sai alumni have been silently working to increase the green cover in and around Puttaparthi. More than 100,000 saplings have been planted in the last eight years. Thanks to this initiative, Puttaparthi is no more arid, dry and rocky terrain. In fact, the hills around Puttaparthi are now a sight to behold. This has also ensured that Prasanthi Nilayam has pleasant weather for most parts of the year. Taking this endeavour forward, on October 4, 2020, Sri R J Rathnakar, the Managing Trustee of SSSCT, inaugurated an 800-metre pipeline built to carry water from the Hanuman Hill Top to the plantations all along the slope of the hill and also planted a sapling of the original Vatavrisksha tree that Bhagawan Himself had installed way back in 1959. Continuing with the efforts of increasing the greenery in and around this Holy hamlet, a fresh lot of 5000 saplings have been planted as an offering to the 95th birthday of Bhagawan.
To participate in this Seva activity please contact B Srinivas at +91 8919100617.
Catalyst Seva
One unique Seva activity that is undertaken by the alumni of Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning (SSSIHL) since the last 14 years is Catalyst (Corporate Aptitude Training – an Arena to Leverage Your Skills and Talent) program. The Catalyst program is an alumni-driven voluntary initiative to prepare the students graduating from various postgraduate and professional courses of SSSIHL to smoothly transition into the wider corporate world. The program, in a format very similar to that of a finishing school, seeks to provide inputs to pursue their career choices by conducting focused sessions on, including but not limited to, resume preparation and review, mock interviews, aptitude tests, guidance on career streams, corporate etiquette, by having the candidates engage with industry stalwarts, corporate trainers and alumni who occupy senior positions at leading companies.
Apart from training, Catalyst acts as a platform in assisting companies to fulfil some of their talent needs from amongst the graduate candidate pool. As facilitators, Catalyst handholds the graduates during the entire actual selection and hiring process. Over this period of 14 years, Catalyst has impacted about 1,000+ graduates by supporting them to pursue diverse and enriching careers with organisations in areas of management consulting, banking and finance, information technology, AI and ML, data analytics, social impact, sales and marketing, human resources among others. Even in the current Covid circumstances, with Swami’s grace, the Catalyst program was conducted smoothly online. This year, a total of 44 passed out students from MBA and MA had their CVs reviewed and attended mock interviews conducted by the alumni. The placements are currently ongoing with a dedicated group of alumni working towards helping the graduates to get hired.
In all of the Seva activities, the alumni fraternity concurs that Swami makes everything happen by using the alumni as His instruments to serve His children. The alumni community wishes to wholeheartedly thank Him for giving these opportunities and offer them at His Lotus Feet.
To participate in this Seva activity please contact PVS Praveen at +91 7760529897.
