IN SAI GHT THE MISSION OF SAI

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2 An Insight into SAI through GLANCE HEART & THOUGHT SAIRAM FELLOW PILGRIMS ON THE PATH TO SAI!!! WE ARE DELIGHTED TO BRING YOU THE VERY FIRST ISSUE OF THE FIRST EDITION OF THE MAGAZINE FROM THE MUDDENAHALLI CAMPUS OF THE SRI SATHYA SAI INSTITUTE OF HIGHER LEARNING. WE WERE PRIVILEGED TO RECEIVE PadmaShree Dr. G.VENKATARAMAN RECENTLY AT MUDDENAHALLI WHO INSPIRED US WITH THE THEME: HOW WE CAN WORK TO FULFIL THE MISSION OF SAI

3 THIS NEWSMAGAZINE IS MEANT AS A RECORD OF HOW WE, AT THE MUDDENAHALLI CAMPUS OF THE SSSIHL, CONTRIBUTE TO THE MISSION OF SAI. WE THANK OUR DIRECTOR DR SAI MANOHAR SIR, OUR WARDENS SRI BHASKARAN SIR AND SRI SAI MANOHAR SIR, AND ALL OUR BELOVED FACULTY AND STAFF FOR THEIR SUPPORT AND ENCOURAGEMENT IN ALL OUR ACTIVITIES. ON THIS AUSPICIOUS FOUNDATION DAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2015 WE DEDICATE THIS NEWSMAGAZINE AND OURSELVES TO SAI. THE BOYS OF MUDDENAHALLI CAMPUS

4 We have lived with Swami for many years and we have kept asking Swami for all sorts of things. We expect all our desires to be fulfilled. Our desires are limitless and boundless. Have we ever asked Him, Swami, What do you want to give us? What s your mission in this avatar?. What is Swami s Mission? Was it just to initiate some magnificent projects such as hospitals, colleges and water projects? The answer is definitely No. These were just incidental to His mission. Then, what was His mission? Let s listen to Swami Himself. Swami in this letter to His brother says, I have a task: To foster all mankind and ensure for all of them lives full of bliss. I have a vow: To lead all who stray away from the straight path back again into goodness and save them. I am attached to a work that I love: to remove the sufferings of the poor and grant them what they lack. - [Swami s letter to his brother on 25th May, 1947] I always come for the restoration of Dharma for tending the virtuous and ensuring those conditions congenial to progress, and for educating the blind who miss the way and wander into wilderness to raise human consciousness. - [Introduction from The Essential Sai ] Re-education of man has always been GOD s MISSION in whatever incarnation He has assumed. - [Vijayadasami ] YOUR INNATE LAZINESS PREVENTS YOU FROM THE SPIRITUAL EXERCISE NECESSARY TO DISCOVER THE NATURE OF GOD. IT HAS TO BE DRIVEN OUT OF MAN S NATURE IN WHATEVER SHAPE IT APPEARS. THAT IS MY MISSION. MY TASK IS NOT MERELY TO CURE, CONSOLE AND REMOVE INDIVIDUAL MISERY BUT SOMETHING FAR MORE IMPORTANT. THE REMOVAL OF MISERY AND DISTRESS IS INCIDENTAL TO MY MISSION. MY MAIN TASK IS THE RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF VEDAS, SASTRAS AND REVEALING KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THEM TO ALL PEOPLE - [43RD BIRTHDAY DISCOURSE]

5 I CALL YOU TO ME AND EVEN GRANT WORLDLY DESIRES SO THAT YOU MAY TURN GODWARD. NO AVATAR HAS DONE THIS EVER BEFORE GOING AMONG THE MASSES AND COUNSELLING THEM, CONSOLING THEM, GUIDING THEM ALONG THE PATH OF SATHYA, DHARMA, SHANTI AND PREMA. - [43rd birthday discourse] SAI has come in order to achieve the supreme task of uniting the entire mankind, as one family through the bond of brotherhood, of affirming and illumining the atmic reality of each being in order to reveal the divine which is the basis on which the entire cosmos rests, and of instructing all to recognize the common divine heritage that binds man to man. So that man can rid himself of the animal, and rise into the divine which is his goal. [Brindavan, 9th June 1974] The mission of the present avatar is to realize that the same God or divinity resides in everyone. [Interview with R. K. Karanjia, Blitz news magazine] From all His speeches it is evident that His mission was to make us realize that we are also divine. Let us all surrender ourselves to Him and accept whatever He does with us and believe that whatever He does is good for us. At times we may feel that Swami is kicking us like a football, but let us be happy that we are a football only to Him. It is guaranteed that Swami will kick us only towards the goal. You would have heard this story several times. God is like the silver smith who puts us into a furnace for a while; time and again He puts us into water (joyful experiences like Paada Namaskar, dreams, etc.) to ensure that the silver doesn t get burnt. But He will put us in the furnace only until He sees Himself in us. That is His mission. The beauty in it is that when the silver is in the furnace, the silver smith (God) is even closer than ever before as His full attention is towards the silver in the furnace. When we all come here, we are all just students. But when we are leaving the portals of this institution, let s not be just Sai students. Let s realize the Sathya Sai within us and be like one. Let s pray for this transformation and surrender ourselves to God. Remember, Prof. N. Kasturi said, He hooks you first and cooks you next. We should accept the furnace if we need to realize Him within. - [All speeches of Swami are taken from THE ESSENTIAL SAI ]

6 Dr Sayee Manohar Deputy Director in Charge SSSIHL Muddenahalli Campus Feb 14, 2015 Sairam Dear Friends, I am delighted to gather that our campus is launching a Monthly Newsmagazine from Feb 14, 2015, which is our Fourth Foundation Day. Swami has expressed on countless occasions that His Institutions will have to convey His Message and that all students and staff will have to embody various aspects of His Life and set an example to the world. It is, therefore, extremely gratifying that you have chosen THE MISSION OF SAI as the theme of our Newsmagazine and express through articles, photos and videos how we are trying to implement His Mission at the Muddenahalli Campus. I wish you all the very best on this occasion and for all time to come. Loving Wishes and Sairam Dr Sayee Manohar

7 V. Bhaskaran Deputy Warden S. Sai Manohar Sri Sathya Sai Hostel for SSSIHL Muddenahalli Campus Feb 14, 2014 Fellow Members of the Hostel of the Muddenahalli Campus, We want to share our joy and admiration for the wonderful creative work carried out to produce the first Newsmagazine to be launched on Feb 14, 2015, our Foundation Day. We are sure the boys will realize that producing the first issue is one thing and producing the issue every month is a challenge. The secret is time-management. Our best wishes for long standing success of this remarkable venture. Sairam and Go Ahead!! V Bhaskaran S Sai Manohar

8 Manikanta B.V (3 r d Year BBM) Once upon a time, there lived a doctor by the name Ramesh in the town of Kalasa. He married Savitha at the age of 25.They were leading a happy life. After two years of their married life, a good news arrived-he had become the father of a girl child. In this rapturous occasion, he also received a heart breaking news. His wife had passed away giving birth to his daughter. He accepted this tragedy as God s will and carried on with his life and brought up his daughter all by himself. He named her Divya. Since she had no mother, he brought her up giving extra freedom, and never being strict with her. Because he was not strict, she grew up in an uncultured and lazy manner. But Ramesh never scolded her because of his love for her. When she reached the age of twenty-one, she was married to Shreyas who was an engineer by profession. After the marriage, Divya went to live in Shreyas s house. Her mother-in-law was very strict, religious and cultured. Everything had to be systematic for her. She had all good practices like - getting up early in the morning, performing rituals to God, preparing fresh food regularly, never watching TV, never having junk food in streets, never going to theaters, and so on. But Divya was entirely different person from her mother-in-law. She used to get up late, never performed rituals to God, always watched TV, wanted to have junk food in the streets regularly, and had many more habits which were not liked by her mother-in-law. Because of this, the gap between Divya and her mother-in-law increased day by day. They quarreled every day, and there was no agreement between them. This continued to an extent that ultimately one day, Divya went to her father and told him that it was

9 impossible for both her and her mother-in-law to live together. So, either she or her mother-in-law had to be terminated. Divya had decided to finish off her mother-in-law once and for all. Ramesh felt pity for his daughter. Since his daughter was very important for him, he gave Divya thirty poisonous tablets. He instructed her that the tablet had to be served regularly for 30 days and by the 30th day, the poison in the body of her mother-in-law would increase and thereby result in her death. But he cautioned that these tablets ought to be given with love, and the tablets would only work if her mother-in-law was happy. Pleased with this idea, Divya returned back to her husband s house and started acting like a fully transformed girl merely to make her mother-in-law happy. On the first day, she got up early in the morning, offered her prayers to God for the first time, prepared her mother-in-law s favorite dish for her, and mixed one poisonous tablet along with the dish. She started behaving the way her mother-in-law wanted her to. Her mother-in-law was shocked by the transformation of Divya and became very happy. Divya s acting continued for many days. After looking at the transformation of Divya, her mother-in-law also became liberal in her rules. She started liking Divya. Divya too slowly started liking her mother-in-law, and their relationship started mounting steadily. They both were very happy now. But twenty-five poisonous tablets were already given to her mother-in-law and if five more were given she was bound to die. Divya didn t want this to happen. She rushed to her father and told him about her mother-in-law s transformation. She was bawling that she had done the biggest mistake of her life trying to kill her loving mother-in-law. She was worried about the effects of the tablets she had already given to her mother-in-law, and wanted her brought back to normal. Ramesh smiled and revealed that the tablets given to her were not poisonous but only sugar tablets. He had given the tablets on the condition that the tablets had to be served with love, and divulged that the attitude was more important than the tablets. Ramesh did this just to create a middle path between them. He believed that if Divya had to live happily, she had to get adjusted to her mother-in-law, and behave the way her mother-in-law liked. Once Divya started behaving the way her mother-in-law liked, her mother in law also started adjusting to Divya. When both of them came from their extremes to the middle path, both started living happily. In the same way, when two or more people are working together and when everyone adjusts themselves with others and follow the Middle Path, everyone will be happy. When everyone is happy, there will be harmony in the society. When there is harmony in the society, there will be harmony in the country and the whole world will be at peace.

10 WHERE SCIENCE ENDS, SPIRITUALITY BEGINS -Vikram G.N (1 st Year BBM) The workshop by Padma Shree. G. Venkatraman was a brilliant thought provoking eye opener. The sublime touch of a venerated scientist and staunch devotee of Swami was very much evident throughout. One such instance was when he made the statement- Where Science ends, Spirituality begins. In the outside world there are the atheists and the agnostics who would debate over the existence of God and belabour blasphemously. For these people, Science is God. Science has indeed traversed a long way and it has answered many of man s intricate questions to a great extent. When you read Dan Brown, you ll come across these striking verses - Science is alleviating the miseries of disease and drudgery and is providing an array of gadgetry for our entertainment and convenience. The experiments being worked on have the potential to push the boundaries of science into uncharted territory. We would even have breakthroughs that would alter the entire paradigms of thinking. Suffice to say, Science cannot undermine the existence of God. Science is too immature to understand this. There are still many complexities of the universe for which science is unable to give convincing answers. Science doesn t give us the knowledge of the creator and the created, laws governing our actions and rewards/punishments, why good thing s happen to bad people and vice versa, what makes some happy at all times irrespective of external happenings, and so on. Why go to such extents. A world renowned surgeon is operating on a patient. He uses all his obtained knowledge of science, still the patient breaks down. The operation is a success, but the patient collapses. The doctor retorts saying, The patient failed to respond. What does he mean by it? It s not like as if the patient didn t want to live. The patient undeniably would want to live and he would have tried cooperating with the treatment in every way possible. 100 Successful operations, 1 failure. The same doctor does it giving his even best using the same Science. Then, why does this failure occur? The truth is that the doctor doesn t know the answer. It s beyond his intelligence.

11 It is said that: One must be intelligent enough to understand the limitations of human intelligence and logical enough to understand that there is an entire field of knowledge that exists beyond the realm of logic, yet is not illogical, that can be proved neither logically right nor logically wrong. It was the days of the miserable satellite launches of India where rockets only ended up in oceans. A scientist came and asked Swami: Swami, every time I m giving my best. Why is it failing? Swami gave him confidence. He told him that it will succeed the next time. And the expected result happened, the experiment was a triumph. Many great scientists, including Sri A.P.J.Abdul Kalam, have agreed that they only give their best and the result is never in their hands. Science, in its unsurmountable quest, often hits upon a boulder. It s the will of God which removes the boulder from its path. During the Bhopal tragedy (accident of Science), due to the effect of the gas, Methyl-iso-cyanate, countless lives were forcibly taken. In one house (within the affected zone) they were performing Agni Hotram; as they had no choice of leaving the house, they continued. And they remained the only ones to survive in this calamity. The destruction caused by Science was dodged by a Spiritualistic approach. Astrology is considered as Science. People seek its guidance, then they appeal to God. Here, the part played by Science ends in the very beginning, Spirituality is what extends throughout. Yoga too is considered as science, but the benefit comes only when we approach it in a Spiritual manner. Meditation activates each gland and even lets us observe the vibration in us. Activating each gland is definitely a benefit as the blood circulation becomes good. This cannot be done by Science. When Medicines are merged with Meditation, it will beyond doubt give quick relief. You may all be very much aware of the episode when Amitabh Bachchan met with an accident during a movie shooting (26 July 1982), and was in the hospital beds counting the remaining time of his life. Science did its part, treatments were given. But that wasn t enough. People around him kept chanting the mantra,

12 Tryambakam yajamahe sugandhim pustivardhanam. Urvarukamiva bandhananmrtyormuksiya ma mrtat. (We worship the fragrant three-eyed One, who confers ever increasing prosperity; let us be saved from the hold of death, like the cucumber freed from its stalk; let us not turn away from liberation.) Only when Science and Spirituality fused, man subsisted. SCIENCE HAS AN END, BUT SPIRITUALITY ONLY HAS A BEGINNING. Once we traverse beyond the scriptures, and realize that no text can offer us Spiritual Knowledge, we have to search for the answers within us. Our higher consciousness or the God within will provide us with the answers. After all, this is how the ancients possessed profound scientific wisdom. We have barely touched their level of understanding Science. India is the Spiritual hub of the world. And we are so fortunate with the proximity and guidance of Swami which has made many people like PadmaShree. G.Venkatraman believe that Where Science ends, Spirituality begins. A very thin line differentiates error and mistake. When error is neglected for over a certain period, it alters into a mistake. I hope and pray that everyone in the world soon realize the truth about Science and Spirituality, for the greater good of mankind.

13 Christmas: Christmas celebrations gave us a beautiful opportunity to experience the underlying philosophy of all faiths and its uniting bond of love. Being a Sai Student provides us with the priceless chance of celebrating all the festivals in its true spirit and experiencing the eternal oneness in all the religions. Christmas celebrations in Muddhenahalli was very revitalizing. The food was lip-smacking and the drama presentation by our brothers took the celebration to seventh heaven. The messenger and the message of the lord was delivered assiduously through the drama. Finally, the carols were the icing on the cake.

14 Orchestra Competition: (16 th December 2014) If a light ray passing through a prism will create a spectrum of light; in Muddenahalli, several thoughts passed through a prism of music to deliver two different performances for the Orchestra competition. Seven different feelings in a day was showcased by Prema, and seven native cultures of Music by Ananda. Feelings may be many but love is one. Cultures may be many but bliss is one. It was a spectacular sight to notice the spectators completely engrossed by the magic of the Musicians. Sports Meet- White and Orange (11 Jan 2015): The White and Orange theme represents the unique relationship that exist between Swami and His students. The Orange color symbolizing Swami and the white-the students and the staffs. This nectarine bond of love still lingers in our heart. Swami has always quenched the thirst of love with his students and staff. It was really wonderful to experience this romance again. This year s Sports meet was conducted in an ostentatious manner where all the men s campuses came together for different presentations in the Hill View Stadium and in Kulwant Hall. The starter for this visual feast was lion dance. The Students practiced more than what was presented as their coach advised them to learn more things and yet be humble while exhibiting their talent. The Wheel Wizard s performed fearlessly and let Swami take over their wheels as Swami has said, Why fear when I am here. The Team Throttle were playing with bikes and performing unbelievable stunts as they knew that He was the rider of their lives as well as their bikes.

15 The Martial Arts team mastered their skills within a very short period of time and offered it at his lotus feet signifying that He is the provider of all talents and it is to him that we should offer them. The Gymnastic brothers worked really hard as it was a new experience for our campus and proved that, Where there is a Will there is a way. The Dindi (Maharashtrian dance) presentation was exuberant and flamboyant. Hats off to the LED brothers as their travail paid the price. Their presentation was splendid and the crowd was overwhelmed. The Jai Ho martyrs expressed their love for country and Swami through their formation and dance. Their presentation was a thriller and everybody enjoyed it. The Drama beautifully brought out the subtle and significant message of surrender. The presentation was engrossing and broke many records in Prashanti Nilayam. On the whole the Sports and Cultural meet was a huge success. Everyone got an opportunity to offer their best to Swami. Yummy feast: On the evening of 22 nd January, Bhajans were held in the velvet green lawns in front of our campus with Swami s chair beside us. This was followed by the Sports Meet treat which was not only a feast to the mouth but also to the eyes and ears. The 3 rd years of the campus offered a beautiful presentation at Swami s divine lotus feet. It was a humorous presentation which included songs, martial arts and dance. Surprisingly most of the students who participated were amateurs in singing and dancing. The theme of the presentation was White and Orange, the underlying secret that Swami is the director of the drama of life. The message from the drama was- With God by your side, miracles happen. The Sports meet, too, stands as a testament for this message.

16 Republic Day: 26 th January 2015 was a historic and a day of pride for India as it was the first time a U.S. President became the Chief Guest for the Republic day parade. The situation was even more momentous and diplomatic in MDH. The Chief Guest Dr.Gangadhar Shastri was escorted imperiously to the dais and the national flag was hoisted with the national anthem being sung with full glory and ardor. Then in the republic address, Sir spoke about the arduous situations which our country had faced in the past - like world war-ii, partition, non-alignment, war with China and Pakistan. But like a burning phoenix our country has emerged victorious and is progressing rapidly. Our country is respected by all and holds within itself Unity in diversity. He further spoke about the humility and love of Bhagawan with the narration of an experience. The program ended with two group songs Aha Raha Tava and Jahaan Daal Daal Par Soneka sung by the students.

17 Muddenahalli Carom League: (1 st Feb 2015): On a fine Sunday morning when people were hitting the beds after Suprabhatam, in a corner of the campus, started the fight between blacks and whites for the queen. It was a battle on the terrain of a square board with lines, circles and holes. These holes or rings in the four corners are considered as the final destination for the warriors of white and black, whoever reaches this home with a queen or a high score wins. Forty four individuals came down to eight semifinalists, and then to two finalists. Win or Lose, everything depends upon the techniques and tactics. A match may be won or lost in not more than seven minutes on an average. First time in the history of Muddenahalli, a one-day event has been such a mega hit. Credits: 1. Vikram G.N 2. Adithya Krishna 3. Sandeep Sahu 4. Shyam Sunder 5. Mani Krishna 6. Swatantra Kumar Mohapatra 7. Prashanth Naik We are responsible for all omissions and errors. Please let us know your feedback. We eagerly look forward for your articles, photos and other contributions