When Sri Sathya Sai beautified the Administrative Building of His University… Sri Sathya Sai arriving at the University headquarters December, 1982 Sri Sathya Sai instructing Registrar Chakravarthi about interior decoration at the entrance of the University Admin Building  Bhagavan played the role of an expert interior decorator in beautifying the interior rooms in the Administrative building of Sri Sathya Sai Institute Higher Learning, and guided Sri Chakravarthi, Registrar of the Institute from time to time. Bhagavan had sent a number of objects of art and curios to be displayed. He used to visit the building often to inspect the progress of the decoration work. He used to recollect the objects that He sent to the Institute and in repeated visits, would ask for confirmations of their preservation and proper maintenance.  Indeed a unique Chancellor who not only guided the engineers and architects about the shape of the dome in the Administrative building, but also gave directions in the art of interior decoration!

“What is Gita?” December 9, 1997 Swami  : What is this? Student  : Vedam competition card, Swami. Swami  : What is this? (Pointing to the globe on the card)  Student  : Earth, Swami. Swami  : Earth middle Me Hai. Ye Kya Hai? (Earth is in the centre. What is this?) Student  : Swami, the earth rotates. Swami  : (Swami read the contents of the card) Vedam Competion 10th, 11th, 12th … individual… chanting… Gita… What is Gita?  Student  : Song, Swami. Swami  : What song? Student  : Krishna’s song… Student 2  : Celestial song, Swami. Swami  : Wisdom song… How was the morning talk? (Referring to a talk given by a senior government official in the Prashanti Nilayam Campus Auditorium for the Thursday Moral Class) Student  : Nice, Swami. Swami  : I didn’t like. He is a government officer and he was talking about Harshad Mehta, mistakes committed by the police, etc. (After a pause) What was there for lunch? Student  : Rice and Sambar. Swami  : What vegetables? Student  : Brinjal, Swami. Swami  : Brinjal for sambar!! What vegetable with Chapatti? Student  : Radish peas curry. Swami  : What is peas in Telugu? Student  : Batani. Swami  : What is radish? Student  : Mullangi, Swami.

Shri Sathya Sai “What is happiness?” December 11,  1997 Swami  : (To a student) How are you? Student  : Happy. Swami  : What is happiness? Happiness is union with God. (After a pause) Not with wife!!  (To a teacher) Who is doing the torch work? (referring to the torch to be made for the Annual Sports Meet of the Sri Sathya Sai Educational Institutions.) Teacher  : Swami, some 2nd P.G students are taking care of it. Swami  : Don’t make any animal structures like horse or donkey. Pakshi Cheste Baaguntundi. (It will be good if you make the troch in the form of a bird,) December 12, 1997 To the students who are preparing the torch… Swami  : Enduku Chata Techaru? (Why did you bring winnowing basket?) Then the students showed some models. Swami told that He had already seen them in the afternoon. Swami liked one of them. The teacher, who was in charge told Swami that it was an eagle and the model would be brown in colour. Swami  : Make a dove. You should make it beautiful, cricketers seeing it should be surprised. Even the Prime Minister will be present.  Students  : Yes, Swami.

Sri Sathya Sai Inaugurates the Kurnool Cloth Market Friday, December 04, 1964 to  Thursday, December 10, 1964 On December 4th, Swami inaugurated the Sreenivasa Cloth Market at Kurnool, and gave some guidelines to the members regarding the administration of the market. He said: “The opening of this Shrinivasa Cloth Market is just an excuse for My coming to Kurnool and meeting all of you, including the two ministers, Dr. Lakshminarasiah and Alapathy Venkataraamiah. Life itself is a market, where giving and taking, bargaining and speculating are part of the game. Life has its ups and downs, its profits and losses, its balance sheets and disappointments, its joys and sorrows. But the giving of Bhakti (devotion to God) in exchange for Mukti (liberation) is the most profitable business of all; and I am interested in telling you about that only. Bhakti is not simply the worship of the Lord; it is much more than that. Primarily it is the control of the senses; for, when life is offered as worship, the senses do not run after transient things. They can be thus controlled, for man is not a weak animal; he is endowed with mighty spiritual power and he can learn to use it; he can tap this power through prayer, which brings down Grace to fill the reservoir of his heart. Man tames the lion and the elephant to obey his call; can he not tame his emotions and passions? Make your strength evident in the face of hardships; when all goes well, you become soft, the blows of defeat toughen you into heroes. The difficulties that the organisers of this market encountered, as described to us in the report, show that they but deepened the determination of Raamalingiah and others to plod on, until they won through. Alapathy Venkataraamiah is the Minister in charge of temples in Andhra and the words of advice which he gave now are worthy of attention. He spoke of the culture of India and its excellence. It held up to mankind for reverence of not conquerors and millionaires but hermits and saints. He has also a great love for Sanskrit, the language of our scriptures, which give this land the inspiration to advance along the spiritual path of discrimination and non-attachment. The scriptures are so framed that they serve the highest needs of all classes of people, whatever their age, avocation or attainment. Like a loving mother the Vedas guide and guard all her children, wherever they may be. The body is worn by the Jeeva to realise God Venkataraamiah also said that the attitude of Bhakti is the important thing, not the name and form which has drawn it out. Yes; the Lord has a thousand names. In fact, all names are His; there is no name that is not His. Krishna, Shrinivasa, Sai Baba – all are names of the same entity. The body is worn by the Jeeva in order to realise God, the source from which the Jeeva came. That is why it is said that it is very lucky for living beings to get equipped with the human physique. To be endowed with a desire for things of the spirit is the height of fortune. A grandfather was fondling his grandson, a little lad of four; the boy asked him his age; the grandfather said he was seven; the lad refused to believe; how could a boy of four have a grandfather of seven? But, the old man said, “My dear boy! I do not care for all the 63 years I spent in the darkness; it is only seven years since I came under the influence of a Guru, who opened my eyes and led me along the path to realisation. I have lived only seven years so far; the rest, I could as well ignore as wasted. I speak the truth always; this the truth.” That is the proper attitude. Do not admire and gape at the engineering achievements of countries that are able to shoot a rocket round the earth or over the moon or invent a bomb that can wipe out an entire city. That is the culmination of the strife for death and for mastery over other nations. That path leads only to misery, loss, hatred, and waste. The competition is about who will earn more in less time. All this comes about because man mistakes himself to be just a bundle Of the senses, packed into this body. Really speaking, he is a spark of divinity waiting to illumine the intelligence. Man has to develop spiritual attitude India has been announcing this Truth to the world since ages; this is the land where holy personages, divine personalities, saints and sages, Avatars, carrying the authentic stamp of God, have demonstrated that nothing else can give man the peace and joy that the contemplation of the Universal Atma can give. The poor ryot who throws a paisa into the river Godavari when he passes over the bridge might appear to the half-educated boor, smoking in the comer, to have wasted a precious coin, which he could have put to better use, perhaps, buying a bidi! But, what he did is a spiritual act; he felt that the Godavari was a living mother, who gave food to men and cattle, and his paisa is not just a coin, it is an attitude of mind, a token of gratefulness, a flower of worship. He has the Atma Bhava (spiritual attitude), while the critic who sneers at him is suffering from Anatma-Bhava (un-spiritual attitude). Hindu Dharma teaches man to see and develop this Atma-Bhava not only with all mankind who are bound by the same tie of kinship, but, with all beings and all nature. Man is not isolated; he is one with all. All have to be served:, all have to be known, for he is this all.” The Minister for Panchayat Raj, Dr. M. N. Lakshmi Narasaiah; and the Deputy Minister for Municipality and Religious Endowments, Sri Aalapati

Sri Sathya Sai Visit to Tiruchirappalli in Tamil Nadu December 13 – 19, 1966 Swami reached Whitefield on the 14th December, 1966 and gave Darshan to the devotees gathered there. He left for Tiruchirappalli via Madras on 15th morning. Swami inaugurated the three day Session of the Prashanti Vidwan Maha Sabha in Tiruchirappalli on 16th December.  Mahavidwan Sri Arumuganavalar, Superintendent of the Institute for Training of Hindu Religious Teachers, Madras, addressed the gathering. Swami blessed the devotees with His Discourse. He said: “There is a great deal of argument and agitation because the currency has been devalued; some say it is a good step, some say it had to be done whether good or bad, some argue it could have been avoided or postponed. But the net result has been anxiety and worry for all. More important, however, and more to be deplored is the devaluation of man that has been taking place systematically in recent times. Man is held to be a tool, an instrument, and not as born primarily for his own fulfillment. Each man has to educate himself through trials and errors and attain graduation by reaching the full knowledge of his own reality. He has a great destiny and he is equipped with the skills needed to achieve that destiny. He is not a helpless victim of circumstances. But the tragedy is that he has allowed the equipment to rust through neglect and he has forgotten the goal. The road he has to traverse is also overgrown with brambles and the signboards have disappeared. That is why the person who laid the road has come again to lead man along it, after repairs and renewals.Consider how man has been shaped since millions of years for this high destiny. During the primeval cosmic chaos, there were two phenomena struggling to overwhelm each other. On one side was the fiery lava flood vomited by the volcanoes and emanating from the crevices and chasms that scarred the horrifying face of the earth. The destructive conflagration swept in all directions scattering panic and death, heralding the end of everything. On the other side, scarcely noticed, microscopic amoeba floated furtively on the water’s edge or clung desperately in the cracks of rocks, keeping the faint spark of life unharmed from fire and flood. Who could have predicted at that time that the future was with the animalcule or amoeba, whose appearance itself was due to an accident, and whose survival was an enigma? Who could have foreseen that these minute specks of life could hold out triumphantly against the devastating onslaught of heat and cold? Man is the zenith of creation But that speck of Chaitanya or Life-Consciousness won through. Sheer intelligence, adaptability and perseverance in ‘willing’ to live helped it to defeat the mortal fury of the elements. By the unfoldment of that Chaitanya, the amoeba blossomed into various species of living beings, gigantic and microscopic; at last, it grew into man; in man, it bore fruit as goodness and virtue, sympathy and sacrifice, oratory and music, song and dance, scholarship and Sadhana, martyrdom and sainthood, and as repositories of Divinity; nay, even divine Manifestations assumed the human form. This is the reason why man is said to be the zenith of creation. This is the purpose for which he has struggled through stone and grass, tree, bird and beast. Hence, man should not fritter away the precious prize he has won; he should not slide back into the beast; he must move forward into Divinity. He must become aware of his strength and weaknesses and become clear about his goal, his path and his potentialities. He must act up to his worth and capacity.  Ego is the seed pot of down-dragging tendencies  Man is endowed with the capacity to separate himself from his body and the senses and the mind and the intelligence. He feels and says, My eyes, my ears, my feet, my hands, my mind, my reason, etc. He knows, deep down in his consciousness, that he is apart from all these; that he is their user, owner and master. No animal feels itself different from the body; for them, they are the body. They do not know that they are occupants of the physical frames. Man can, by a simple exercise in silent reasoning, discover that the physical frame is unreal and temporary. This should lead to Vairagya (detachment), achieved through Vichakshana (analysis), the result of Viveka (discrimination). Once man is free from undue attachment to the body and its appurtenances, he is liberated also from the pulls of joy-grief, good-bad, pleasure-pain, etc. He is firmly established in equanimity, fortitude, undisturbed balance. Then man discovers that the world is one kin, in God; that all is Joy, Love, Bliss. He realises that he himself is all this apparent world, that all the multifarious manifestations are the fantasies of the Divine Will, which is his own reality. This expansion of one’s individuality to cover the ends of the Universe is the highest leap of man. It gives supreme Ananda (bliss), an experience for which sages and saints spent years of prayer and asceticism. Egoism is the seed pot of greed, envy, anger, malice, conceit and a host of other down-dragging tendencies. They cloud his intelligence; they divert the attention from truth and make the false appear as real, the real distorted as false. So it becomes essential to cleanse the mind of these through regular Sadhana, to tune the little will to the Infinite Will of God, so that it becomes merged in His Glory. Scholarship or skill, however deep and varied, have no cleansing power. They only add the alloys of pride and competition. Learned men are not necessarily good, nor are men with spiritual powers over nature above pride, envy and greed. Satya, Dharma, Shanti and Prema are the hallmarks of a purified heart, a heart where God is enshrined and is manifest.  Man today lives only at the animal level The world is

Sri Sathya Sai – The Sadguru – By Dr. D. K. K. Vamsi When I was asked to write about my experiences with Swami, I was in a dilemma, as I had never written any of my experiences before. Nevertheless, recollecting the beautiful moments with Swami rather than the thought of writing an article left me with an ocean of gratitude for the love He has showered upon me. On deeper introspection I realised that my life owes its existence to His Grace and Compassion. The important question that I should have asked is, “What is it that Swami has not done for my living as well as my life rather than, what is it that Swami has done for my living as well as for my life?” With these feeling, I would now try to recapitulate some of the golden moments of love that He made me experience Adharam Madhuram… Nayanam Madhuram… The first thing that any devotee or a student comes across is the beautiful face, eyes and the Lotus Feet of Bhagavan. When Swami looks at us, I always feel that Swami looks at our past, present and future. When I look into in His eyes I always feel the love and concern of a mother. At the same time, there were instances when Swami would strictly warn me through His glance. All the lessons of discipline and feeling of love were experienced by me in just a single glance of His. Whenever I touched His feet I used to feel a great sense of relief. I knew that once we surrender to Him completely the problem becomes His. So the first lesson I have learnt is that we have to be very attentive when we are with Swami, as we may miss the important lessons of His life, in case we miss a single look of Swami. I have also learnt that it is only in the deep moments of silence and in a state absolute calm that we can communicate with God. Swami knows and owns everything and yet still He is so humble that He acts as if He knows nothing. We know nothing, but we act as though we know everything. We feel that we control things and it is because of us that things happen. I will recollect one incident that made me realise my ignorance. Once I was going to the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur for a research presentation along with my friends. I was speaking to Swami in my mind, “Bhagavan, it is because of Your grace that we are happy; we have prepared well for the examination; You have to take care of us during the presentation…” Swami patiently listened for a while in my vision and after some time He looked at me and said, “Mee Duty Meeru Cheyyandi Chalu. Migilindi Nenu Chusukuntanu” (You do your duty. That is enough, the rest I will take care). The Registrar on a later date informed us that Swami had enquired with the Vice-Chancellor in Yajur Mandir about our travel and stay at the IIT, Kanpur. This made me realise that Swami is the one who had made this trip happen and Swami is the one who was taking care of us during the trip. On the other hand, we the ignorant ones, try to update Swami, about what He has planned for us. So the lesson is to always do our duty and leave the rest to Swami. Most of the time, we often get intensely worried about our career. We plan many things for our future without realizing that God has already planned everything for us and it is only that we execute His plan in course of time. In my life I am really wonder struck at the way Swami made me do M.Phil. and PhD. He even chose the topic for my research and post-doctoral study. He indeed has taken care of my entire career. I have understood, once we are His students, He indeed makes a unique plan for each of us. Let us endeavour to execute His master plan with humility and self-confidence. Another important lesson that I have learnt is the supreme value of Bhajans. The one thing that keeps me going all along is Bhajans. Attending Bhajans every day gives me all the relief that even that best treatment in the world cannot give. It is only in the Bhajan session that we commune with God in the best possible way and obtain tremendous peace of mind and joy. This is the time for soul-searching and inner thinking, in an otherwise activity-filled day. These are the valuable lessons which have enriched my life and have elevated me. I express my deep thankfulness and gratitude to Bhagavan who is the very Light of my life. I pray to Him to make me a worthy instrument of His. – Dr. D.K.K. Vamsi Student and Research Scholar (2001-2013) Currently, Assistant Professor Department of Mathematics and Computer Sciences Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning Prasanthi Nilayam Campus