The day began at 0500 with 21 Omkars and Suprabhatam. Being Sunday, the daily morning prayers were based on the Universal Prayer in the form of Vedam. As this was our final day at the divine lotus feet, Puppet Sir spent the morning session reflecting on the immense grace that Swami had showered upon us. We looked back all the wonderful experiences from Gram Seva to Veda Purusha Saptha Jnana Yagna to Prashanti Vidwan Maha Sabha. In addition, there were the various esteemed speakers who had taken their time to address us and the opportunities to offer Vedam and group songs in the immediate Divine presence in Sai Kulwant Hall. Puppet Sir also reflected on the unique work that Heart Valve Bank had been blessed by Bhagawan to carry out for the last 11 years, starting with supplying heart valves to Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Medical Sciences to later extending activities to the General Hospitals, the establishment of the hospital in Pothapalli and most recently extending into the area of cancer care with the involvement in supporting Virat Hospice in providing care to terminally ill patients, along with many other projects. Swami once again demonstrated his omnipresence through the thought for the day, saying, “If your real interest is in me, then your life will manifest it”, which perfectly reflects the story of Heart Valve Bank.
Read about this and more projects that HeartValveBank are involved in on the website: http://www.heartvalvebank.info/
Following our final morning session, we made our way to Mahasamadhi Mandir for the last time for morning bhajans.
At the conclusion of aarti, we made our way back to our mandir room for our final visiting speaker, Professor Sudhir Bhaskar, Principle of the Prashanti Nilayam Campus of Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning, who, as part of his role, is also at the heart of the Gram Seva activities and is someone with whom we have always worked very closely with in that respect. Professor Sudhir Bhaskar spoke to us at length about the deeper significance of Gram Seva as explained to him by Swami himself and narrated some of his own experiences of Gram Seva over the years. He explained that the purpose of Gram Seva from the point of view of the students is multi-faceted, in that it firstly provides the opportunity to do service, secondly it gives them experience in managing a large-scale project and thirdly it exposes them to the society that they should continue to serve at the conclusion of their formal education. He also explained the significance of the items that are distributed during Gram Seva, namely annam, ladoo and clothes (sari and dhoti). As prasadam, each of these items confers vibrations over a certain period of time, with the annam supposed to be consumed the same day, the ladoo lasting a few days and the clothes items lasting for months and years. Thus, these vibrations sustained over long period bring about a transformation in the villagers who receive the prasdam. Professor Sudhir Bhaskar explained that, during the earlier Gram Sevas, villagers would often seem to exaggerate the number of inhabitants in their dwellings, knowing that the instructions were to give however much was stated without question and how as time has gone by they have stopped this practice. He narrated one particular incident from this year where a person from another village had made his way to one of the villages being served that particular day and was harassing the students and faculty members for clothes, despite having received them in his own village. Rather than have him tarnish the reputation of their village, the villagers offered him their own clothes prasdam that they had only just received so that he would stop trying to take extra from the students.
Following Professor Sudhir Bhaskar’s talk, we made our preparations to leave Prashanti. Other than being the last day of our pilgrimage, this day had an added special significance in that it also happened to be Puppet Sir’s 70th birthday. Having departed from Prashanti Nilayam with somewhat heavy hearts, we travelled to Bangalore where we had arranged a special meal to mark the end of this year’s trip and more importantly to celebrate Puppet Sir’s birthday, before departing early the next morning for our flight back to London.
Sri Sathya Sai Institude of Medical Sciences - Whitefield, Bangalore
Pothapalli Hospital
Read about this and more projects that HeartValveBank are involved in on the website: http://www.heartvalvebank.info/
Following our final morning session, we made our way to Mahasamadhi Mandir for the last time for morning bhajans.
At the conclusion of aarti, we made our way back to our mandir room for our final visiting speaker, Professor Sudhir Bhaskar, Principle of the Prashanti Nilayam Campus of Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning, who, as part of his role, is also at the heart of the Gram Seva activities and is someone with whom we have always worked very closely with in that respect. Professor Sudhir Bhaskar spoke to us at length about the deeper significance of Gram Seva as explained to him by Swami himself and narrated some of his own experiences of Gram Seva over the years. He explained that the purpose of Gram Seva from the point of view of the students is multi-faceted, in that it firstly provides the opportunity to do service, secondly it gives them experience in managing a large-scale project and thirdly it exposes them to the society that they should continue to serve at the conclusion of their formal education. He also explained the significance of the items that are distributed during Gram Seva, namely annam, ladoo and clothes (sari and dhoti). As prasadam, each of these items confers vibrations over a certain period of time, with the annam supposed to be consumed the same day, the ladoo lasting a few days and the clothes items lasting for months and years. Thus, these vibrations sustained over long period bring about a transformation in the villagers who receive the prasdam. Professor Sudhir Bhaskar explained that, during the earlier Gram Sevas, villagers would often seem to exaggerate the number of inhabitants in their dwellings, knowing that the instructions were to give however much was stated without question and how as time has gone by they have stopped this practice. He narrated one particular incident from this year where a person from another village had made his way to one of the villages being served that particular day and was harassing the students and faculty members for clothes, despite having received them in his own village. Rather than have him tarnish the reputation of their village, the villagers offered him their own clothes prasdam that they had only just received so that he would stop trying to take extra from the students.
Following Professor Sudhir Bhaskar’s talk, we made our preparations to leave Prashanti. Other than being the last day of our pilgrimage, this day had an added special significance in that it also happened to be Puppet Sir’s 70th birthday. Having departed from Prashanti Nilayam with somewhat heavy hearts, we travelled to Bangalore where we had arranged a special meal to mark the end of this year’s trip and more importantly to celebrate Puppet Sir’s birthday, before departing early the next morning for our flight back to London.
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