Sri Sathya Sai International Organization - USA

The human being is born to render selfless service and not to indulge in selfishness. Selfless service alone can achieve unity of humankind. Only through unity can humanity attain Divinity. Hence, service is very essential to understand this unity in humanity. People are under the impression that service means merely to help the poor, the weak and forlorn. It is a big mistake to think that you are rendering service to others. In fact, you are serving yourself because the same principle of the Atma, the same Principle of Love, is present in all. All human beings are essentially one. The differences lie only in their feelings. So, a person should change his or her feelings and try to recognize the truth that the same Divinity is immanent in all. Only then can there be transformation in the human being.

On a dry leaf, floating on the waves of the sea, an ant desperately struggled to cling. A dove noticed it, flew over, and clasping the leaf in its beak it transferred it to dry ground. The ant too is Divinity encased in that infinitesimal sheath. It is as important in God’s eyes as many a monstrous denizen of the jungle or the sea. God weighs the love that prompts you to save, the compassion that urges you to alleviate pain. Sathya Sai Organizations must take up seva (service) as sadhana (spiritual discipline), the members must see Me as Sarvantharyami (indweller of all) and do seva as puja.

You men and women! Your life is a long journey, and your desires are the luggage. “Less luggage, more comfort makes travel a pleasure.” So, reduce your desires. Human birth is gifted to serve others, not just to eat, drink, sleep and make merry. The best way to love God is to love all and serve all. Man’s foremost duty is to serve his fellow men and make them happy. Your life will be redeemed only when you involve yourself in the service of society. The highest sadhana (spiritual practice) is to transform love into service. Service will lead you to devotion.

Through sevā (selfless service) you realize that all beings are waves of the ocean of Divinity. No other sādhanā (spiritual discipline) can bring you into the incessant contemplation of the one - ness of all living beings. You feel another’s pain as your own. You share another’s success as your own. To see everyone else as yourself and your - self in everyone, that is the core of the sādhanā of sevā. Again, sevā makes the ego languish for want of food. It makes you humble before the suffering of others; and when you rush to render help, you do not calculate how high or low a person’s social or economic status is. The hardest heart is slowly softened into the softness of butter by the opportunities that the sevādal (volunteer service corps) offers.