Service - Pt.5

The Air Marshal's Wife

Once Bhagawan gave an interview to an Air Marshal, Chief of Air Services.  While talking to the family, suddenly Swami turned to the wife of the Air Marshal and asked, "When did you come?"  She replied that she arrived the previous month.  Then Swami asked the Air Marshal as to when he had arrived?  The Air Marshal had come that morning.  Then Swami wanted to know why there was a gap between the arrival of the wife and the Air Marshal.  It transpired that the Air Marshal's wife was serving  as a Seva Dal in the Sri Sathya Sai Speciality Hospital doing sweeping duty.  This lady swept the corridors of the hospital for one full month and the irony is that her family maintains a fleet of servants in their house in Delhi!

In a similar situation, a man was performing duty at the gate in Brindavan.  This author, out of curiosity, asked him his background.  He happened to be from Kolar Company in Karnataka, of which he was a Director!

"Let me Take You Around Sundaram"

 Ten years ago, this author had the opportunity to visit the Sundaram Temple in Chennai for the first time.  As a matter of great luck, Swami personally showed every room and this author felt very happy.  The place was abuzz with Seva Dal people doing their duty.  Swami asked one of them and it was found that he was a professor in mechanical engineering from the Institute of Engineering Technology, Chennai.

From this we have to ponder and not consider ourselves "more" than anybody.  Ego gives us a superiority complex.  The more and more we comprehend that things have been going on all along (in spite of us), we come down to a state of humility and understanding that we are indeed insignificant in the scheme of things.

Then, Swami asked a few other people about their background: One was the Director of Ashok Leyland Limited.  The other was a Professor in Electrical Engineering from Guindy Engineering College, Chennai.

They Accept it as an Opportunity

There is a lesson to be learnt from all this.  These people, from exalted positions, accept seva as an opportunity.  For them it is not menial work.  It is a sin to consider any work as low and mean.  Then nothing is achieved.  Indeed, service is a golden opportunity and is priceless because one is not paid for it.  In spite of holding a high position when one does seva, it is one's worship to God.

We see such instances in Prasanthi Nilayam.  One of them was the Head of the Department of Economics in Delhi University, with National and International recognition.  He serves in Sai Kulwant Hall as a Seva Dal member - just carrying benches, chairs, mats, etc.

Giving What is Needed

Many Seva Dal people are professionals and experts but they do small duties assigned to them as an offering to God.  Spiritual service is not giving  what you already have or know; it is giving only what is needed at that time.  That is important.

Once, because of over enthusiasm, a Seva Dal volunteer went on distributing sweets to diabetic patients in the hospital.  Now, this is not true seva.  True seva is to do what is needed.  It should be performed depending upon the need of the hour.  So spiritual seva requires us to do what is needed, not to use our specific skills.

(From the book "Sai-chology" by Prof. K. Anil Kumar)