Naham vasami Vaikunthe yoginam hrudaye na cha mad bhakta yatra sevante tatra tishtami manava

I don’t reside in Vaikuntha, I don’t reside in the hearts of the Yogis too. But wherever My devotees do service to others selflessly, I invariably install Myself there.

In the past, Mahavishnu said, “Wherever devotees sing my glory, I go there.” But in Kaliyuga, that statement changes a bit. Wherever My devotees serve, I go there because by glorifying Me, nothing is added to Me, nor by ridiculing Me, anything is reduced. I am constant, I am the same in praise and blame. Therefore, just glorifying God is no more appealing. But serving God in humanity, in the needy is what attracts God to that place whether it is college campus, school campuses or whether it is hospital, what draws Me, what pulls Me to those places is the selfless work that is being done in each of them. This is what I was mentioning to them – if you don’t build a temple or two, God is not going to lose anything. But if you don’t build a school or a hospital, definitely God in the form of the poor, the needy and the sick is going to lose a lot. Therefore, it is all right if you don’t build a temple or two here and there. But if you all join hands to build schools and hospitals which are the true temples of God because that is where God is being served, whether it is in schools or whether it is in these hospitals we treat out students as gods, we treat our patients as gods; in other places Acharya devo bhava they say. But in our school, I told them Vidyarthi devo bhava Students are God and you should serve students. In hospitals they say Vaidyo Narayana Hari because they consider doctor as equal to God. But I tell them Rogi Narayana Hari the patient is God, consider the patient as God and serve. And that is why I go to encourage them, to give them inspiration, to guide them, to do this work and continue to do what they are doing and do more.

Today I came back. Lot of students have been sent home under the rule by the government to take precautionary measures against the spreading of viral infection which is fine, which is right. So much talk is happening around the world. People from many countries are restricted to travel elsewhere in order to curb the spreading of the infection which is also very fine. But so much is being talked of a virus which just came three months ago. And a few thousand deaths has scared the daylights out of everybody because this virus affects both poor and rich in the same way. The President and the Prime Minister and the poorest of the poor, all in the same way. Therefore, so much of talk. But if you know that in India itself congenital heart disease is something that affects 250,000 newborns every year. I don’t think 250,000 people are even infected by this virus so far in the whole of the world. But in India alone 250,000 children are born with congenital heart defects and all the services in India put together, all the hospitals – private, semi-private or semi-government and government facilities put together cannot cater to more than 25,000 surgeries or interventions. It means 225,000 children every year go without any treatment. And they don’t see may be first birthday or second birthday or may be fifth birthday, depends on the size of the problem. So more children are dying in India itself due to congenital heart disease than what has been done because of this virus around the world. But because these children are poor, because these children don’t figure in the list of who’s who of the world, because this doesn’t threaten the children of the rich who can afford the treatment or who don’t go through this, it is a poor people’s disease – congenital heart disease – therefore, no talk happens about it. Not the way it is happening about the virus today. Not in the same way.

More than 5 million children around the world every year die of malnutrition. Before they attain the age of 5, they die of malnutrition. 50% of all the children who are born. That is far bigger a number than whatever is happening in the world at this point in time. 50 lac children dying because of malnutrition, they don’t have enough food to eat, it is so simple, it is not a disease, it is food which they don’t get to eat. And that is why they die. But none of the governments wake up and aggressively act upon an issue as large as that. A few thousands dying here and there is scaring everybody and so much is being done. Borders are being shut, businesses are being closed, schools are being closed, public gatherings are being disbanded. All kinds of measures are being taken because this is affecting everyone – the poor as well as the rich. More rich, because they are the ones who are travelling in flights from country to country for business and tourism whereas the poor are still in their own little villages eating whatever they get, doing their hard work. They are quite safe and fine. Therefore, so much of noise about it. But think for a moment, this doesn’t have a cure so far but these things have a cure.

Heart diseases can be cured. Interventions can be done. Children can be saved. If only the world wakes up to the need for it and puts in the same kind of or even little more effort than what it is putting right now out of the fear of death that is gripping the minds of one and all. But because these children don’t figure in the list of the influential, the rich, the powerful, the famous, they are ignored. Think of malnutrition. Simple thing. Food to eat. They are not asking gold and diamonds. They are just asking food to eat. But children don’t get enough food to eat and there are approximately 50 lac children who die before they attain the age of five because of malnutrition. Imagine dying of hunger in a world like this where every year number of billionaires are increasing. India adds every year more and more billionaires. Whole South East Asia adds, whole world adds. At the same time, there are children dying of hunger, children dying of malnutrition, children dying of heart diseases, children dying of so many other diseases. Don’t have the whole list and statistics but you can go through if you have time and interest. So many children not getting education. Equal opportunities.

These are the diseases which are more dangerous than those that we are so occupied with today. And we need to draw the attention of the world towards these issues which are far more addressable, they can be solved and there is a solution to that. So the man is driven by fear on one end and greed on the other. When it is the fear, they think the world is ending tomorrow. Behaves in such a mad way. And when they are caught by greed, they think the world is never going to end for them. And they go on accumulating, amassing without any thought of tomorrow. That is the way man’s mind is. When it gets negative, it gets so negative as if everything is going to end. When it gets into greed, it gets so greedy that it cannot think, it cannot discriminate. Madly keep on amassing, accumulating without second thought. But the problem of the world, the larger problems of the world, the more dangerous problems of the world can be solved, there is a cure for it. What is the cure? A little selflessness in everyone. Small little doors of selflessness in every mind can cure all the problems of the world. Poverty can be cured, illnesses can be cured. Like congenital heart disease that we are dealing with. Illiteracy can be cured. Equal opportunities. So we went to Raipur hospital and we were taking a long, one-and-a-half hour tour and then we came to one section, there is a board ‘Sustainable development goals’. That is by the UN and all the nations that are part of it. And there are so many goals are there and some of the goals we cater to like giving free health, equal opportunities, education and things like that.

So I was telling that though so many goals are there but how many people are seriously working on these goals. You definitely are working on your quarter on quarter profit goals. That nobody is asking you to. But these goals no real sincere effort. Lot of conferences, conclaves, seminars but all talk. Very little that translates into real good work. And therefore when we are doing this work, then these kind of agencies come here, witness, they are international bodies, they are so so impressed saying that it is such a genuine work what is being done. Why it is to be done they understand. And that is what makes them all join hand with us. We didn’t go ask anybody for any help. People come to us and ask, “You are doing such good work. How can we be a part of it?” I said, “This is not just My work. This is our work. These children are just not My children. These are our children. They are everyone’s responsibility. Every child is everyone’s responsibility. And therefore all of us should join hands and do whatever we can.” And they are so enthused, they are so inspired by the work that is being done. They said, “We will join hands with You, Swamiji. You do how many ever surgeries You want. We will stand behind You. We will stand with You and help You.” I was very happy because without uttering a word, they said it. This is the power of goodness. I was telling yesterday Sanjeevani Hospital is coming to eight years now.

When it started it was like a premature child. Half the building was ready, half was not ready. We started off the operations. I didn’t want to delay it even one day beyond the date. And slowly it started with an emergency, a single operation theatre. Today four operation theatres, a cath lab, there is a blood bank, there is a pathology lab, there are ICUs step down, wards, everything is completely done. And now it has a M.Sc. Nursing course and this November we are getting B.Sc. Nursing course also in that hospital so that training can happen for both B.Sc and M.Sc Nursing within the same hospital. It has grown so much in eight years because of so much of selfless work of so many people. This kind of work alone can save the world. When these children who have been given a new lease of life, they grow up, they will grow up with gratitude in their hearts that they were not forsaken, abandoned. They were not deprived. They were not looked down upon just because they were poor. They were also given same quality even better treatment than most of the hospitals. One doctor is there, Mrs. Pande. She has worked in Bristol and so many places and now she works with us. She is preparing a report on our hospital’s standards versus other hospitals from Boston’s Children to all other large hospitals. And she was saying, not just the quality of medical work, which is extremely high quality, number of complications that we see is one of the highest, the variety we see because big hospitals are only available to the rich. So the larger cases are not seen by the big hospitals. We get a whole gamut of cases. So our doctors were saying these are very rare cases that very few hospitals get to even do these cases but we get all this because we are open to everyone.

So such kind of amazing work. But she said, more than that, the cleanliness, the hygiene, our hospitals have never had one infection case also. The hospital is so clean and well-sterilized that not even one emergency we had because of any infections which is very common in many of these hospitals, even big hospitals. It means from the person who cleans the hospital so to say a janitor onward till the surgeon, they maintain such impeccable quality standards. Our delivery standards are one of the highest. In fact, better than most of the American hospitals in terms of the success rates despite the complications. How is it all possible when these agencies from outside come and observe these parameters, they understand in a moment that this is very high quality work, very noble work and done very selflessly. The patients are not made to feel like beggars. They are not made to feel like customers or clients. They are made to feel like family. Every patient we talk to, every child, every mother was so touched, they were only blessing the hospital. ‘May this hospital grow, develop, prosper. May you serve more and more children.’ So many dreams I saw. They are asking children, “What is that you want to become?” Somebody wants to become policeman, somebody wants to become teacher, somebody wants to become pilot, somebody wants to become a doctor. So many dreams are getting fulfilled in that hospital which would have been strangulated without a facility like this right in its beginning. So that is wonderful work Raipur hospital is doing. In two years it is going to reach tenth year of operations. So all the doctors, everybody got together to discuss how can we do more, how to reach to more and more people. I saw a board there which said, “Close to around 35 to 50% people have already spent some money or taken loans even before they reached the hospital because they had gone to some other medical centres, other hospitals where they have spent tremendous money on diagnostics, scans, consultations and travel. So I wanted to tell them that I want to reach out to every district so that people shouldn’t have to spend that money also before reaching. We are giving it free. Why should they take debt? Why should they burden themselves even before they come to our hospitals? We should reach out to more and more places. So under the larger scheme of things we discussed that how Sanjeevani will open outreach centres.

In Chhattisgarh, five outreach centres have come up in different districts, remote districts so that people can go there first, get themselves screen checked and if they need a surgery, they will be referred to the hospital so that they don’t have to wander around the while country in search of cure and spend so much money already. One person I asked, “How much money did you spend before coming here?” He said, “I have already spent four lac rupees.” “Where did you get four lac rupees from?” He said, “I has to sell my auto rickshaw. I had to sell my land at the village and then I had to take loans.” “Why did you spend this money?” He said, “Because I did not know about this hospital. I went to Delhi, I went to Bombay, I went everywhere. They asked me to do this scan, that, this. And they admitted the child. But they never did the operation. They only took all the money and I still was in the same situation.” But when they came here, things were different. So I was telling Sreenivas the previous day – you know Sreenivas is the Chairperson – that Sreenivas, “Why should we fear when we are doing good work?” Of course, it is hard work, it is challenging. At times difficult. At times it looks like it may not happen or we may not survive the next month but it happens, it happens because I said, the prayers of those mothers, the blessings of those mothers and fathers that come out from the depth of their heart that ‘May this hospital prosper. May this hospital continue to do good to more and more children in the world. May many more mothers and fathers get back their children from the jaws of death.’ That blessing will take care that this hospital runs forever. Not only runs, it thrives and prospers year after year. And that is what is happening. That is the power of selflessness. That is the power of goodness.

It is so self-perpetuating, it doesn’t need anybody’s help, it does not need anybody’s support. It takes care of itself. That is the power of being good. Why I am telling you is that you may think that this is some Divine, miraculous power, as Narasimha Murthy said just now and that this cannot be humanly possible. It is not Divinely also possible. It is possible only for goodness. Wherever there is goodness, everything is possible. If you just be good, if you be pure, be selfless, everything is possible. Anything and everything you can achieve in life as long as it is born out of pure selflessness, goodness, to do good for others, not for one’s own sake. Anything is possible. Live examples, the testimonies of this statement are these hospitals, these schools, these large projects which are taking care of themselves. And when a new agency like Rotary joined us, I hardly had any conversation. He straight away came and said, “We are so happy to see this hospital. Whatever you want to do, you please do. We will stand with you. We will take care of all this.” I was myself surprised. How is that they are saying this to us? But they felt the goodness. They were touched by the goodness. I told him, “I am going to build one more hospital in Kolkata,” because he is from Kolkata. So that is fifth hospital. Then sixth will come near Gujarat-Rajasthan border. Then 250 medical outreach centres in every corner of the country so that nobody has to spend that 1, 2, 3 lacs whatever they have spent wandering around to find a cure, find a remedy for the child. You can go to the nearest centre and from there…For this huge team, I need how many people, I need 250 specialist paediatric cardiac specialists. I need 250 paramedics, 250 nursing. That is just to run the outreach centres. Then I need to run these five hospitals. I need 250 specialist doctors – cardiac surgeons, cardiologists, anaesthetists, ICU, critical care specialists, nursing, junior nursing and all the other administrative and hospital management and all other functionaries of the hospital. So where am I going to get all these people from?

Students: We will go, Swami

Swami: You will go? So now I have added to this, I have told Sreenivas, “You start the B.Sc. Nursing. I will also send some students for B.Sc. and M.Sc. Nursing programmes so they can take care of the hospitals’ nursing department and staffing in the future. So now you have one more vocation opening up that is B.Sc. and M.Sc. Nursing is absolutely free. Somebody told Me, “Swami, why don’t You make them sign a bond because we spend lacs of rupees in training them so at least they should stay with our hospital for a few years so that we ensure that all the investment that is made is at least recovered to an extent?” I told them, “See, these calculations exist for you. I have only one bond. That is bond of love. And that bond is there they will not, what three years, 30 years also they will work without any problem. I am not calculating and considering these silly calculations of money. That doesn’t appeal to Me. Rather you love them so much that they feel like working in these institutions.” So one more thing I want to tell that I discussed, we are starting the DNB Cardiology right now. That permission is coming. After that, integrated paediatric cardiac – we are working on that course. First of its kind in India. So our students will be able to do after MBBS, they will grow into paediatric cardiac specialists within our hospitals. Then I calculated and saw there is one gap in between. What is the gap? MBBS is the gap. Isn’t it? From the school to the PG course, in between there is the MBBS course. So now I have made up My mind, today there are second PUC students are also here and right now I am giving scholarships to them for MBBS degrees in different colleges. But within two years, I am going to start our own medical college where we will provide MBBS for free. So for our own students it is just walking out of the PUC and walking into a medical college. And that college will be absolutely free of charge in terms of its training and every facility will be provided by us. More than ten specialities. And you know where the college is going to come? Right here. Right next door. So just walk out of this Ashram you will get into the medical college. All this is there in My plan. But I want good children, selfless children. See, I had a little disappointment when I gave some of the students an opportunity to join the hospitals, they are only running behind their PG degrees here and there. I told them, “Degree doesn’t teach you anything.” Many of these big, big degrees, they go and join these big colleges but they don’t even get to touch the patient. They only stand there filling the form, patient name, age, disease. Even at the PG level they only get to see the patients from distance – Doordarshan. No close Darshan. The close Darshan is only given for senior surgeons and specialists. Why it happens so? Because there are only few cases and everybody wants to do the case. So they don’t give the opportunity to juniors. So our doctors were telling that what they learnt in five years in other colleges, in one year they have learnt more than that in our hospitals because of the variety and the number of cases they do. So now we also have a training programme. Yesterday I met some three people had come from Nigeria. They are here for one full year to get trained in paediatric cardiology. This is exactly where the Nigeria hospital is in the Enugu state. They are from Enugu state teaching hospital. They all have come to get trained so that when they go back, they will help the Enugu hospital to develop into a paediatric cardiac hospital. Fiji is coming up, Sri Lanka will be ready this year. Nigeria is already ready. I just need specialists to put in there. Like that many hospitals. US has started in a small way. Malaysian government has signed an MoU with our hospitals and they are offering us a whole hospital which is simply lying without being utilised, they want to offer it saying, “You people run it along with Malaysian government to provide paediatric cardiac services.” Like this, people from Afghanistan we have an MoU. They want us to go and train their specialist and also help them set up a facility. In Turkey we are going to set up a facility. Like this, this Sanjeevani hospital chains which are providing paediatric cardiac facilities not just providing paediatric cardiac of high quality but free of cost. Nowhere in the world they do it. So this is how around the world so many centres are going to come up and all of you children have an opportunity. Some of you definitely have to become teachers, professors to ensure that the education mission runs smoothly and reaches to every district, as I said, of the country. Some of you will have to enter in the field of medicine either as doctors or as nurses, as paramedics based on your capacity and your abilities and help there also. I told them, “No work is big or small for Me.” As I said, we don’t have any infection in our hospital because of that little so to say a poor cleaner or a janitor who is doing this work but he or she though uneducated ensure that we have the highest quality of hygiene and cleanliness because of which our patients get cured fast, we don’t get into more complications once they are operated. So that is something also, I told whether it is chairman or watchman, to Me, all are saving the child in their own capacity. That should be the thinking of every one in whatsoever way we should be able to help the child based on our capacity, abilities, skills. All these possibilities are there for all our children.  I want them to utilise it well. Don’t run behind unwanted degrees. They will be only, as I said, a tale behind your name and then you will grow horns also along with it. That is what happens with these. Degrees will come, everything will come to you but learn the skill.  Future is not about degrees any more. In four to five years, you will see the way education system looks at people, the employment industry looks at people is not by degrees. They will not be known because you have come from a big college or you have come from a big institution. They will check you on your skill levels. And based on that they will take you, based on that they will give you opportunity to work for them.  So remember this, that skill is more important. I say, knowledge only when skilled, not killed, but skilled leads to balance. And that balance brings insights, innovations, creativity, inventions because you have skilled the knowledge. But most of these universities they only interested in acquiring knowledge which gets killed.  That is, if you study today, tomorrow you forget. So all the knowledge is killed. There is no skill. But we should not grow as an institution like this. We should always put efforts to understand whatever we have studied and should be able to practically use that knowledge. That should be the effort.

So all this is the future, the golden bright future. But as I always say, Nambina varigi sommu nammanivariki dummu Those who trust Me, they will have all the things in the world, all the wealth, all the name, prosperity. More than that fulfilment in life. And those who don’t trust Me, they will have to go their own way and go through their own struggles. But idea is that so much of opportunity is there. All these opportunities for our students to grab and benefit and when they become professionals, they should go and give that. We are signing research MoUs also with the hospital with our university to develop research faculty in the field of medicine and healthcare. Also our research department is coming up now in the university where I have already given them so many topics to work on, so they bring some, their knowledge is digested and they bring in some new inventions in the field of science and technology which will help the society. So all this is happening. Much more. I think another two years, or two-and-a-half years all these facilities will be available for all the students from the basic degrees onwards to post graduations to Ph. D research, post-doctoral facilities, medicine, post medicine i.e. post-graduation in medicine, further specialisation in medicine and a life-long opportunity to work in such wonderful institutions and train and teach more and more people, help more and more people so that those people will go and help more and more people. See, that is the way to solve the problems of the world. But I don’t see that happening by any government. They may run up and down when there is a political pressure, when it is a matter of prestige, when it is an issue like what it is right now. They will run behind that because they have to save themselves, save the reputation. But who will listen to the pain and the problem of downtrodden and the poor? Who is going to bend low and pick them up and raise them to our own standards? Who is going to go to those nooks and corners of the world and light a lamp in the dark lives of those who are suffering? You think governments will do that? You think big industries will do that? You think this huge corporate institutions will do that? You think even most of the NGOs will do that? No. The only group that will do that is Sathya Sai’s group which is going to go to these nook and corners and save the world. So that is your future. Don’t let it slip out of your hands. Hold it tight. Don’t let it slip out of your grip. That is your responsibility. Giving is My responsibility. To receive and to hold it carefully is your responsibility.