From Team Venugaanam's Desk

We are delighted to bring to you the December 2012 edition of Venugaanam. This edition begins with Swami’s Divine call to His devotees and students to give Him a special birthday gift. While the Divine is free from all desires, yet for the welfare of His devotees, He too expects us to give this one gift to Him. What is this gift and what is the best way to please Swami? Read this discourse of Swami and know it in His own words.

In Atmajyothi, we continue the deliberation on realizing our inner nature and true potential. We are  all aspects of the One Self and this deliberation throws light on how we can de-identify ourselves from the body mind complex.

Grama Seva in Puttaparthi has always been a source of much inspiration and joy to all involved. In this interesting article named, Autobiography of a tractor, Bhargav shares his perspective on the role played by even a simple tractor and how the Grama Seva vehicle is a harbinger of joy in every village that it enters.

Arun Krishnamurthy narrates a beautiful episode from his experience as student of Swami in Parthi. Love is Divine but when that love has the Lord as its source, then it is that much sweeter. Its leads to the realization that “To Know God is to Love God”

SowmyaRoopa shares her experiences as a student of the Anantapur campus. In the series called Golden moments , she narrates incidents that happened during those precious years and specific instructions from Swami to improve our lives. In this article she shares the life of Shirdi Sai as narrated by Parthi Sai.  Prakash speaks on the havoc played by the prevalence of greed in societal transactions. He shares his opinion on how a balance of requirements with ceiling on desires can help us to develop as better humans.

There have been some significant developments last month.  Construction is progressing rapidly and the masonry , plumbing and electrical work are being done for the first floor also.

Swami's  birthday celebrations were held on 23rd November morning at Phase 1 of Sai Krushna Mandir amidst much grandeur. It was wonderful to have students, devotees and their families participate in the simple but satisfying function.The great take away from this function was the amount that can be achieved when dedicated families and individuals come together for Swami's work keeping Him as the center and reason of their lives. As Swami says, when like minded people unite for a noble purpose, wonders can be achieved. The best part of the function involved the procession of the construction workers who were given a standing ovation amidst loud cheering as they entered Sai Krushna Mandir and felicitated for their significant contribution towards the building. Read more in the update on construction and Swami’s birthday celebrations update.

We are happy to have your feedback on how to make ‘Venugaanam’ a better communication tool. You may kindly mail us at contactus@saikrushnamandir.org . Do feel free to share with us your experiences in following Swami’s teachings or on any other theme of your choice.

Happy reading! Wish you all a Very happy and festive Christmas. Even as we celebrate the birthday of Christ - may Swami turn our lives into a celebration of His message of love and service.

With All our Prema,

Team Venugaanam

Sai Krushna Charitable Trust

A Birthday Gift- Divine Discourse

Emodiments of Love!

You must be thinking about the gift you have to offer Swami on this Birthday.

You can be happy that you have given Swami a proper gift only when you love your fellowmen, share their sufferings, and engage yourselves in serving them. That is the only gift I wish for. The present given to God has to be pure, steady and selfless Love.

On this birthday I have only one desire. I am desiring this only to promote your aanandha.

Rich people and people in power have plentiful servants. But the distressed, the poverty-stricken, and those who suffer have no one to serve them. Go to such people and be their friends, their kith and kin, their closest well-wishers. Let them welcome you as such. If you pour spirituality into the ears of those who are tortured by hunger, it will not be assimilated. First,   quench the hunger. Give them God in the form of food. Give them God in the form of clothes. Give God in the form of peace to those who are afflicted with anxiety. Give God in the form of medicine to those who are suffering from ill health. Give God in whatever form which will assuage fear, pain and sorrow. It is only when this is done that spirituality can soak into the heart. If you act contrariwise, instead of spiritual feelings you will be promoting atheism itself.

ATMAJYOTHI – The Eternal Light of SatChitAnanda

By  Shri Lakshminarayan Aithal

(This is a guided discussion on the essence of Vedanta which shows us how to deliberate and reach the conclusion that the real I is actually Divine and not the mind-body-intellect complex.)

I  AM PURE, FULL, ETERNAL AND ONE.

    On  the  whole,  we  have  deliberated  and  proved  that  the  Self  is  Pure ( Shuddha );  and  He  doesn’t  have  an  iota  of  impurity  either  of  the  worldliness  or  of  the  inert  world.  There  is  no  valid  evidence  to  tell  that  the  Self  is  bound  by  wakefulness,  dream  and  deep-sleep  states;  and  the  states  are  tagged  to  the  Self.  For  the  Self  remains  to  exist  as  He  is,  in  spite  of  appearing  and  disappearing  of  the  states  in  Him,  the  Self  is  Full ( Poorna ).  It  is  a  wrong  concept  that  He  exists  somewhere  else  in  the  world  and  He  is  bound  by  time  and  space;  and  He  is  suffering !  Really,  there  is  no  place  where  the  Self  doesn’t  exist;  and  the  place  is  also  imagined  in  the  Self  and  it  appears  in  Him;  and  therefore,  the  concept  of  place  doesn’t  agree  with  Him  in  the  least.  Similarly,  the  Self  is  not  bound  by  time;  for,  the  time  is  also  imagined  in  the  Self.  That  which  is  bound  by  time  and  space,  at  a  particular  point  of  time  is  destroyed  by  either  the  destruction  of  its  parts  or  the  separation  of  its  parts;  but  the  Self  is  not  bound  by  either  time  or  space;  and  therefore,  the  Self  is  Eternal  One ( Nitya ).  For  all  these  reasons,  the  Self  is  One  alone ( Eka ),  that  means,  the  Self  doesn’t  have  a  second  entity  including  the  self  and  the  inert.  When  the  self  and  the  inert  objects  appear,  as  we  have  shown  already,  these  have  a  mere  appearance;  and  in  the  deep  sleep  there  is  no  trace  of  living  and  non-living.  If  the  dream  is  off,  the  dreamer  alone  remains  and  so  the  delusion  is  off;  the  rope,  etc.  the  support  of  the  delusion  alone  remain;  and  in  the  deep-sleep  which  is  bereft  of  the  appearance  of  the  wakefulness  and  the  dream,  this  Self  alone  remains;  and  therefore,  the  Self,  Himself,  alone  is  the  essence  of  the  states.  Therefore,  the  Self,  in  all  respects,  is  the  One  without  the  second.

Construction and Birthday Updates- Sai Krushna Mandir

With the Divine Blessings and grace of our Beloved Swami, the ground floor of Phase 1 of the children’s home – Sai Krushna Mandir – was inaugurated on 23^rd November, 2012. Swami's  birthday celebrations were held on 23rd November morning at Phase 1 of Sai Krushna Mandir amidst much grandeur.
It was wonderful to have students, devotees and their families participate in the simple but satisfying function.

The great take away from this function was the amount that can be achieved when dedicated families and individuals come together for Swami's work keeping Him as the center and reason of their lives. As Swami says, when like minded people unite for a noble purpose, wonders can be achieved. Currently, the plumbing, masonry and electrical works are all being taken up for the first floor also. The entire building would be finished by February/ March. It is expected that Sai Krushna Mandir will be functional as a children’s home from April/May 2013. That way, the children who will be coming will also be able to join during the change of academic session. We also invite applications for suitable volunteer families who will be willing to live with and take care of the children. 

Grama Seva- Autobiography of a Tractor

By KVRK Bhargav


I chugged out of the Gopuram gate with a bunch of boisterous boys chanting Jai Bolo Bhagwan Sri Satya Sai Baba ji ki Jai. Another arduous day had started for me in the annual Sri Satya Sai Grama Seva 2012. They call me the beast of burden perhaps mockingly. I am always an object of dislike due to my lack of agility, a bumpy ride and  status of a stock vehicle. I am a tractor named T4 (fourth group) and I consider myself a part of the Grama Seva irrespective of what others think. I have got used to this step motherly treatment of starting half an hour to forty five minutes before the whole convoy leaves which is a dampener for students to join me. The remonstrances showed by Adi Narayana, my driver,  regarding leaving early were brushed aside by the teacher in-charge who said rather dismissively, "After all the tractor is like a tortoise, it can't match the speed of the mini trucks which are like the hares. Tractor has to reach in time to the village to supply us with food prasadam and ladoos."

Nectarine Love Divine

Arun Krishnamurthy

“To Know God is to Love God”, I was taught when I was a child. For a very long time the meaning of this seemingly simple yet very profound statement kept eluding me.

Perhaps just to discover the inner meaning of this statement I was given the wondrous opportunity to study in Swami’s institution. I joined the MBA course in Prasanthi Nilayam in the year 2005. The first grace of Swami was shown to us when after a hiatus of few years he called upon the new joining MBA students to Brindavan, Whitefield. It made the feeling absolutely special for us new comers. I was totally overawed by the occasion and i saw other  students were touching Swami’s feet, holding hands and Swami was responding to all of them with such sweet smiles and talking to a few of the students. I mustered just enough courage to go and touch Swami’s hands with my two fingers and then waited to see if there was any reaction. Swami just smiled.

Golden Moments- His Story as heard from Him

 By Sowmya Roopa

It was a joyous trip to Puttaparthi in 1984 since it was my first trip as a student studying in first year B.A at the Sri Sathya Sai college for women at Ananthpur. It was Ramzan day. Bhagavan called us for an interview in the mandir hall. Bhagavan entered and asked “ Yemi Samacharam? Any questions”. The librarian Mrs Pushpa Ramana requested Bhagwan to tell us about his early life as Shirdi Sai baba, since nobody knew about Shirdi Baba’s parentage, childhood etc. Bhagawan graciously revealed the secrets of his parentage and life in His previous Avatar as Shirdi Baba .The following is the record of that interview in 1984 as written in my dairy at that time itself.

Every little thing is of some value, until and unless we know the value of a thing we cannot put it into proper use. If the husk is not removed from paddy, we do not get rice .We cannot wear cotton bales as such, only when it is made into thread and woven as cloth we can use it. A rock from a mountain cannot be worshipped until it is made into an idol. Diamond is precious only if it is extracted from the earth. Even gold mixed with copper, silver etc is of lesser value than purified gold free from other metals. With out the husk, paddy is not different from rice. Human life gains Divine value when the satwa ,rajas and tamoguna are taken away from it. Life with desires is man, life without desires is God.

GREED: The Root of our Problems

By Prakash Srinivasan





Each of us is blessed with our own strengths and weaknesses. But there are some qualities that God has bestowed on all of us that assume the form of vices in us. One of the most addictive of all of them is greed. Each of us has been greedy at many points of our life, it just does not mean amassing of wealth but it starts in the smallest of forms from our childhood. Only a handful of people in the world must have conquered this thorn-like addiction.