We have to welcome, invite and give joy to everyone who comes to our doorstep. This is the quality of love. The love principle keeps expanding with only the motivation of loving and serving everybody. Expansion is life, contraction is death. True expansion of love is when we broaden our minds and feel that everybody in the world belongs to our family. That is how you traverse from an individual to the society and from the society to God. Only mean-minded people think that these people belong to me and these people do not. For broad-minded people, the whole world is one family. Such a person thinks that everybody belongs to me.

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Here we are again after an year..the place where it all began! Where the joy was too much to withhold so it burst forth into several loving thoughts that swiftly metamorphosed into sweet nectarine words and flew away as colourful blissful updates on the happenings with the Lord in Kodai.

“Divine updates” alias “Kodai updates” has completed an year of bringing the nectarine bliss of  Swami’s updates to all those who thirst, long and pine for the love of the Lord.  It broke boundaries and ushered all those who yearned, into His presence, virtually!
Since then it has also been the launch pad for the ” Ananda Vahini”, the weekly update and “Sai Vrinda”, the official communication website from Sathya Sai Grama.

The hall was full and many had to sit outside due to lack of space. Swami went out to see those who were sitting there, then called Sri Sreenivas who had arrived the previous night, and showed him the lawns in the front of the building and told him about the need for a Bhajan hall. Mr.Sreenivas submitted that we will have the architect come and do a survey and make a plan keeping the future needs in mind.

Then Swami came inside and took His seat while the Bhajans were still on. After Bhajans, He spoke about the nine types of devotion , Sravanam (Listening), Keerthanam (Singing), Vishnu Smaranam (Chanting the Lord’s name), Vandanam (Adoring), Archanam (Worshipping), Pada Sevanam (Serving the lotus feet), Dasyam (Servitude), Saakhyam (Friendship) and Atma Nivedanam (Surrender, Of Oneness). He said that the journey begins from Listening to the name and glory of the Lord and ultimately ends in merger. Swami narrated a story of Lord Narayana and Narada highlighting the efficacy of chanting the Lord’s name.

Swami came down around 9.15 am, to the hall downstairs, where all the devotees were gathered. As Bhajans were in progress, Swami glided to the devotees sitting outside in the corridors, said , “Papam, its very cold today, go and sit on the red carpet” (the walking path for Swami). Looking at some singers, young ladies and men, outside, He told them lovingly, “Go inside, else you will complain that your throats are bad due to cold and blame it for your bad singing, though the real reason is lack of practise”. Then Swami ambled back to the hall, talked to a few and made His way to the chair.  After the melodious bhajans that sweetened the morning, two students enlivened it with their dance performances of Bharath Natayam and Kuchipudi. The boy who performed Kuchipudi on a song dedicated to little Krishna, was dressed like a lady and could not be told from a boy. Swami joked, “Hey, you must dance on the ladies side”.

Swami said, “After the two dancers, its time for Singapore devotees to dance”. Though actually they were to sing a few songs, during which they swayed and clapped to the tunes, which Swami jokingly calls as dancing. They sang their hearts out and all others joined in with candles, swaying to the songs. A divine sight indeed.

All of them were singing and dancing like children in front of their beloved Lord, which did not go unnoticed by Swami. He was very happy with their songs and asked each of them to stand up and introduce themselves to the audience, which they did hesitatingly. There were CFOs, Businessmen, Surgeons, Lawyers, and Presidents of companies, who simply became little children in the presence of their divine parent. To the students He said, “It is for you all to learn from them that I have brought you here so that you know what kind of devotees Swami has. Soon I will take some of you to Malaysia for a youth meet so that you do not remain ignorant like the frogs in the well, but become bees like them, who come from far to taste the nectarine sweetness of Swami’s love and share it with others too”.

After granting an interview, Swami came down to the hall around 9.20 am and took His seat. Looking at a boy singing, Swami said, “You sang enough, now give the mic to the ladies..today is ladies day”. Indeed it was, a few alumnae from Anatapur, a few youth ladies and their children were to perform a few songs for Swami today.

But before that Swami beckoned Sri Narasimhamurthy to announce the results of SSLC Exams (Secondary School Leaving Certificate Exams) conducted by the education board of Karanataka, in which our 10^th grade students appeared and passed with flying colours. 5 out of 6 campuses, had a 100% passing result where as only one campus had 99% passed students. Many of them scored distinctions with one of them from Gulbarga scoring as high as 99% marks. Swami was visibly delighted and conveyed blessings to all the staff and students who had worked hard to achieve this feat. He explained that most of the students come from rural areas with almost no proper facility for education and do not even know alphabets or basic arithmetic before joining our schools, yet they have worked hard with sincerity, not out of force or fear of parents or teachers like elsewhere, but out of love and gratitude for Swami and the society which has given them such a wonderful opportunity to study.

Thereafter Swami called the students who were present and blessed them. A student from Gulbarga campus who scored 97% marks on being asked by Swami, replied that he wanted to join Swami’s PU college, then become engineer and help in the construction more schools. Swami blessed Him with a gift, but more importantly with His grace and guidance to construct the Bidar campus after finishing his engineering, which also would be taken care of by Swami.