November 23rd is celebrated as the “birthday” of Sri Sathya Sai Baba. Sathya Sai Baba (also referred to as “Swami”) and the Seva organization that he guides has become a global phenomenon, guiding individuals to understand themselves by strengthening the human values of Sathya (Truth), Dharma (Righteousness), Shanti (Peace), Prema (Love), and Ahimsa (Non-violence).The march of this Seva organization hasn’t been too smooth. Sathya Sai Baba and the organization have met with criticism and scrutiny from a number of quarters including some of the larger media companies in the national and international scene. To prove that criticism is only a helpful factor in development, the organization has multiplied its service activities and taken further responsibilities in co-creating a world built on the foundation of Love.

In addition to the miracles of omniscience, omnipresence and omnipotence, which the believers of Sai vouch for, the other miracles of Love include the super specialty hospitals where medical care is given free of cost, and educational institutions where the structure is built on the foundation of human values.

Be it the UN Water Forum, post Tsunami relief measures, or blood donation camps, the presence of Sai volunteers is felt. While the common tantrum resonates with the fickle mindedness and selfishness of the new generation, the youth wing of the Sai movement has challenged this concept by engaging in an exercise of transforming themselves to Mahatma Gandhi’s ideal of being the change that they want to see in the world (www.saiyuvak.org).

And this revolution has permeated the field of business, economics and management. Sathya Sai Baba has been guiding B-school professors, researchers and entrepreneurs like Peter Pruzan, William and Debra Miller, Isaac Tigrett, Jack Hawley and some of the leading business houses in India, to spiritualize their areas of action.

While ideas related to Club of Rome, Internalization of Externals and Carbon/ Ecological Footprint remains restricted to a few, due to the intellectuality associated with them, the (profound, yet simplified) teaching of Sai Baba exhorting people to practice “Ceilings on Desires” and channelising the saved money/resources from that endeavor to service activities is presumably the most profound way of bringing about a sustainable planet.

The empathy shown by the Sathya Sai Seva Organization to take up activities that support the poorest of the poor made our President to proclaim, “Baba has launched a ballistic missile against poverty”. Sathya Sai Baba’s missile against the greater poverty – the lack of love that is pervading the world - has transformed individuals who were engrossed in violent tendencies, an example being that of Philip M. Prasad, a former Naxal leader.

The belief of Love resonating itself has strengthened with incidents of service activities being supported by even those projected as social evils like Naxalites, who whole-heartedly supported community water projects undertaken by the Sathya Sai Seva Organization. As Maulana Wahiduddin Khan (a spiritual leader who established the Islamic Centre in New Delhi) stated in an interfaith conference, the spiritual India that Swami Vivekananda dreamed of is emerging in the international city of Puttaparthi, the abode of Sathya Sai Baba.

- Ajith Shankar
Mailto:ajithsrn@EcologyFund.net