Issue 91 - September 30, 2018
REGION 3 SPECIAL ISSUE
2018 First - Third Quarter
Service Summary
Inspirational Note...
In 2015 one of the Satsangs held in the divine presence at Pacific Harbour, Fiji. A devotee asked if people will come for Seva .

And here is what Swami said:

Swami: First you come for Seva . Seva will make you humble. Don’t run after position and prestige. Even before an Ashram starts, people decide who is going to be the chairman, who will be the secretary, who will be the treasurer. First let the Ashram start. Even before you buy the cow, you are already making the payasam (rice pudding), is it not true? You must be willing to say, “I want to be Swami’s best servant. Give me the most difficult job; give me the job that will make me most humble to kill my ego.” That is how you should fight for responsibility – the rights will follow. Do not create a bad example, like the boy quoted just now, of organisations that do not understand the inner significance of the teachings of their masters and misquote them and create differences. Understand everything in the right context and work together to bring about transformation in the people of this country – and, of course, the transformation begins with you.
2018 Region 3
First - Third Quarter Service Update
Everything Began with His command
Do More Seva
By Bhagawan ’s Grace, the last nine months were especially creative and included expansion into new forms of service. Everything began with His command: do more Seva .

The service activities that took place can be summarized as follows:

1.    Narayana Seva : Takes place twice a week; every Wednesday and Friday from 4:30 pm to 10 pm. Approximately 20 to 30 volunteers each time – most of them youth – buy, prepare and cook vegetables. About 300 meals cooked each time are distributed to homeless people. Over the last nine months, around 27,000 meals were prepared and distributed. The team has also distributed hundreds of sleeping bags, thick blankets and clothing.
Service Activities in Cyprus
The youth of Cyprus have been engaged in service activities by the grace of Swami and the following is a summary of the activities done in the past nine months:

  • Narayana Seva takes place every Thursday, where the youth prepare and distribute 200 meals to people and families who suffer from poverty. Furthermore, the youth in Cyprus allocated 2,000 coupons to impoverished people, enabling them to acquire food from a local bakery.
  • Every month the youth prepared 150 different bags filled with dry food including rice, pasta, canned milk, sugar, flour, biscuits, olive oil and cornflakes, cleaning and hygiene products which are distributed to families in need.
Do not Search the Ideal Person but Search Ideals in People that you Meet
The following are the activities where the youth have been involved for the past nine months in various cities within Italy, such as Piedmont/Lombardy, Ayurville, Padua, Ashram Casa del Divino in Assisi, Rome, Association of Social Advancement ‘Esaudire’, Catania and Sicily:

Seva
  • Seva: in a canteen for poor people in Piedmont/Lombardy.
  • Food Collection: food collection and distribution to 85 families in severe economic difficulty near and in Milan.
Swami is the Guiding Force
For the last nine months, the youth are actively involved in the following Seva activities by the grace of Swami. Following is the summary of youth activities:

Seva :
  • Frequent Seva at home for the elderly: the youth visit the elderly home every week and help them during their breakfast and lunch. They engage them with small talk and going for walks in their neighborhood.
Opportunities to Serve
By the constant guiding force of Swami, the youth have been engaged in various Seva activities and the following is a summary of the same over the past nine months:

  • Taking the elderly out for a walk outside, during the summer season. The seniors rarely come out to see nature and when they are taken for a walk, they rediscover the beauty of nature with their wonderful and satisfying expressions. Some are at first irritated, others overjoyed, some have a new inner experience through the external impressions which only becomes...
Expansion is Love
From the beginning of this year, the youth has been engaged in various activities by the inspiration and grace of Bhagawan and they are expanding in their activities:

  • They are growing in the areas covered for service work and are working in four areas across the country.
  • They will shortly be starting to serve their fifth and sixth home for the elderly.
  • They are formalizing the dementia-training programme, in addition to creating a youth manual which looks at the combination of spirituality and mental health as guided by Swami.
Baba’s Grace
By the Grace of Baba, the youth are fortunate to get the opportunity of doing Seva ; and here is the summary of the activities done by the youth for the past six months:

  • In collaboration with 'Are You Syrious' Society, the youth were taking care of three refugee children who had problems with eyesight by taking them regularly to the specialist for eye examinations.
  • Two children were given glasses and the youth continue taking them for checkups every few months.