It is a glorious winter day at the Sathya Sai Maa Moksha Dham in Varanasi, India. We have all joined together to meticulously clean and prepare the Ashram for today’s 2014 New Year's bandhara feast. There is such a feeling of joy and anticipation permeating the preparations, perhaps a reflection of the joy that feeding and serving others brings to Sai Maa. Invitations for today’s feast, which is sponsored by Sai Maa, have been extended to 101 pundits (Vedic priests) and to the entire community surrounding the Harishchandra Ghat Ashram.
The feast is scheduled to commence at 11:30am but the cooks have been working solidly all morning. They have prepared a carefully planned menu consisting of puris (fried bread), three specially selected vegetable dishes, chutney and kheer. The kheer, a piping hot sweet drink of milk and rice, turns out to be a big favourite on this fine winter's day.
The feast is scheduled to commence at 11:30am but the cooks have been working solidly all morning. They have prepared a carefully planned menu consisting of puris (fried bread), three specially selected vegetable dishes, chutney and kheer. The kheer, a piping hot sweet drink of milk and rice, turns out to be a big favourite on this fine winter's day.
By the start time the pundits are already seated in orderly lines on the ground floor of the Sathya Sai Maa Moksha Dham. The head pundit, Punditji, leads the meal blessings, reciting Sanskrit verses or slokas in his rich, round voice. With great enthusiasm all the pundits harmoniously join this expression of gratitude until all are served. The meal is rich and delicious and the gift of the meal gratefully received by all. Most of these pundits are still students in the junior to senior high school age range, but there are a few experienced pundits and even fewer child pundits who have accepted Sai Maa’s invitation today. The pundits are so orderly, and at the end of this delicious and plentiful meal they line up to receive the traditional gifts of a garland, a sweet, fruit and dakshina as gifts from Sai Maa.
After the pundits leave, the Ashram is thrown open to the local community and a steady stream of more than 300 people eagerly and excitedly join us. People of all walks of life flood through the big iron gates to the Ashram until well after 3 pm in the afternoon, all eager to join the New Year celebrations. There is a friendly and charming chaos as everyone comes to share the feast being offered, and the children laugh and play enjoying themselves in the winter sun. I am so happy to see so many children, most of them from the local slums, receiving the nutritious food being served. Today, community leaders, hotel owners, shopkeepers, fruit sellers, rickshaw drivers, street people, mothers and children are all happily sharing a meal under the roof of Sai Maa’s India Ashram, our Ashram in India, bathed in the Grace of Sai Maa.
I am filled with gratitude for the enormous gift it is to have the global support of Sai Maa's communities to provide these humanitarian events for our Indian brothers and sisters.
After the pundits leave, the Ashram is thrown open to the local community and a steady stream of more than 300 people eagerly and excitedly join us. People of all walks of life flood through the big iron gates to the Ashram until well after 3 pm in the afternoon, all eager to join the New Year celebrations. There is a friendly and charming chaos as everyone comes to share the feast being offered, and the children laugh and play enjoying themselves in the winter sun. I am so happy to see so many children, most of them from the local slums, receiving the nutritious food being served. Today, community leaders, hotel owners, shopkeepers, fruit sellers, rickshaw drivers, street people, mothers and children are all happily sharing a meal under the roof of Sai Maa’s India Ashram, our Ashram in India, bathed in the Grace of Sai Maa.
I am filled with gratitude for the enormous gift it is to have the global support of Sai Maa's communities to provide these humanitarian events for our Indian brothers and sisters.
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