From the desk of Dr Jit K Aggarwal
Vol 13 సంచిక 1
January / February 2022
Dear Practitioners
As we move into 2022, to the one who views life through a worldly lens, it appears that the coming year will be another one filled with uncertainty and anxiety resulting from enduring the pandemic. But for those who live life with a higher purpose, 2022 will be welcomed as a year of growth, hope, and a harbinger of opportunity to serve and share love. Swami says “Endowed with a sacred body man is misusing it. Human life is like a bamboo that has many knots in the form of desires for wealth, wife, and children. These knots have to be removed. From the new year, you have to understand the true meaning of humanness and transform your life. You will then be true servants of the nation. Play your part in every field of public life, keeping your heart pure and unsullied.” – Sathya Sai Baba, New Year Discourse, 1st January 1998.
If we are to bring humanness into our every thought, word, and deed, the right perspective is imperative. As an organisation, I feel we have done justice to 2021 and hope and pray that we are able to carry forth the impetus into the new year. Looking back on the year gone by, as vibrionics practitioners and as an organisation dedicated to seva, we have grown and evolved by leaps and bounds on all fronts.
- Our ‘Spread the Word’ campaign launched in 2020 took off in a big way in the year gone by, an unexpected upside to the pandemic! While adhering to restrictions, our practitioners took the challenge head-on and spread awareness at every chance they got by giving talks at schools, colleges, Sai Centres and on virtual platforms to reach out to audiences ranging from devotees to students, teachers and armed forces personnel, from urban areas to remote corners of the world.
- In India, we saw greater cooperation emerge between the Sai Seva Organization and the Sai Vibrionics that paves the way for smooth functioning of vibrionics clinics at Prashanti Nilayam and opening of new ones in several other locations, such as the opening of a new clinic at the Sai International Centre, New Delhi.
- The world became a smaller place as a result of the shift to virtual meetings and we grew closer as a family and organization. Virtual networking amongst practitioners gained significant impetus during the year with several new regions starting monthly meetings to stay connected and updated.
- The distribution of the Immunity Booster (IB) to maximum people remained the primary focus of practitioners during the year. The demand for IB is increasing by the day and we are close to a figure of 600,000 IB beneficiaries at the end of 2021.
- The biggest stride we made this year is in the field of training new practitioners and retraining existing ones. In 2021 we have worked hard on significantly enhancing our training standards. Up-to-date SOPs are now in place from admission to accreditation for the AVP and SVP designations and also for the newly instituted Assistant Practitioner (AP) category. Our eternal gratitude to all the teachers, mentors and the training coordinator, supported by the very hard working and vigilant admissions team and IT team.
- Another development has been to elevate our erstwhile monthly report coordinators to regional coordinators (RCs). The RCs now have a very important role of being an interface between the administration and the practitioners on the ground. A bimonthly coordination and update meeting of RCs is now a regular feature.
- The maiden launch of our AP course in a vernacular language, combined with the opening of clinics in several remote parts of India has brought us significantly closer to our goal of making Sai Vibrionics accessible to the masses. In 2021 we started with Hindi and Telugu and in 2022, we expect to build on this success and expand our reach by launching AP courses in other languages like Kannada, Tamil, and Malayalam and launching several additional clinics.
- I am glad to report that in 2021, our IT Team has managed our IT resources (servers, databases, data storage and websites) effectively and ensured above 99% uptime. Their major plans for 2022 are to release a revised version of our main website with language support for Hindi and Telugu users, to provide support for searching case histories in multiple languages, to make available in our news site all the case histories published in our First International Conference book and to train additional Admin personnel for IT contingency purposes. Please extend your support and cooperation to the IT Team in the implementation of their plans. You may write to them at [email protected].
- A couple of months ago we initiated the construction of the Sai Vibrionics Centre. This has recently been put on hold due to unexpected challenges with the construction contractors. We expect to resume work as soon as possible. While this may result in a delay, delays are not denials.
As an organization, we remain a “Work in Progress.” I expect that we will always be in that mode. Because if we are not changing and evolving, we are not growing!
Here’s the real perspective we all need to develop according to Swami Himself - “The heart full of compassion is the temple of God. Jesus pleaded for Compassion. Compassion was His Message. He was sorely distressed at the sight of the poor. This day, Jesus is worshiped but His teachings are neglected. Sai is being worshipped but His teachings are neglected. Everywhere, pomp, pageantry, hollow exhibitionism! Lectures, Lectures, Lectures! No activity, no love, no seva. Heroes while lecturing, zeros while putting what is said into practice. Develop Compassion. Live in Love. Be Good; do Good, and see Good. This is the way to God.” – Sathya Sai Baba, Christmas Discourse, 25 December 1981.
Wishing you and your loved ones a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2022,
In loving service to Sai
Jit K Aggarwal