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Today I attended a function in a village about forty kilometers from here. It was for the organization of a very small village, yet thousands of people were present. As is typical for a village function here, there was lots of colour, with everyone in their best saris and dresses. Many spiritual leaders from the Pali district and Jodhpur were also there. It was surprising how many different groups had saints present. One leader was from the Jain religion. There was a saint named Dayārāmjī, who leads a very large community, especially from Gujarat, called the Patel community. Two very important saints from the Kabīr lineage were there, and the leader of the Nāth community from all of India was also present. There were many, many others as well. Also present was a man named Mr. Devan, Madhu Singhjī Devan, who is the leader of the Chaudhary farming community. They all represented different lineages and long, long traditions. But everyone was talking about one thing: doing sevā, doing selfless service, and the benefits of giving rather than trying to take. The function was to open a house they had built—a place to put grains to feed the birds. It is two stories; downstairs is a temple for Gaṇeśjī, and above is an open roof with a cover where birds can come and eat comfortably. No cats, dogs, or other animals can trouble them while they eat. Every day, they will put grains there for the birds to take. In our small way, we also have this near the Śiva Mandir in Chadan. Anyone who saw Matajī knows her tradition was to take some grains every morning and put them in the tray there for the birds. It was one of her routines to ensure every day that someone had put the grain there. Gāyatrījī knows this so well. Nowadays, between the Śivamandir and the STD booth, the tray is there, and the birds come and eat. Whenever the horses get a chance, they come and knock the tray with their nose, making it all fall down, and they eat it too. They can just reach it, tap it, and it comes down. This is an old tradition. In each village, they used to have a place to put grains for the birds, for the peacocks. Those who spent time in Kathu Ashram will know it is done there every day. The twenty or thirty peacocks that live in the big banyan tree there all come at once to eat. In the late afternoon, the ashram is just completely full of birds. It doesn't stop with birds. There is a tradition here of doing sevā for every animal. We have a gosālā, and so many gosālās around take care of cows, especially the bulls and the male cows. Many people are happy to take care of a cow that gives lots of milk—it's an economically good prospect here in Rajasthan. But not all babies born in the cow world are female. The half that are male, unlike practices (better not discussed) that happen in the West and in dairies regarding those animals, are taken and cared for here. The goshalas look after those cows and bulls. They are not useless; they are not just for being fed. In our area, it is most interesting to see that even today, bulls are necessary for some agriculture. This particular area of Rajasthan, especially around here in the Sojat area, is very famous for its henna. Henna is grown with a small space between each plant. The plants are there for forty, fifty, or a hundred years, and they are cut each year. To make them grow well during the monsoon, they have to be plowed in between. As was just in Maṅgīlāljī's bhajan, "Nirvāṇa re, he nirvāṇa re," you have to also plough your field to remove the weeds and uplift the soil so more nourishment can go inside. We plow ourselves with our sādhanā. We open the earth so that Gurujī can give the blessings inside. Before the monsoon here, everyone will plough their fields because when the earth is broken, the water can go in much more quickly. As there are only the monsoon rains, you want the water to go into the ground rather than run off. In the same way, when we do our sādhanā, we open ourselves so that more of Gurujī's amṛt, more of his blessing, can come inside—so we are open to the teaching. In the meṇḍī (henna) fields, they have to do this plowing with a bull because there is not enough space between the plants for a tractor. So you will still see a man with a wooden plough behind a bull, going through the fields between these plants. Of course, when the bulls reach the age where they can do that work, they are very well taken care of because they are a very important part of agriculture. Another practice many who have stayed here will have seen regarding taking care of animals is that many families' first chapati will always go to either the cows or the dogs. You will see the lady who is cooking take it and give it, then come back and start to cook the rest of the chapatis. Or if they don't have time, they will put it aside and afterwards take that particular chapati and give it to some animal. Swamijī was talking about this only a month or so ago when he was here. One of the most amazing things I saw here in the ashram—I remember Swamījī in his satsaṅg also talking about giving something to the ants—was how that was being done. I once saw a man, who is actually a supervisor in the Om Āśram living at the Ayurvedic hospital area on the other side of the ashram. He was going on a walk in the afternoon with Premanānjī, and we saw this man and one lady in the fields digging holes. What on earth was he doing out here, digging small holes, putting something inside, and covering them up? It was before the monsoon, about two weeks before, just as it started to get humid. We went and asked him what he was doing. He said, "I'm giving a donation to the ants." What he was doing: they had a coconut. They were putting a small hole in it, filling the coconut with sugar and ghee, and then burying it in the ground so other animals couldn't take it, but the ants could dig inside and slowly, slowly eat that sugar and ghee and take it to their homes for the monsoon time. They placed it so the opening was on top, so the food wouldn't spill out. If you imagine, during the monsoon, it is not easy for an ant to get food because there is too much water around. They move themselves to the highest place they can find and wait until the water goes down. For me, it was such a beautiful thing to see—such planning to think about it a few weeks before the monsoon and to give it in a way that was easy for the ants to access, that other animals couldn't take, and to think about what they need at the specific time when it is necessary, just before the monsoon comes. Such a beautiful, beautiful form of tradition. It happens everywhere in the world; there are those types of traditions. But it is so important to keep alive and to keep doing that for all—not just for people, but for all animals, for all living things, for the earth, for nature. Somehow it is within everybody, especially when we are young. You see small children; they have some urge just to help others. I have one very beautiful story from my father's school. It was many years ago, perhaps in 2002. Here in Pali district, there was a terrible drought, the worst they had had in a very long time. We were delivering water to many, many villages—perhaps twenty villages—just drinking water so people could get by. Tractors were going everywhere. The logistics were quite complex because we would be delivering water somewhere, and then the water source would finish. We had to find another place; it was constantly on. For some places, there wasn't a source of drinking water within thirty kilometers. I remember at that time also in Pali, the water rationing was three liters per person per day for everything—not just for drinking, but for washing, for cleaning, for whatever. The water was coming to Pali by train. I was telling my father about what was happening. He asked, "What's happening in Jhara?" I said, "It's like this at the moment." I think I was telling him it was a little bit too interesting. My father was at that time the principal of a primary school. In the morning assembly, he used to always tell some news about what was happening in the world. The next day, he was telling the children, "We're so lucky because we have water for drinking and everything, and the situation is like this in Rajasthan at the moment." These were children from kindergarten to sixth class. He was just telling them that story, nothing more—just like news, daily information, or some general knowledge. He told me afterwards that at lunchtime, one of the teachers came to him and said, "You better come out into the playground and see what's happening." He came out into the playground and saw the children going around with a bucket. These children had thought this up by themselves. There was no involvement of any teacher or any staff. They decided they would go around with a bucket and ask all the children to put the coins they had brought to buy sweets and things at lunchtime into the bucket for the drought. Just like you would fill a bucket with water, they were trying to fill it with coins so they could buy some water to send to some village. What an understanding of the concept of Sevā. I remember at the time being so inspired; I just didn't know how to respond to it. So, of course, we arranged to show them which villages they had gone to and how much water could arrive there. It was just a beautiful thing to see how children can think so specially about others and take care. So the whole theme today of that satsaṅg was about that—about doing sevā in whichever way you can, in a small or a big form. It depends on the capacity. On the way back, we were talking about one satsaṅg that Gurujī always used to give. Phulpurījī and I were talking about this. In that satsaṅg, there was one girl who was married into a house that wasn't so spiritual. One Swāmī had come to the house and was asking her questions. It was a very wealthy house, but there was so little spirituality there—it was just about money and spending and enjoying. The Swamijī asked her, "Do you eat here cold chapatis or hot chapatis?" She said, "Swamijī, in this house I never ate a hot chapati; everyone was cold." Her mother-in-law, who didn't like her daughter-in-law's spirituality, started screaming, "I told you she's crazy. She has everyday hot chapatis!" The Swamijī said, "Look, look, just listen. Let's ask her what she means." The daughter-in-law said, "In this house, they are just getting things because of the good things they did in their past lives. But they are not doing any sevā, any sādhanā, or any help to anybody else in this life. They are not doing anything fresh. Therefore, whatever I'm eating here, it's not fresh; it's coming from the past; it's old." That is somehow the essence of Sevā: we have a chance to do something. Whatever our life situation, if we can offer something big or something small, or our time, or just our love, or our understanding—even if it's just to give kindness or kind words to somebody. The act of giving leaves a space where something can come back to us. To be able to give without expecting anything back has a purity which makes it even more important. When you come to the ashram, or when you do something to help somebody else, if it's going to be a sevā, if it's going to be a selfless service, then it's not something where you have a contract—where I'll do something for you and then you should give back to me thanks, or give back to me this, or be nice to me. The joy, the specialness, the blessing comes from just being able to give. And if we are lucky, we'll find somebody who is also prepared to accept that which we give—whether it's in nature, with people, or with animals. It is such a blessing to be able to have the chance to serve in some way, to have a life situation where we can do something for somebody else, and to do it humbly, without ego, without thinking that we're better because we can give something to somebody else. It's just a blessed chance. Let us take it.