Another staple yearly service by the students of the Muddenahalli Campus is the scheduled visit to Sai Dwarakamayee Vriddhashrama, an old age home at Sultanpet, Nandi village, about four kilometres from Muddenahalli. The resident population has now swelled to about fifty residents.
Old Age home visit – 2019
After a half hour bhajan session, the students spent about an hour interacting with the aged elders, during which they sang songs and listened to the experiences of the residents. The elders too enthusiastically sang and talked to the young students. For those residents who could not come to the prayer hall, the students visited them in their living rooms. The visit taught students, especially freshers, the value of empathy and respect for elders. They were emotionally touched after listening to the stories of the elders.
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The ‘Bring Back Chitravati to its Glory’ campaign
As part of an ongoing organised effort between the University and local authorities to bring back the sacred River Chitravati to its glory, Postgraduate students of the Prasanthi Nilayam Campus have been busy at work.
In the previous session, the students cleaned parts of the ghat and yesterday, on Friday, 15 November 2019, they planted scores of trees along the Chitravati River.
Sri Vivek Kapoor, Associate Professor, Dept. of Management & Commerce, led the initiative and shepherded the fine young gentlemen through this and other similar initiatives.
The local community also got involved, including the Commissioner himself.
“This has helped me relate firsthand to the needs of the community. We experienced the theoretical aspects of our Rural Management course today,” said a student.
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Naryana Seva – 2019
Each month, food packets are distributed to the needy poor in the slums around Anantapur town. The monthly Narayana Seva activity sees a team of cooks, campus workers, rickshaw drivers and students come together to deliver 25kg of Pulihora (approximately 270-300 packets) to these marginalized citizens of society. The impact of this programme goes a long way in the lives of students. As alumni, they continue this activity, both at a large and small scale.
#SSSIHLIntegralEducation #SSSIHL
Prasanthi Vidwan Mahasabha – 2019
2-8 October 2019
Dasara or Navaratri is a ten-day festival, usually falling in the month of October, and is celebrated all over India in the worship of the Divine as the Mother principle. Since the early sixties, the festival of Dasara in Prasanthi Nilayam has been closely associated with the Veda Purusha Saptaha Jnana Yagna. This yagnam is a week-long worship conducted in the Divine Presence in the Poornachandra Auditorium in Prasanthi Nilayam each year for the welfare of the whole world. The yagnam commences on the fourth day of Dasara and concludes with the Poornahuti – the final oblation that is offered on Vijayadasami, the tenth day.
In addition to other rituals, the most important component of the yagnam is the Rudra yagam where the oblations are made in the Yagna Kunda to Lord Shiva while chanting hymns from the Sri Rudram. The students of Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning take active part by chanting the vedas, reading the scriptures and performing other parts of the worship along with the learned pundits.
The evening programmes during the seven days of the yagnam are held in Sai Kulwant Hall, under the auspices of the ‘Prasanthi Vidwan Mahasabha’, where many speakers—primarily students and functionaries of Bhagawan’s educational institutions—address the gathering on topics concerning spirituality and philosophy, Bhagawan’s teachings and experiences of devotees.
SSSIHL Swacch Bharat Initiatives
‘Swacch Bharat’ occupies a central theme alongside development goals of the Government of India. The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has identified SSSIHL’s potential and requested to implement a ‘Swachh Action Plan’ (SAP) (since 2018) in nearby ‘adopted’ villages. You can see these in action on our posts on Grama Seva here, here and here.
The purpose is to use higher education skills to help meet a clean living environment and assist villagers in getting clean water and sanitation, health care, energy, education etc in a sustainable manner. Educated youth are also urged to develop skills, build capacity and mind set to address community problems in their surroundings.
In addition, the University has always adopted best practices towards the Greenery of the campuses, cleanliness, recycling and waste management. Some of these are highlighted in the photo collage below.
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Campus Greenery
SSSIHL Kitchens
Liquid Biomedical Waste Decontamination Disposal
SSSIHL Solar Panels
Liquid Biomedical Waste Decontamination Disposal
Ganesh Chaturthi 2019
Lord Ganesha. He removes our obstacles; He liberates our mind from fear. He infuses in us the courage to follow dharma, and ultimately protects us all.
This afternoon, at SSSIHL, the staff of the Administrative Office and students from all four campuses – Prasanthi Nilayam, Anantapur, Brindavan and Muddenahalli – came together in love and reverence for Lord Ganesha.
The individual chariots, made with immense love for Bhagawan Baba, and decorated with all the possible hues of colour — each with a creative story and message behind it, made their way from the office or the hostel to the final destination of immersion.
#SSSIHL #GaneshChaturthi #SSSIHLIntegralEducation
SSSIHL Independence Day 2019
Students and Teachers across all SSSIHL campuses celebrate India’s 73rd #independenceday
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Grama Seva – July 2019
#GramaSeva
Initiate. Serve. Love. Repeat.
Almost ten months ago, in the early hours of 16 October 2018, teams of students and teachers of the Prasanthi Nilayam Campus, SSSIHL, packed with enthusiasm, love and supplies, left for their first visit to three villages – Narsimpalli, Bukkapatnam Mandal (Population: 2500), Bonthalapalli, Puttaparthi Mandal (Population: 2500) and Marlapalli, Puttaparthi Mandal (Population: 1000).
The idea was to makes these villages not just self-sufficient, but model villages which can then affect change in other communities in the district.
In the multiple visits during the academic year 2018/19, they assisted the village folk in the areas of Sports and Fitness, Education, Music, Cleanliness, Plumbing and Survey work. Considerable progress was made in all these areas.
In this manner, they fulfilled their promises to the elders of these villages.
On 14 July 2019, the teams visited all the villages again to continue their work from the previous academic year.
At the village of Narsimpalli, students and teachers responded to the requests of village folk in providing minimum maintenance for the existing dilapidated government school. They began with essential plumbing work (taps, pipelines, etc.) and worked with the village mason and others to facilitated further work.
At Bonthalapalli, students of the Dept. of Economics took on the challenge of reducing unemployment of the village youth. The highlighted the need for better skills to get actively employed. They then interviewed the twenty unemployed youth of the villages and assessed their current educational qualifications, levels of skills, etc. They set a target of 15 August to go back with consolidated data and actively work with them to teach the required set of soft skills, thus enhancing their employability.
At Marlapalli, under the Education module, students of 4-6 Std. were trained in basic reading skills. Students of Std. VII were involved in a host of Mathematical activities. Other activities include making of Bank books, learning basic music skills and Yoga asanas.
Separately, medical data of 78 village elders was collected and students of the M.Tech. (Computer Science) programme employed their data mining skills and came up with a follow-up plan (including predictive measures) for the next action steps.
Love All, Serve All, as our Revered Founder Chancellor always taught us.
#SSSIHLService #SSSIHLIntegralEducation
International Yoga 2019
International Yoga Day celebrated @ SSSIHL
From Pranayama to Suryanamaskar to Dandasana, Bakasana, Mayurasan, Hata yogas, Kriyas and even an elocution on Yoga, students, teachers and mentors from all our campuses joined millions of people around the world to celebrate the ancient Indian tradition of Yoga on International Yoga Day on 21 June.
#YogaDay, #SSSIHLIntegralEducation
Summer Course in Indian Culture & Spirituality – 2019
Man can make genuine progress only when the idea that education is for earning a living is given up. Only one who realises this truth is a truly educated person. Knowledge does not mean mere booklore. It is not the transference of the contents of books to the brain.
Education is intended for the transformation of the heart. Man today is proud about the little knowledge he has acquired about the physical world and boasts that he knows all about the universe. True knowledge is that which establishes harmony and synthesis between science on the one hand and spirituality and ethics on the other. Man, therefore, should at the outset determine the true value of education.
This will be a Gurukula – a place where teachers and taught will grow together in love and wisdom – and like the ancient system of education, it will develop in its students a broad outlook and promote virtues and morals, which serve to foster noble ideals in society.
This Institute will be a temple of learning where youth are shaped into self-reliant, contented and enterprising heroes of action and self-sacrifice, for the purpose of serving humanity.
Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba
Revered Founder Chancellor, SSSIHL
13-15 June 2019
The Summer Course in Indian Culture & Spirituality serves as an induction programme to all students and teachers of Sri Sathya Sai Institute of Higher Learning with an objective to expose students of the University to the rich cultural and spiritual heritage of Bharat. It orients students into Bhagawan Baba’s educational philosophy and gives them deep, first hand insights into how they can directly benefit from this unique institution.
During the academic year 2019/20, the event was held at each of the four campuses of SSSIHL – Prasanthi Nilayam, Anantapur, Brindavan and Muddenahalli – from 13 to 15 June 2019.
All students and teachers of the University participated, along with several invited guest speakers. On display was a smorgasbord of creative and engaging topics, discussions, talks, singing, chanting and quizzes – each purposefully curated to imbibe in students the key teachings on Indian culture and spirituality from the ancient scriptures and Sai literature.
Some of these included:
Quiz on Great Epics of Indian Culture, Swami’s Guidelines for good living, Bhagawan on the significance of the Summer Course, Divine Directions and their practical implementation in our daily life, Lessons from the Bhagavatam, Panel Discussion on Indian Culture and Spirituality, Sri Rama and Sai Rama, Importance of Vedic Literature in Indian culture, Impact of Bhagawan and the Sri Sathya Sai System of Education, Spirituality in Daily Life, Sarva Karma Bhagavath Prityartham – Lessons from our scriptures, Self-Image and Positive Psychology, Head in the forest, hands in the society – Lessons from the Bhagavad Gita, Help Ever Hurt Never, Role of Discipline, Duty & Devotion in the development of Personality of a student, Workshop on devotional singing, Sadhana and Seva, Food Habits and Health, The profound Truths in Hindu Mythology, The science behind ancient Bharatiya traditions and practices, The inner connect with Bhagawan
