March 1999 Sankara Nethralaya Number21 Sankara Nethralaya’s New Horizon Any good organization needs to grow to meet increasing demands for its services while continuing to maintain the same excellence in quality. Sankara Nethralaya is no different. Founded in 1978 at a modest premise in Vijaya Hospital, Chennai, the hospital moved the very next year to its present location at 18 College Road, Chennai. This too proved insufficient and in 1983 the Sri V. Venugopal Block was inaugurated to house in-patients. The situation again demanded expansion after a few years and the answer to this was the opening of the new Mahyco Block in 1993. And now this is already proving to be too small! In what can be considered another important milestone in the hospital’s 20 year history, Sankara Nethralaya has acquired the neighbouring Willingdon Hospital. With ever increasing number of patients seeking treatment at Sankara Nethralaya and the long waiting list for operations, Willingdon comes as heaven sent opportunity to Sankara Nethralaya to expand its services to meed the demands of its patients will into the next century. Sankara Nethralaya’s Story of excellence is due to several factors not least of which is the continuous generous support of philanthropic organizations and individuals. You have strengthened our hands in our battle against blindness. We stand today at the dawn of the new millennium, with our newest addition to the Nethralaya family – Willingdon Hospital. We are ever hopeful that your support will allow us to continue to serve you to the best of our abilities for many days to come. The Sankaraq Nethralaya Family wishes you all a Very Happy New Year Service with Silence Dada J.P.Vaswani visited Sankara Nethralaya on December 5, 1998 and blessed the patients and employees. The following words of wisdom are based on a speech given by Dadaji on the occasion. Friends and fellow labourers. It is such a joy to be here at Sankara Nethralaya this morning This hospital is dedicated to the great idea of service and I thought I would speak to you about service. SERVICE WITH SILENCE One of the most important things to remember regarding service is silence. We must serve silently. Whatever service you do, do it silently. Today there is so much of clamour and noise in giving service. We do a little work and we create so much noise. We do a little service and then spend a sleepless and anxious night waiting to get up in the morning to scan the newspaper to see if our little service has been mentinoned there. This is not service. This is the very death of service. I remember a man who once visited a slum. He carried with him a number of tins of milk powder, which he wanted to distribute to the slum dwellers. The poor came and stood silently in line waiting for the turn. Several minutes passed and the hitherto patient crowd became restive. “Why is this man not distributing any milk powder?” they asked themselves. It was then discovered that the man was waiting for a newspaper photographer to arrive. He wanted the photographer to take his picture in the act of distributing milk powder to the poor. This is not service. This is the death of service. I sometimes shed tears when I think of the shadows we run after – name, fame, earthly greatness, popularity and publicity. The true shakti of India is not in these shadows, but in the life of those who serve silently. I dream of a day when bands of young men and women will eschew all things that are false and fleeting and dedicate themselves to the service of teaming millions of this country. I remember when we were once in a beautiful garden one day, with our master Sadhu Vaswani. He pointed out some flowers to us and he said to us, “See how these flowers bloom silently. Even so you must learnt to serve silently. As these flowers bloom they spread their fragrance and beauty all around, but silently. See how the sun shines upon millions of creatures upon the earth spreading warmth and light and sustaining life. But it does this silently. Even so you must serve silently. SERVICE WITH HUMILITY The second tenet of service is to serve humbly. Do not think that you are doing a kindness for those whom you are serving. It should be the other way. They are giving you an opportunity to be of service to them and thereby allowing you to repay the debt that we all owe to the less fortunate. We have received many blessings from God and the Universe. We carry that debt always and to repay that debt, we must serve the less fortunate, the blind, the handicapped and the poor. It has been said that service is the rent that we pay for inhabiting this body. We should serve keeping this spirit of service in our mind. It is not to do a kindness to others. In every jiva there is shiva. The Lord dwells within the heart of everyone. Every poor man or a sick person who comes to us is an image of the eternal, an image of God. I often tell doctors that they are so fortunate. When we have to serve we go out in quest of people whom we may be able to serve, but to doctors they come unasked. They come to you unasked in suffering and pain. Every hospital should be like Sankara Nethralaya, a temple of healing. It should be a gateway to heaven. If you work in the true spirit of this hospital, you will go straight to heaven. The way is open to you. It is in this spirit of humility that we should serve. When you serve in this spirit of humility you do not ask anything in return for your service, not even a simple word of thanks. There are so many people who serve the community and the nation but they ask for something in return. That is bartering or shop keeping and not service. You go to a shopkeeper and only if you give him money will he give you something in return. We must serve without any thought of receiving anything in return. A man once came to my teacher Sadhu Vaswani and said, “I have served the community for over twenty years, Now I want them to elect me to a seat in the Lok Sabha”. And Sadhu Vaswani said to him, “My friend, the only reward of service is more service. That is all that you can ask for. Not a seat in the Lok Sabha:. To Serve with Your Hands When we learn to serve humbly, we learn to serve with our hands. Manual work is a necessary element of service done in a spirit of humility. We must learn to work with our own hands. Dr. Albert Schweitzer was once regarded as the greatest living man of the twentieth century. Dr. Schweitzer renounced everything – name, fame, earthly wealth, and went to work in the forests of Africa because he learnt that there were no doctors to serve the people there. He used to work in the hospital and in his spare time he used to go to the forest to cut down trees. He used to bring all those logs of timber on his shoulders to build a hospital for the natives. One day as he was carrying a load of timber he found that the weight of the logs was too heavy for him. In front of him stood a well dressed educated native. Dr. Schweitzer asked that man, “My friend, will you not share this burden with me?” The native was affronted. He said stiffly, “Don’t you know Sir, that I am an educated person?” And Dr.Schweitzer, who had four doctorates in theology, philosogy, medicine and music, smiled and said, “I am happy that I am not educated”. There are three other aspects to true service but I have spoken to you today on two that I have learnt from the spirit of Sankara Nethralaya – to serve silently and with humility. The Song of Shantideva In ancient India there was once a prince named Shantideva. He was to be crowned king. On the eve of his coronation he heard a voice which said, “Shantideva, Shantideva. Not for you the joys of kingship. Renounce, renounce and became a servant of the poor and needy.” In response to this call Shantideva renounced his kinghip. He put away his royal robes and wore the garb of mendicant and entered a tapovana, a forest of meditation, and like his great master, Lord Gautama Buddha, Shantideva lived a life of austerity for some years until he attained enlightenment. He then returned to the world and become a teacher in the Nalanda University. One day his students asked him, “Master teach us a prayer which we may offer everyday”. So Shantideva taught them a prayer which we call the Song of Shantideva. I was reminded of this prayer when I entered Sankara Nethralaya today. I believe the spirit of this prayer is enshrined in the soul of this hospital. This is the song of Shantideva: May I be for all who ail, A doctor and nurse. May I give food and drink, For those who suffer the pangs of hunger and thirst. May I be a defender of those, Who forsaken lie on the road. May I be to the poor, A treasure untold. May I be a lamp that sheds light, To those who have lost their way.