In plain words
Embodiments of the sacred Ātma!
Today, because it is Swami's birthday, you have come in joy of many kinds to take part eagerly in a function such as this. But truly, keeping a birthday or celebrating a day of birth has never once been to My liking. I am one who has come only to hand on to man the principle of his life, the secret of man, in My own experience, that is, by living it out; but celebrating some Birth Day, holding grand functions: for any of that, this life has never at any time had a wish of any kind.
On whatever day all of you, every one, experience true Ānanda, that very day is My birthday; that itself is My joy. Other than that, when your hearts are in such great turmoil, filled with many hardships and losses, with sorrows and with cares, to call it a birthday for Me is simply meaningless.
In this, it is most urgent that I warn you of one more matter too. Do not lose time in finding out about Me; do not let time go to waste. The reason is this: to know about Me is possible for no one! So if you set about trying to know what it is not possible to know, it is not only a loss of time; you will have wasted the body too. On the day you are able to know yourselves, on that very day it becomes possible to know Me.
There is nothing at all in this world that I need. Never on any day has there been a moment when I wished for any deed or any thing. I am one who has come only to give, not one who has come to take; what you must give Me is one thing alone! When you give your pure Prema, that itself is the joy that befits Me.
At the Dasara just past they made announcements of certain kinds. But when you look into whether Swami has any connection with them, the name alone is the connection; Swami has no connection of any kind.
In view of the wrong paths the young follow in the world today, the Sathya Sai Central Trust resolved of their own accord to found colleges in many places, and through them to give the young saṃskāras of many kinds, to uphold the culture of Bhārata and to teach the Satya that every faith accepts; and for this, out of the devotees' enthusiasm to celebrate Swami's fiftieth birthday with the greatest splendour, they took certain decisions in committee.