In plain words
Whatever colour you wish to see, … that colour. That is the colour in which the whole world will appear to you. If you try to have the whole world not stand before you, it is beyond anyone's power. It is in no one's control. Put sandals on your own feet. The thorns will give you no pain at all. So first of all … your safety in your own good and earn it. Enter any place you like. There no danger will come to you. You must live with such conduct that others cannot point a finger at you. This is just what we need today.
Embodiments of the divine Ātma! As for service, you may do any service whatever. There is no rule that it must be this or that. But keep your feeling a sacred feeling, and then do it. In these services, your merely quarrelling or arguing over whether it is this or that comes to wasting time. According to your neighbourhood and the area around you, there is no objection whatever to your doing whatever is needed by the people there. But My wish is this: it would be good if the names of the organisations, or the services, … were one uniform. If you give one name in one state and another name in another state, it cannot be right. It may be organisation, or you may call it a workers' samāja, or a sevā samāja. These names, though, you may decide for yourselves. But whatever you decide, we must go on with one and the same name in all the states of Bhārata. But you must not think of this as self-interest or as gain for yourselves. For when there is that name and that discipline, the world will come to recognise our organisation to some extent without our telling it. Without a rule no work can be done. The rule is laid down for the sake of welfare. Na śreyo niyamaṃ vinā. Without some kind of name, some discipline, some rules, we cannot work in any organisation. But My wish is that these rules and regulations should all be one uniform. Seeing that method and that conduct, you must bring the people to the view, ‘Oh, this is the Sathya Sai Organisation.’
Then I have another wish: there is no need for us to do things on a big scale just because we long to do something grand. Today in the world, whatever service you want to do, there must be some financial support. So when we scramble after this money, a flaw comes into our minds. So any who are rich may put it in among themselves and do some work. But let us work only as far as what we have. If we want to do more, when some rich people, people of sacrifice, come forward, and if they say so, we may surely do it with that.