In plain words
They would weep, ‘What will become of him after this operation?’, and make the relatives who came weep too! That is how it used to go. Now, since heart operations began in Prasanthi Nilayam, for everyone it has become as easy as pulling out a thorn broken off in the foot. They have no fear at all of a heart operation! That fearlessness itself is freedom from fear! Even the little children come to the hospital laughing and laughing. I went to the hospital yesterday. A small child had had an operation. From that bed she was greeting Swami, laughing and laughing. No mother, no father, no relatives near her. Where did that child's great joy come from? It is purely the influence of the atmosphere. Their faith itself is the root cause of it. Everything is going on joyfully in every way. They do all this as God's work. Nowhere in them is there the Ahaṅkāra that says, ‘We are doing these operations.’ One should not say it in front of them, but they do it with great śraddhā and devotion. People with such śraddhā and Bhakti are what the world needs today. Without śraddhā and devotion, what use is it, however much one does? We brought good fresh vegetables from the market. We took fresh tamarind from the tamarind tree that very moment. We put in salt. We put in good chillies. We made a fine sāmbār. But it spoiled. Is the fault in the salt? Is the fault in the dal? Or is the fault in the tamarind? Is the fault in the vegetables? No, no. We had not tinned the vessel. That is why it spoiled. In the same way, however many of these operations are done, though lakhs of rupees are spent and valves are put in the heart, though everything is done, if the principle of Prema, which is devotion and faith, is not there, it becomes like sāmbār cooked in an untinned vessel. So there must be faith. Anywhere, faith or the lack of it is the root cause of success or failure. Where there is faith, everything comes about. If, without faith, one sits arguing back and forth, ‘Bhakti, Bhakti’, these are the workings of Ahaṅkāra, the workings of show. They are not the working of devotion and surrender.