In plain words
So increase your wealth of service. Go from village to village and serve. Care for the poor, and give a handful of food to those who are wasting with hunger.
A divine plan for raising up the helpless
Last time too I spoke of this. Recently a sad piece of news appeared in a small paper. The father had died. There were the mother and one child. The mother had no means to bring up that child. Somehow, by begging, she went on feeding the child. But because torrential rain fell without a break for fifteen days, she could not go out. At daybreak the child got up: “Mother! I am hungry. Give me food,” and he began to cry. From where could she bring food and give it? She shed tears. “My child! God has not given me the means to feed you,” she grieved within herself. She got hold of a little poison from somewhere, stirred it into water and gave it to the boy, and she too drank. The two of them died. I grieved: in this sacred Bhārata, famed by the name Annapūrṇā, are parents left without the means to give their children a handful of food?
From that day I took a vow. I must feed little children till their stomachs are full; I must have them well taught and mould them into people of wisdom. So I had a fixed deposit of one lakh rupees placed in the bank in the names of those left as mother and child. What will you do, keeping a lakh of rupees in the bank? If you do business you will make a big profit,” and so they cleverly get them to do business. That is exactly why we told the bank manager firmly that, whoever comes and asks, the principal must not be given, and that only the interest is to be paid when the parent comes on the first of the month and signs. If they are far away from us, it will not be possible to have the child educated. So we asked the government for land, to keep them close to us, and it did not give it. We stopped asking them. We have an orchard of our own. More than the orchard, the future of the children, who are like its fruit, matters to Me. So on that land we are building houses for them. Each house will have two rooms, a kitchen and a bathroom. They can live in that house all their lives and get by on the interest that comes from the bank.