In plain words
When their children fall ill, many mothers have to carry them to hospitals somewhere far away to show them to a doctor. So set up a hospital in every village. In many villages people suffer greatly for want of water. Here and there they dig borewells and drink the water that comes up in them. But how long will that water come? After a while it dries up. The people of Madras: ‘Swami! We have no water to drink,’ they said. ‘Do not be afraid at all. There is God for everyone. Pray to Him. You will surely get water. Within a few days I will give Madras drinking water,’ I told them. Not only that: I told them I would also provide the water needed for the crops.
Learning that does not serve society is worthless
Seeing the hardship poor people suffer for want of proper medical help, I had hospitals built. I set up two super speciality hospitals. Each building cost crores of rupees. To those admitted to those hospitals we give medicines free. We give them food free. Not only places of healing: we have also built places of learning. Many children come from all over and join them. From none of them do we collect even a single coin. There is not even an examination fee. Because education is given entirely free in this way, thousands come, study, and go. (At Bhagavān’s bidding some students came up onto the dais and stood there.) All these are postgraduates. M.A., M.Sc., M.B.A.: having completed big courses like these, they go about with Me. ‘Give us some work, Swami! We will do it,’ they say. That is why I have given them ‘village work’. They are to go from house to house and give food to the poor in the villages. If you do not serve the poor in this way, what use is the education you have had! How many highly educated people there are in this country! But in earning they are heroes, in service zeroes! Earning is not what matters; the work we do is what matters.