Ashram Diaries – a Journey of Sewa at the Lotus Feet of Bhagwan🙇‍♀️🙇‍♀️..

Thought to share with you all, my 1 year 5 month journey of sewa in the ashram. I am glad that I have received so many opportunities to serve God and Swami ji. Sewa is really that humbles and gives one immense peace and satisfaction inside. Although sewa vahi jo dusre ke anusar ki jaya.. I did what was told to me, and sometimes the nature of the sewa given to me was something that I never did or knew nothing about. But that’s the whole journey from being clueless to achieving perfection. So, I will bring about the sewa I did in the ashram.. here we go:

Oh here is a lawyer turning into a doctor.. so you may get to know what it is. From sections, articles and clauses to prescribing medicines. But yes, I took it up and did it to perfection. What all I have to do is, when any patient comes, I talk to the doctor on call and then prescribe and search for the medicine in such a large lot of medicines. And searching for a medicine is like searching for a needle in a haystack.. though with smartness over the time, I arranged them according to the type of medicine used on a daily basis. So everything was going well, but one day a burn patient came. He needed immediate attention, and I myself have seen the agony of burns, so I know how critical this thing is, and there was no proper medication for the same. As I already know, some first aid treatments, and along with advice on call, I managed to give first aid treatment nicely.. But the wound was deep and the patient was continuously engaging himself in dust.. so the result was less.. I asked him to take some days off and go back home.. so he went back and I asked him to inform me what treatment he was taking, just inform me everything.. he did so and when I saw his hand, I was aghast to see that the wrong treatment had been given to him… I felt so bad for him and asked him to again check with the doctor and change the doses of medications because pus was already oozing out and I was constantly concerned. With the change in medications, his wound was recovering and when he came back to the ashram I saw his hand recovered and I felt happy for him. There were many patients on a regular basis, and I would happily guide and treat them and share good bond with the village people. Learn and have fun with them. It makes me happy to know them and they really feel happy and cared…After a while, the resident doctor came and I was relieved of the sewa..

This was one thing as I was managing along with many other things at one time.. From doctor mode to jumping into housekeeping supervision mode is another thing. From pampering to jhaddu pocha.. I will tussle around the premises, see what is done, what is not done, and get to know the geography of the Ashram. But over time, I perfected it and no guidance, nothing was required as such. From knowing nothing to knowing every little aspect of the Ashram. What should be done comes perfectly easily to me then.

From doctor to housekeeping supervisor to now, another thing I was embracing was administrative work, all at the same time…I sometimes wonder how I am able to do so many things. Writing documents and managing files.. further the volume of work increased. I started handling legal work as well, from drafting legal documents to non-legal documents and also day today documents and writing Standing operating procedures for different departments; writing organisation structures; writing HR policies; brochures; designing work to yet anything. All I was doing all at the same time…

Also, one more addition was the big fat gadget.. our healthy wealthy ATM machine.. I was given the charge of maintaining the ATM. Since then, I was basically no gadget girl and always like to stay away from electronic products. But in a fast-paced society, we can’t definitely manage it.. I started managing it.. initially it was OK, nothing to do.. but as it is a machine, it started taking bumps and with each bump, I was taking a burb..oh my gosh.. ab isko kya ho gya… I will call the engineer like a doctor and then he will ask me to bring this cassette out and put it back and put your finger inside the roller and turn it around. I was a bit sceptical as it would harm my finger… all during the process, my tiny hands get scratched and bruised, but it’s ok.. I will proceed. And to my surprise, there was some internal problem in the machine, and by the time I was operating like a pro and inspected it, I told the engineer to change the part. I will send the broken part picture to the engineer so he may find it true. Also, the internal functionality of the machine is such as if I’m going to launch a satellite… so many steps means so many… but I got grip over them in a while. Wonder what Atm is..is difficult to manage.. lot of complications..

And then when there is discourse, I was making rangoli and taking care of temple decorations.. and now my creative mind was on display. So struggling to jump from one work to another and then to creating something.. certainly a difficult thing to do in a day.. So when I have to do it, I start thinking about a day in advance, so that my mind is prepared to do it easily. Colors always pleases my soul and I would make rangoli as I am painting a canvas as I will put emphasis to every minute details. Since I do things with perfection, I would make sure everything is symmetrical and in order.. so the rangoli will come out to be beautiful.. and ah, the final touch until my heart feels happy and now it’s ready..

Oh, now is our very coy cow… you must be wondering what I was doing with cows… so here I keep the records of the cows and need to know which cow is which breed… I was totally unaware of the cows’ breed.. I researched on the net and learnt about it and also discussed with the cowboy looking after the cows… and also discussed with Gaushalas about the cows… so until you know which breed you wanna talk.. so how can you present yourself…. toh fir.. I would go googling around.. this or that… cow cow and cow.. funny na..😊🤣

Oh now counting numbers… 1234578… so on… something I was bad at….but sewa made me perfect in that…so here I was serving as cashier for the ashram… people often call me chota cashier…teasing me as such in a funny way..and we all laugh aloud.. so i was making all the payments in cash in ashram and managing records.. it was like writing seriously, switching in a second to a cashier mode.. my mind would sometime find it difficult to switch between the work. I take a moment and then do my sewa.. I often face it every day..

And another responsibility of human resource management means HR responsibilities too.. I firstly drafted the HR policy for the ashram and then made recruitments, interviewing candidates to calling them and finding opportunities to tie up with universities for recruitments. So many other things that HR does…

And now the mask… so I would count the mask and keep the records and pack them and get them posted and keeping all the record and arranging all the thing like whom to send, how many, where and when.. keeping the track of all the post and so I find myself roaming around the campus finding big big dabba.. oh box for sending parcels in huge amount in one box.. so finding a box is another problem and I would search them in advance and ask some ashram help to find so that we can send as early as possible.. so sometimes my office would be filled up with lots of dabbas…most of the time..📦📦📦📦

And so many others here and there, so I could say that I was blessed with so many opportunities to explore and serve in the ashram. Now, I definitely say there was nothing in the ashram I didn’t do. I have experienced each and every aspect of Ashram in whatever way Swami ji wants me to.. I am grateful to him for blessing me with so many Sewa’s all at the same time… That completely churned me both inside and out… that’s Guru Bhagwan’s grace. Thank you so much. 😊🙏🌈

Jai Sri Hari 🙏

Love💖

~Neelam Om