Bhagawan stated that smaller teams of people are able to be more focused and successful in implementation of selfless service projects which creates a massive change in the society. Accordingly, we have formed several volunteering teams including small and large groups of people living in and around different parts of the country including Seattle, South bay (Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, San Jose), Tri-Valley (Pleasanton, Dublin, San Ramon), Texas, Atlanta and more. Each group comes together in its own regular schedule and provides for the homeless, or visit shelters and provide for them based on their needs. The volunteers are lovingly encouraged to participate in COD - a concept that Bhagawan has been advocating for several decades.
What is COD ?
COD stands for "Ceiling On Desire". This is one of the greatest aphorisms of Bhagawan Sri Sathya Sai Baba.
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Do Not Waste Food
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Do Not Waste Time
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Do Not Waste Money
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Do Not Waste Energy
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Do Not Exploit Nature
Excessive desire causes imbalance in nature and less luggage leads to a more comfortable living and a more joyful travelling in the journey called Life.
Bhagawan instructed that families participating in Sai Ashraya should have the homeless friends as part of their everyday life. How do we include homeless people in our lives everyday ? Bhagawan himself graciously explained this during the divine visit to Bay Area in June-2017. Bhagawan remarked that we should all keep a handful of rice or wheat (or the like), every time we cook for ourselves. We should buy little more groceries every time we buy for our own household. During our family dinner, we must encourage kids to have conversations on how the homeless friends do not get much to eat and how we should keep them in our thoughts and prayers. When discussions happen on spending we should involve children and decide wisely on what is the exact need and must be careful not to overspend as there are people in our country that do not have enough. We are setting values for the future generation by sharing Swami's teachings.
***serving the homeless in bay area ***Homemade fresh hot nutritious food
In this manner, we do not separate the poor away from our family. We must use this money saved by practicing COD, the groceries purchased by practicing COD and then serve the homeless. Everyone has a big role in this project. If you are willing to be part of our Sai Ashraya's journey, please register with us and we will contact you.
If you want to know more about the program, please send us an email or fill out the form in the "Participate" page, one of our volunteers will get in touch with you.
The Sai Ashraya program functions in "Eradicating homelessness permanently". Bhagawan instructed us that feeding the homeless in the shelters and on the streets is just the beginning. Providing meals does not end the actual problem - Homelessness. Sai Ashraya has a detailed plan that helps homeless in every aspect of their lives. It is designed with various phases and each phase has its own set of requirements in order to work towards a permanent solution. Every step within this has an equal importance and together, they form the Sai Ashraya Eco System.
Silicon Valley is the Technology Hub of the world and one of the richest neighborhoods. Ironically, it also has one of the highest unsheltered, homeless population in the entire nation, majority of which are children and youth. These unsheltered children and youth are at a very high risk of negative influences, drugs and human trafficking. Children and youth are the future of the society. It is the responsibility of the society to nurture and provide them with a secure and stable environment.
The internal yearning to stop the crying of young hearts from seeing another day go by in corrupted, non-ethical and violent living conditions at NO fault of their own is the seed for our mission.
PHASE 1
Sai Ashraya will have various location nationwide as drop-in facilities (Respite centers) allowing the youth to come to a place of safely, this facility will be used as an outreach and assurance place.
PHASE 2
This phase will provide therapeutic, secure, residential care to traumatized children and teenagers, identified in Phase 1. Therapeutic care will be tailored to needs of each individual child. The support services are culturally relevant, age and developmentally appropriate, and will include Med-Cal mental health services.
PHASE 3
In this phase, the program will look into providing economic stability to the homeless youth by partnering with foundations and agencies offering professional training, job placements, and transitional housing. Sai Ashraya will hand hold each homeless youth individually through the maze of fragmented systems by connecting them to various services to provide an end to end solution but not limited to, housing, process training, stipend, education, Ashraya’s own drop- in center, outreach and much more.