1st August 2015, a yet another inspiring day in the AVM calendar, a day of immense significance for any seeker of knowledge and wisdom. Guru Purnima. It is a very important day in the Hindu calendar, and is a special day for us as we get the opportunity to be blessed with the presence of saints. Every year, we have Pujya Kothari Swamiji coming to our campus and this time we had the fortune of having the company of Pujya Anandsagar Swamiji and Pujya Aksharjivan Swamiji. At AVM, the charm of the day is increased a lot more because of the session we have with the saints and the things they tell us about life and about the importance of Guru.

The day began with a short skit presented by our younger brothers of Satyam House during the morning assembly depicting various examples of ગુરુ-શિષ્ય relationship from the past and the key message from each of those incidents. The evening session with saints started at 4:00PM and all the members of AVM family gathered in the Assembly Hall with great eagerness. The saints were welcomed with a huge applause and then Prabhudarshan Sir, the host for the session, invited Vijay Sir and Arjun Mama to perform poojan of Thakorji and saints. Later, the members of student council offered bouquets to the saints. After the welcoming ceremony, Paramrut Sir gave us a brief introduction of the saints and told us about their education and life. After this, the environment of the hall was filled with the pious prayer “Mohe laagi lagan” sung by students of classes 7 and 8, guided by Himanshu Sir.

Then it was Anandsagar Swamiji who blessed us and told us some extremely important things to be happy and successful. He pointed out that when there are upsetting situations in life, a person loses judgement regarding what to do and what no to do. And there comes the importance of GURU, who doesn’t necessarily directly blesses him and gives him the result. But He teaches something that would not only help the person at that moment but at any point of time in life. Using the quote “Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for the rest of his life.” he narrated a recent incident of a youth in such a challenging situation and explained how Swamishree’s agnas helped him not only for his present situation, but for life!

Further, Anandsagar Swamiji told us about his own life experience. He shared with us about him being disconnected from academics during the 4 years of his college due to not finding the college life as he had dreamt of. But since he had Swamishree in his life, he got the blessings and strength to pursue his postgrad studies at Manchester University, UK. By sincerely following Swamishree’s agna, he was able to excel there and managed to be the topper in his batch! Anandsagar Swamiji said that all this was possible for him just because he had Swamishree in his life who knew what was best for him more than he did.

He conveyed to us that how having a saint like Swamishree in life gives a person a different kind of peace & stability from within, no matter what the situation is. This he stated very beautifully by saying, “ચકલી ડાળ પર બેઠી હોય તો એને ડાળ તૂટવાની બીક ન હોય કારણ કે એને એની પાંખ ઉપર ભરોસો હોય કે તે એને પડવા નહિ દે, એમ જ આપણા જીવનમાં સંતો પાંખ સ્વરૂપ હોય જેના ફળ સ્વરૂપે આપણી જીન્દગી પણ એ સાચવવાના છે પણ આપણે એમના ઉપર ભરોસો રાખવો પડે, તો આપણા થી નિશ્ચિંત રહેવાય.”

He further guided us about what we could do as students. He suggested us to do sincere 10 minutes ભજન every time, before we sit to study. He said. “ભણવા બેસીએ તો એવું માનીને ભણવાનું કે મને બધું યાદ રખાવનાર ભગવાન છે. Exams  માટે તૈયારી કરીયે તો એમ માનીને ભણવું કે exam paper  સેટ કરનાર ભાગવાન છે, paper check  કરનાર પણ ભગવાન જ છે એમ માનીને ભણીશું તો ચોક્કસ બળ આપશે જ. પ્રભુ ને કર્તા-હર્તા માનીશું તો ક્યારેય ઉદાસ નહિ થવાય.”

With this, he ended his talk, but he gave us something that would remain with us forever, he “taught us how to fish”. He gave us the insight that would help us fight any challenging situation of life and still remain happy and experience peace from within.

After the blissful talk, all the students got chance to do poojan of the saints. After doing the poojan, everyone then dispersed for their next schedule and this marked the end of the session, but the beginning of a new turn in life where we all once again realised how lucky we were and are to have such a saint like Swamishree in life and the fortune of having friendship with the teachers He has provided us.

Arpit Trapasiya (12 Commerce) & Sumit Choudhary (12 Science)