Selfless Service

Selfless service is of very great importance even in spirituality. When we go back in history and see the lives of great men, great spiritualists, prophets, and Masters, we mainly find that they had been very devoted, especially to their Masters. Although they were also meditating, doing simran, simultaneously they had great devotion for the service to the mission of the Master. This is decidedly a major aspect in spirituality. We, the worldly people, are all doing some service to self, relatives, and friends, but for soul, that service is all useless, rather it is a source of bondage. We are not body, mind, or intellect; we are souls. Whatever service we are rendering at this time is not service to the soul; it is for the mind, for the intellect, or for the body. It is for our children, parents, brothers, sisters, other relatives, friends, or possessions of the world. All these services, duties, and efforts may be of some avail up to the bodily level, but surely they prove to be a bondage for the soul. We are serving the mind, that is, we are always trying to go according to its dictates and to satisfy it. We also serve the intellect and try to educate it, as it wants to be filled up with all knowledge. We also want to satisfy the bodily needs and to satisfy the enjoyments of senses. We should feed and clothe the body and supply so many other necessities, like big houses furnished with thousands of amenities. Any achievements at level of body and mind end with loss of physical life, leaving dirty and heavy impressions on mind and soul to suffer. These are the services in which we are involved very busily day and night. But what is the fruit of it? What do we, soul, enjoy of it? Nothing. Rather we only take up burdens of good or bad karmas when we try to collect money and possessions through unfair and illegal means. But all these worldly earnings are mostly lost in this world during our lifetime, and the rest when we have to go back. So all this service which we are doing at the level of body, mind, and intellect is a very hard one and also most ineffective. Now, the service, which we are to do and which has been recommended and taught to us by Master, the highest kind of service, is the service through the soul. We are souls and we should serve the soul. Service to soul is service to God. It is the connection of our soul with the manna of life, the bread of life, the water of life which is coming down from God and is available in the kingdom of God. So when we connect our soul with this Godly gift, we are really blessed. This is the object of life. Now, what about body, mind, and intellect? Are they of no use? No, they are also of use, but only if their services are made available for the mission of the Master. In this way, we are not directly, but indirectly serving our souls. The services which are rendered to the mission of the Master - bodily, mentally, and intellectually - are again connected with the soul. But these should be according to the instructions of Master and selflessly done. We should demand no worldly fruit for them. It is also a very appreciable service to make the teachings of Master available to common people and our whole mind should be directed to holy services. The eyes are there to see the Master, ears to hear him, the mouth to praise him, the hands to serve him, the feet to walk for him. When we are helping other people in understanding the Path of the Masters, then we are first to develop right understanding for ourselves and then we are able to create the right understanding in other people. This is service through lower agencies, connected with the service to the soul. The body is also to be used for service to the Master. The efforts which we put in bodily for the mission of the Master are also very helpful for the uplift of the soul. When my Master was in his Master's ashram, he used to do also some physical services in addition to all those mental and intellectual duties. Any physical service going on there was also shared by him. The people knew that he was very near to Master. He was doing wonderful intellectual services: writing many books and helping the Master in answering letters from the initiates and dear ones. Many other arrangements of the ashram were also being carried out through him. Because bodily service was very low, people always tried to request him not to do it and let it be for those people who cannot do any other kind of service, being illiterate and helpless. The Master used to say, "I am keeping the soul, and with soul I am to serve. I have also mind, and with mind I have to serve the Master. I have also the intellect, and with intellect I am to serve. But I have also got this donkey [Master points towards his body], and this is also taking food from the common kitchen. It should carry a load on its back so that it also does its duty and may also be blessed from Master." So body is also to be used in the best way, as much as possible. All these levels of services are to be enjoyed and are to be used, and none of them is to be left behind; otherwise we are losers. Moreover the fruit of bodily services are ready in cash, which may not be in other cases. Bodily disturbances and diseases are nicely tackled with hard bodily services, as a rule. Some people are meditating, but physical or financial service is also necessary. In the scriptures it is emphasized that bodily and financial services are the starting point and ground preparation for spiritual development. Service to Master had been very necessary to purify the mind of ego and its other diseases so that the seeker may be accepted for initiation after some years of hard devotional service. The fruit of any kind of tapas, disciplines, and penances is only available through service to Master. Only service to and in his name is the source of salvation because any dealings of give or take which we have with him are converted into spiritual gifts, as these are above the worldly law of action and reaction. He deals only with the law of the kingdom of God and pays us in riches of the kingdom of God. He also does not care to pay us in any specified mathematical calculations but bestows on us a billion times the fruit of even the smallest service and devotion to him because he is abundant grace and a profuse giver. If one serves the Master really in full devotion of heart, we can find: 1. all our desires are fulfilled, 2. the most troublesome and incurable disease of mind - ego - is also cured, 3. the worldly bondages and worries are released and one feels free, 4. the connection with the One is found, developed, and final mergence is also attained, 5. the highest gift of the kingdom of God and with God - that is, contact of Naam - is also available, 6. the service to Master is service to God, and whom God likes to privilege with His holy service, He makes one serve the Master, 7. service to Master is very, very appreciated by God, and God likes to be devoted to (him) who serve his Master. With financial services the people start with 10% of income, which is also not like a tax or fine, but a way in which we may serve more or less in love. However, as the initiate develops more and more in spiritual achievement, he feels totally devoted to Master, as Baba Sawan Singh and Sant Kirpal Singh Ji used to do. But their Masters used to give some back to them and some they would keep for the mission of Master. The rest they sent to their families. It is such a relation that devotees like to give away everything to their Master, but Master likes to accept nothing. Really Master wants nothing, but for the sake of the benefit of the devotee, he asks him for financial devotion. For example, Baba Sawan Singh Ji used to devote a certain amount of money to Baba Kahan. Once when Baba Ji had got an extra amount as a bonus, Baba Kahan demanded more money, only for the sake that any poisonous effect in the earning would be taken out and the rest would then be able to be used peacefully by the devotee. In this way there are no sicknesses and no expenditures on doctors, medicines, or on superfluous pursuits, the net results being positive at the end of the month. However, Master fructifies 10% ranging from ten times to any limit, depending on the faith, devotion, and love with which one is making any sacrifice in this world. But he also profusely bestows spiritual treasures on him. The devotional attitude is a must and without devotional services it is very difficult to proceed with holy meditations. These services clear our way in spirituality. Generally we do not like to do any kind of service. There are some people who come to the ashram and like to be respected and to be served. They like to come with all glory, very well dressed and with pomp and show. They always like to be given good rooms, very good beddings, and a good place to sit. Very nice food should be served to them and nobody should ask them (for) any service. Everybody should ask them if there is any service to be done for them. Then those people will go very happy and say that they enjoyed a very nice atmosphere in the ashram. It is good that they have enjoyed, but they have also lost very much. Those people who served them in any ways and means really earned very much. Service to disciples and devotees of Master is really service to Master. Never may one try to get any service from the devotee of a Master. To please a satsangi is to win the pleasure of Master. Wonderful satisfaction and peace of mind can be attained from the humble service in the house of Master. We should need no room, no bedding, no comfort, and no respect from anybody. In this way the soul would enjoy real enjoyments which we lack so much. People in this world do not know the importance of selfless service. While serving the mission of Master, we are not to display our services to anybody. Generally we want to make our services known to the people so that we may find respect and praise in ego. Such an intention is very, very dangerous and may cause a terrible loss. After having done all humble services behind a curtain, we should thank Master for the grace he showered on us by letting us serve him and pray for more chances. We may serve, but nobody should praise us nor should talk high of us. Rather if we are cursed or abused and our services are not responded to respectfully and oppositions are there, we may feel happy and not down because it is good that mind is not let to enjoy any ego and thus make a waste of our services. Really, the Master knows every action of devotion (we have done) to him and values it profusely. If after all this service to the mission of Master, we find ourselves in ego, then instead of getting benefited, we are generally losers. So it will be the best to do selfless service devotionally day and night by all ways and means, may it be the humblest or the dirtiest service. Even if we are made a worm in the set-up of the Master and we are to eat up the dirt so that the atmosphere may be free of dirt, we are luckiest. But it is a very sad affair if we do some service and we are praised for it, and then we are in ego. Then we lose everything and we are really unlucky - that we have done so much but with no positive result. So people may find themselves the luckiest who do service and still are cursed by people. In 1971 I was living in the most northern part of India. In that city, there is a great ashram with an area of more than 3½ acres. Master ordered me to arrange an open well for water. Tube well drilling was not possible because there was mixed stones and clay strata. My Master very kindly ordered me to carry on this service. I was feeling very lucky to have it and started to work. But there were two or three people who were always opposing me, creating some hindrances and problems. Sometimes I was feeling sad and upset at their negativity and was at a loss to understand why it was that they were creating hindrances. My work was going on very nicely. Due to them I was more careful about my work and about my actions, and I became more active in myself. Their opposition could not dishearten me. I was always praying to Master for help in completion of this great task. I was finding myself lucky that I was to carry out the orders of my Master in service to the mission of God. However, the negative atmosphere around me was helping me in finding more enthusiasm, more power, more will, and more strength and this negativity proved a blessing in disguise for me. Any such arrangements from Master are useful and blessings in disguise. I feel that such people are the luckiest who may do some service to the mission of the Master very sincerely and devotedly. It may be that so many people go on cursing him, abusing him, and do not think well of him but one should be happy to find this also as a blessing from Master. At all times so much negativity had been working around Masters and people were creating havoc against them but they kept on independently, not caring a bit for all that. My Master used to say, "Do not worry about the world. You should be true to yourself and towards God." The public opinion is always different and differs from time to time, but you are not to depend on it. Oppositions strengthen us and glorify Masters. Everyone has to face two categories of people - enemies and friends - and one can make use of both. Friends will tell us our shortcomings in secret and will try to help and guide us in coming out of them. Enemies will not tell us but backbite us, oppose us, and criticize us. That will also help us in keeping our selves pure of any negativity against the danger of being picked at by criticizers. It is good that they are picking out our faults and making them known to us and are working hard to help us. When behind our back they backbite us, they will not only remove our shortcomings but will also suck away all our dirt and free us of all our sins. We should feel benefited if we are serving sincerely and devotedly, we are true in ourselves, and still the people are opposing us and backbiting us. In this world, a man, who is the noblest and highest, having all virtues in him, will not be spared by some people and will find criticism and as such one should not feel disturbed or perturbed. Even God, not to talk of man, will find criticism if he is prey to such people. They have got a habit and cannot help it. Instead we may pray for their good. We should not feel the bad behaviour and curses of the people because we are not doing this service for them but we are doing it for the Master, and if the Master is happy, then we should feel satisfied. He knows what we are doing and he also helps us in all respects. We are only concerned with the pleasure of Master. It is sufficient to be in his good grace; (we) may not be in anybody else's. We have yet a very weak heart and we are more often feeling very disturbed if somebody criticizes us or opposes us. This weakness will go away by means of the holy practices at the level of soul, having connected it with holy light and divine sound. My Master once asked Tai Ji to take care of the cleanliness of some temporary latrines at some celebration. Tai Ji went and she arranged through some people for these to be ready and clean by eight or nine in the evening. But after that, some people used those latrines and they were again unclean. Master got up to check the work - if Tai Ji had done it and not forgotten it - at about twelve in the night. He saw that something undesirable was lying over there. Master took a bucket and a scraper and began to clean these latrines himself. One or two persons who saw Master doing this work got very astonished and ran to Tai Ji to inform her, as they did not dare say anything to Master. Tai Ji went and snatched the cleaning instruments from Master and got the cleaning done by devotees. Master felt it a loss to lose this service, but nobody liked him to continue. Lord Christ had also washed the feet of his disciples and told them that if he could do it, they should also learn to wash each other's feet. In love we may serve each other so that we may be called his disciples. The fifth Master of the Sikhs also served a crowd of disciples who came from a distance by serving them water and massaging the old, tired persons in such a way that the dear ones would not recognize him. So when we can find any kind of service to Master, to his holy mission, or to his devotees, we must do it with all sincerity, forgetting all about our worldly position, glory, ranks, and respect, etc. Financial service has its own importance and is separate. Service through intellect is also very important. Mind is also to be trained for service to Master, but physical service carries its own grandeur. When foreign brothers and sisters are here in the ashram, they may carry on (with) some physical services, like keeping their rooms, premises, bed sheets, etc. clean. In the kitchen also they may find a service. It is not sufficient that they are meditating. When they feel a little tired of meditation, they can avail the virtures of physical service. Additionally we may feel better in health also. Three or four hours of meditation and one hour of physical service may follow each other, rendering the best use of time. Another kind of service is the devotion we are to do for mankind. Whatever trade we have got, we must keep service to fellow beings as children of God in mind at the top. We are not to worry for time or earnings, but we are to try to serve the people at large. It may be in the capacity of a businessman, industrialist, laborer, government employee, doctor, engineer, or any other profession. We should help others the best we can and may keep our profits materially at a minimum, just to pull on with life. Our principle should not be of snatching, collecting, grabbing, or hoarding, but service and depending on the gifts of God for our own interests. In this way, each aspect of our life will become service to God and best benefits can be derived out of it. Then employers and employees will have no confusion and the public will also find satisfactory help. Service and love should dominate. Love knows to give. There can be no dispute between givers and there will be all peace. A government employee should also serve the government or his office not for the government or for the boss of the office or factory, but as work or a job in the factory of God. He is not to keep himself bound within timings, but he should work any amount of longer time and go on working without asking (for) any payment. He should not ask for overtime, etc. because he is not doing the job for anybody (in this world), he is doing the job for God. God is there who knows everything and knows that His child has done so much work - overtime or otherwise - for Him. He will not keep anything back from His devotee and will pay in abundance. He will pay each and every second of service done in His devotion. There is no need of agitations, strikes or demands, but one should be satisfied that whatever he deserves, he will get. All things will be given to him by God at the proper time; this he should believe. Even if we do not understand it, God surely pays all the good or bad one has done, to do full justice in His law of nature. In worldly ways, if we get less, He will arrange the balance of payment, but if we have got more than our legal share, then our payment will be placed as a debt. God will make us pay back what we have got through illegal gains. So God is the super controller. He does not spare anybody. We should always keep in mind the controlling law of God which is working more strongly and accurately than worldly laws. Wherever or in whatever jobs we may be working - maybe in a farm, in an office, in a factory, or as a laborer - we are to work hard and to serve only in the name of God and not to ask for payments nor to worry about favourable or unfavourable results. We are not to demand because He will certainly give without asking. We demand from a person who doesn't like to give or who will give only when we demand. But there is One who will surely pay our wages, however small these may be; we need not demand. Rather in compassion He also gives in charity to needy ones who have not worked and do not deserve, not to talk of those who had served Him. From the following example we can understand the loving attitude of God. There were fifteen or sixteen laborers. They went to the labor house early in the morning. A landlord chose five persons in the morning and he placed them at their work. By noon, those five persons were insufficient, so he brought three people more and engaged them in the work. In the evening for the last one hour he brought some additional persons, as the work was found still beyond the capacity of the laborers employed before, to complete it. However at the time of payment he paid full day wages to all. Those who worked for the whole day were given a full day's wage, those who did a half day's work or worked only for the last hour got the same wages, and those, who did not do any work and who were only waiting, were also given something to live (on) for the night. In worldly ways we only pay for the active hours of duty we avail. This way of payment is only keeping favour and undue consideration for the person making the payment. But what is the fault of persons who came to do work, but were not given work at all or given only part time? The expenditure of all the laborers, their children and families is the same, whether they work or not. So they deserve to be given work, and if they are not given work, (they are) to be given payment to live. However, those who did not come out of their houses in search of work need not be helped because they have shirked work. God works on the principle that those, who like to work but are not given work, are paid for it. However those, who are given work but are lazy and shirk work, are dealt with negatively, as they are sinners and need punishment. These principles controlling the human actions should be understood, and if we do not understand, naturally we will be in difficulty. Innocence is no excuse; we are privileged to know and must know all the laws applicable on us. We need to be very vigilant about our actions and our duties. The theory of karmas as detailed above is called Karma Yoga, coming down from ages and ages, but is still as important as it had ever been. Some people may be practising Karma Yogis, but by the grace of Master we are to learn and practise it as a helping side issue in addition to Surat Shabd Yoga. So it will be appreciated if we try to do some services in all ways and means (that are) with us. All these services - physical, mental, intellectual, financial, and through soul - are each useful to the seeker on the path of truth. Disciple: I will have to go back to Germany and I will have to do some new service there. I live together with my friends and now I don't know if I should go back to those friends or if I should live separately. Master: God power may arrange for you. There is no trouble with it. Everything is arranged already, everything is set, planned. We are not to worry about it. So, we should have a will to do and God will help us. Whatever job is there, we may do it sincerely. In accepting any service, we should not worry for its being hard or degrading and, if possible, we may choose the better of (what is) available. Nothing is below our dignity. Whatever we find, we should do. And by and by we will find better things also. God will adjust all things for us. Whatever He gives is alright. Today He may make us a king, tomorrow He may make us a beggar, but we are to enjoy both. It is only a mental feeling, otherwise there is no disturbance. As a low placed person we can live happier than a person of name, fame and riches. Enjoyment or splendor of life doesn't depend upon great outward arrangements, rather it depends mainly on our inner life. Those people are respectful, wealthy, and of the highest status who enjoy the highest One, God, who are meditating regularly, are sincere to duties and devoted to Master. Worldly they may be very low, very weak, very poor, but they are not to worry about it; they are the richest ones who are pure and rich in heart. Our real glory lies with our soul when it is in contact with the God-in-action power in the form of light and sound and enjoys the highest. We are to understand this mystery of life. If we do not understand, then we can never find life. Then naturally we are following the path which is leading to death, to misery, to problems and troubles. So it is very important that we understand this life. But most people have not understood it and it is not expected when they may understand it. The worldly atmosphere is so polluted that it is always dragging us into the darkness of ignorance. It is never helpful. It is only by keeping the instructions and commandments of Master, seeking His guidance and protection, that we can be saved and we can find ourselves protected. So we should try to think for ourselves sincerely and we should choose the line of action and then go on without caring for the world and the worldly people. We should have our own ideal way, which we have decided not on our own but from the instructions of Master. Whatever Master has told us is the highest way and is the most useful. The Path of soul is not understandable by the mind or intellect; it is beyond their scope. So we are to go on according to the instructions of the Master and not let the mind criticize or interfere in it or to pose its own ways. Otherwise we lose, and we will not find help in any way. We are to find these instructions and go on sincerely without any interference of mind or intelllect. Master makes us understand all these things even intellectually. In the olden days people were not so intellectual and they could follow the dictates of Master directly. But now people need to be satisfied intellectually and then practical guidance is accepted by them.