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Service as a spiritual discipline (SaaS)

Discussion in 'Snippets of Life (Non-Fiction)' started by Viswamitra, Feb 26, 2012.

  1. Viswamitra

    Viswamitra IL Hall of Fame

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    What is service? Service is expression of universal love to fellow beings without expecting anything in return and done selflessly and skillfully. It is a spiritual discipline that everyone should incorporate into their daily life. It is very essence and breadth of our devotion to the Universal Absolute. What resides in us is manifestation of divine which would easily recognize every other being as divine being.


    What are the characteristics of a good service? It is our intent to volunteer to provide service to the needy whether they are children, elders or under privileged. This should be provided without expecting any rewards in return. It should be provided with the name of God in the lips and with compassion and universal love. It is not something we do once in a life time and it is a life time ongoing effort to help the needy and once it is elevated to the level where we see Universal Absolute in everyone, it becomes worship by itself.


    What is selfless service? We have to eliminate the thought in our mind that we are able to help someone and we have to consider that as a spiritual discipline that is carried out to help ourselves to grow spiritually. It helps us to invoke divine spirit in us. It helps us to find out who we really are and find out our purpose in life.



    Why is it important and what it does to us? It helps to control and purify our mind. It helps us to put a ceiling on our desires as our time is well spent in helping others. It helps us to build the capability to look at life in a detached manner. Most importantly it helps us to erase our karmic burden and eliminate the feeling of I. The ego of our mind is primarily the deterrent for us to make a spiritual progress. It helps us to learn to love every being the same way in our life. It allows us to experience that the same spirit that resides in us also resides in every being. It helps to remove all bad qualities such as anger, jealousy, greed, hate, etc. Lastly, the selfless service makes the Universal Absolute happy and helps to win His Grace. To be honest, service to the humanity is the best form of worship. It helps to achieve infinite Bliss. Service is more fruitful than repetition of the name of the Universal Absolute or meditation or rituals we conduct in our life every day. There is no prayer that is more powerful than providing service to the needy.


    It is not important when, where and how long you do service. It is the intention to help others that counts and even smiling at a person who appreciates it is a service. We should not pollute the service with our pride and we should provide a humble service. We should not serve with an intention to be rewarded as service itself is a reward that helps us grow spiritually.


    We need to help always lovingly, selflessly and skillfully without worrying about the results. We need to have the mindset that service is not to reshape the world but it helps to reshape ourselves into a better being. No service should be considered below our dignity and that mindset helps us to reduce our ego.



    Wherever possible, service should be done in a group that promotes understanding among fellow beings. Especially, children should be involved in service activities from a very young age. The exposure to the pain and sufferings of other beings gives them the strength needed and provides them an opportunity to love such people in need. The children should never be exposed to difficult service activities to begin with. For example, instead of them playing a video game or watching TV, they could spend their time wisely in visiting a website www.freerice.com where every answer they give provides 10 grains of rice to someone who is hungry in the world elsewhere through World Food Program. This kind of activities would promote their attitude to help the fellow beings throughout their life. The parents should be a role model for them in providing service to the fellow beings. At least a few hours in a week should be assigned to provide services to the needy. It does not matter whether it is preparing a meal and serving the homeless or hungry people, serving homeless people in a soup kitchen, providing service to collect canned food for the people in need, blankets or warm clothes to the people in need during winter, providing service to the children in human values, helping elders and children in old age home or orphanage, voluntarily serving patients in the hospital, etc.



    In every part of the world, there is a lot of work to be done. There are umpteen numbers of organizations that systematically conduct these activities. We should evaluate which one of these organizations spend most of the money collected for the people in need and associate ourselves with those organizations. We could always provide such services on our own but do not get bogged down by the fact that how we could resolve the problems in the world. Our purpose is not to solve all the problems in the world and even if we help a handful, it makes a world of difference to our own spiritual growth. Providing physical service is much more powerful and effective than making financial contribution.



    If I have to name regret in my life, it is my commencing this most satisfying activity very late in my life. I wish I was trained to provide service to the people in need from a very young age as much as I was trained to worship every day. Having tasted it now, I intend to continue it as long as I live or until I become immobile.
     
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  2. suryakala

    suryakala IL Hall of Fame

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    Dear Viswamitra,
    Yes, we need concerted efforts in our schools to train young minds for service to others. Service should be integrated in to the curriculam and should form part of K.P.I (key performance index).
     
  3. Viswamitra

    Viswamitra IL Hall of Fame

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    That is a great idea. Here in Florida, the students do it for getting Bright Future Scholarship. They need to provide at least 75 hours of community service to quality for Bright Future Scholarship. But I like your idea better to make it as part of the curriculum so that they get the taste of it and get involved out of their own will rather than for scholarship.

    Viswa
     

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