Selfless Service for Individual and Societal Progress
When the Lord comes in our midst there are two important aspects to His descent that stand out among others. One is His powerful and enchanting presence, which has the potency to transform and raise all who comes to Him. Everyone who comes to Him benefits, some considerably and few immensely, depending on one’s receptiveness. The other aspect is the message that He brings, and this has some unique benefits of its own. Adherence to the message has the power to manifest the Lord in one’s life. A tryst with Divinity could be a blessing for good acts of the past, but it is in loyalty to the message that one completely benefits and finds redemption, and also a means to express one’s devotion to the Lord. So it is indeed of paramount importance for each of us to dwell on His message.As part of the 90th Birthday offerings, we will begin every month from the present one with excerpts of a discourse from the Golden Jubilee Birthday Celebrations of Bhagawan. During the grand 50th Birthday celebrations, Baba gave discourses specific to the Seva wing and the Bal Vikas wing, apart from discourses revealing His own message and mission. The excerpts presented below are from the discourse Baba gave on 15 Nov 1975, during the 3rd Sevadal Conference. Let us listen and re-listen, read and re-read even as we imbibe the essence contained.
Duty without love is deplorable; Duty with love is desirable; and Love without duty is Divine! Not recognizing such sacred and divine love, merely doing activities as good actions, and hoping that these would take us closer to God is mere foolishness. This morning the sevadal conveners from different states have described in many ways the kind of activities which the sevadal are undertaking. It’s a blind path or blind imitation for any one state to imitate another state or for any individual to follow and imitate another individual. We talk of imitation being human and creation being divine, but this is not the kind of imitation we should adopt. Also to think that for one’s own satisfaction to do something is service is not a right attitude. Apart from the self-satisfaction we derive, keeping in focus the satisfaction of the beneficiary will make our service activities meaningful. It’s only service from which you do not aspire for the fruits thereof, will turn man into God. Service that is absolutely selfless, gives you not merely fleeing benefits, but can completely sublimate and sanctify your entire life. Selfless service would enable those who are following the spiritual path to remain steadfastly on the spiritual path and would never allow them to go astray.
The greatness that is present in service is not to be seen in any other Sadhana. If we have this service as our primary aim and then adopt the various practices of devotion, such as listening and singing His praises, meditating on the divine name, servitude to the feet of the Lord, prostrating, offering worship, considering oneself as a servant and friend of the Lord, and the path of Self-enquiry, then the service will enable you get rid of the ego and bad qualities in you. One animal nature that is reminiscent in man is his ego. Service will remove this animal nature, makes him softer and enable one to go nearer to God.
