SERVING FOR THE SAKE OF SERVING
Many things in life are paradoxes; one can be totally devoted to someone and yet be totally non-attached. There is a difference between detachment and non-attachment; detachment is to withdraw from all activities of life and to remain distant, becoming reclusive. To be non-attached is to be able to partake in every activity of the mind, body, and spirit, and yet be above it all. When one goes into detachment, it can be a form of escape. When one cannot face up to the responsibilities of the world, some tend to escape from the world. In India, there was a time when there were six million Saddhus, wandering mendicants, and after meeting many, I found that there were very few that were real Renunciates. Most of them just escaped and lived by begging. In other words, they were beggars in ochre robes, and they called themselves Saddhus; in reality, they were escapists.
Non-attachment is something totally different. The greatest Scriptures, for example, in the East were written by people who were very busy people, who were totally involved in the affairs of the world. Krishna, for example, was a King, a statesman, a strategist, yet he could dictate the Gita. Rama was a King, so was Buddha. King Janaka, one of the greatest philosophers of the East, ruled a vast Kingdom, a very busy man, totally in the world, and yet could take himself above it all, and compose some of the Upanishads. So, one could be totally devoted to an object or an ideal and yet be non-attached to it. In other words, it implies that one serves, for the sake of service, without wanting or expecting the fruits thereof. It is part of Karma Yoga where you work for the sake of work, and the rewards come by themselves. And whenever these rewards come, they are accepted for one’s needs, for one’s daily necessities. But when the work is done, it is done in a sense of offering, that everything I do is an offering to divinity. It could be washing pots in the kitchen, sweeping streets, mending shoes, or being a Professor at a University, or a Scientist, but every action is performed for the sake of action.
SERVING WITHOUT EGO
Performing any action, there is a certain amount of desire. Desire produces attachment, but there are kinds of desires. The one desire would be for gain, name, fame, power, and therefore one prods oneself to act in a certain manner, to achieve something, to have the ambition for achieving a certain goal. The other kind of desire is the desire to serve, which causes non-attachment. We do find people serving. We do find people joining various societies, homes for people with disabilities, or for blind people, and so on. It is not the act itself that is important, but the motivation behind it. I have known of people who want to serve humanity, but the motivation is their own personal ego, inflating their personal ego, that “I am this. People look up to me.”
That is one thing that our teachers also have to be very wary about, that it does not inflate our egos in serving humanity. This kind of desire, which is entirely for service for the benefit of humanity, does not form attachment, and when it does not form attachment, it creates no impression in the mind, or it creates no samskaras, because that desire is without motivation. And all desires for service, if it is minus the ego, would not have any motivation whatsoever.
So, behind the act is the motive, or motivation, that causes samskaras. One could be totally devoted to what one is doing and yet be non-attached to the action, for the action is performed for the sake of the action, and not for the sake of its reaction. The cause is activated, but that cause becomes a causeless cause, whereby it would not have an effect, and the effect that is had, and that is long-lasting, is the impressions, all the samskaras one creates in one’s mind or one’s subtle body. So, then the samskaras pile up.
ALL DEPENDENCIES STEM FROM THE EGO
In the name of devotion, many people perform acts, but devotion should be without need. I am devoted to my wife because I need my wife for certain purposes, be it physical, mental, or otherwise. That is not devotion. There is a little story in which a man says, “I love you so much, but tomorrow, God forbid, even if you should have an accident and be shrivelled and burnt, I will love you just as much.” So, that love is not of face value only, for the man’s beautiful wife, or handsome husband, it applies both ways; it is for the inner self of the person.
In any case, when a man loves a woman, or a woman loves a man, do you know what comes in between? Love comes in between. That personalised form of God is activated so that one feels love underneath, underlying the need to love or be loved. Once the need is removed, the underlying factor of pure love shines through. So, although there is a desire to activate the highest form of love, it becomes non-binding; there is no attachment.
But as soon as the need is added, needs are created by one’s ego. I know a person who came to see me with so many problems at home, but who needed his wife. He could not be away from her; it was a purely physical need. For he could never have any other woman except his wife, but it is a purely physical need. And you find people like that, it is a pathological case, perhaps, we know. But that is also a need. Then you find a person, loving another with an emotional need, an emotional dependency, where the man sees in the wife a mother figure, perhaps, or the wife sees a father figure, where there is a need for protection or to protect. Those are needs, and these needs naturally mean dependencies. One depends on another, and all dependencies stem from the ego; behind those dependencies lies attachment. And because of that attachment, it produces a kind of karma that rebounds on you again. So, the process is to proceed from attachment to non-attachment, yet living within the realms of attachment.
LETTING GO AND TRUSTING DIVINE WILL
There is nothing wrong with being attached. For example, there is nothing wrong with being angry, but be angry with anger. That is also an attachment, but a sublimated attachment. I always like to talk about practical things, because one ounce of practice is worth a million pounds of theories, and any philosophy that cannot be brought down to its simplest level is no philosophy at all; it is mental gymnastics. To be able to love, to be able to be devoted without attachment, is the greatest achievement that man can attain. We are, say, attached to Christ, why? We try to find an attachment to some superior being. Why? What is the motive? Because we want something. We need something. “Oh God, give me a better job. Oh God, find me a nice girl to love. Oh God, give me this. I have got a two-roomed house, oh God, give me a ten-roomed house.” Need, need, need, need, need. “My Mini is no good, I want a Rolls-Royce.”
Need, need, bargaining. And yet we forget all the time that the Divine energy that permeates everything knows all the needs of every creature. It is like a sheet of water being poured across a road full of potholes. Some are smaller holes, some are larger holes, but when the vast sheet of water overfloods from the river, the total level is the same. But where more water is required, more will go; where less is required, less will go. So, who are we to demand that I need this and that? Rather, you know my needs, and I know you will fulfil my needs, and even if you do not fulfil my needs, you have a reason for it, perhaps you are trying to teach me something. Who am I to teach You, and demand from You why You do not fulfil my needs? Am I capable of commanding you? You command me rather, not my will, but thy will.
Understanding that one is slowly led to refine one’s desires. All desires are binding; they take you on this wheel of birth and death, all the time, over and over and over again. But when a desire is refined, where the desire becomes desireless, where the desire is not for oneself, but the desire for others, then that desire is sublimated. We want to serve humanity, not for our personal gain. What is there to gain? For all our needs are automatically fulfilled, and by serving humanity, we are flowing with the laws of nature. And when we flow with the laws of nature, then all the needs are automatically, spontaneously, and without us knowing it, fulfilled.
Many meditators have various kinds of experiences; they write to me, and they say, “I wanted that, and then I got that, and this came about, and that came about, suddenly a new job just came up.” Things like that. And the explanation for what appears to be a phenomenon is that, by meditating and practicing their spiritual practices, they are flowing with the current of nature. And flowing with the current of that which is natural, all their needs, perhaps subconscious needs, are automatically fulfilled. And knowing this, we are better equipped to serve humanity, not to inflate our own egos, but because it is a spontaneous flowering. That desire is like the heat from the fire, or the fragrance of the flower. That desire is never binding, because contained within that desire is love and devotion. So, when that kind of desire is produced within us, then it is a desire within the confines of non-attachment.
THE DESIRE IS NOT IMPORTANT, BUT THE MOTIVATION BEHIND IS IMPORTANT
So, there are desires and desires and desires. Many people have come to this Course. Firstly, there was a thought in the mind; the mind was desire-producing, and I desired to come to Nottingham. What were the motivations? Every person had a different reason, or there were certain categories or reasons. Number one, long holiday period, “Let me get away from it all, have a little holiday.” Number two, the housewife. Ah, no cooking to do for five, seven days, no washing up. Number three, the group practices will be so good. It is a stimulus, it helps, it generates a certain energy. For the Scriptures have said, “Where two people gather within my name, I am there.” That is why you feel uplifted when you are in the presence of certain people: a certain energy radiates, which is automatically uplifting. So that was one desire to feel uplifted. Another desire. Number four, to meet old friends, to be together with them. We could list another dozen possible desires or motives. So, everyone comes with a different thought in mind, a different purpose, a different motivation, some of a lower category, which is totally valid, and some of a different stratum, which is also valid.
To make the point again, it is not the desire that matters, but the motivation behind it. If the motivation is ego-centred or self-centred, it becomes binding. It is human nature that everyone, consciously or unconsciously, is trying to find freedom, but many people mistake freedom for escapism. Escapism is not freedom. If you cannot face responsibility in the world, go and break a few windows, and get locked up for a month in jail. That is a kind of freedom, too. You are free from the problems of the world for that month while you are in jail. That is the same thing some of the Saddhus, some of the so-called Yogis, do: they sit in caves instead of being active in the world and doing something for the world. That is their sense of freedom; I am free from all fetters, to get away from it all. But geographical changes do not allow you to get away at all. You cannot get away from yourself, never mind where you go.
SERVICE FOR THE SAKE OF SERVICE IS JUST ANOTHER NAME FOR DEVOTION
A person who was a severe alcoholic came to me. He tried, tried, tried, tried, and just could not leave the bottle. So he came to me, and he said, “Guruji, here is one thought I have in mind. What do you think? If I should go away from my present environment, go to live somewhere else, and find another job, that would perhaps help me.” So, I said, “Do not do that, because no matter where you go, the bottle will still follow.” It is again the principle of self-acceptance, and when one accepts oneself at one’s true value, then service is performed for the sake of service, and that service for the sake of service is just another name for devotion.
In devotion, there are categories again, and all of them are valid. It can be that you can have sham devotion – so you are so devoted to grandmother, you know she has got only two years to live – there is quite a large estate there. Be devoted, be in her good books. Or it might make quite a difference to the will. Yeah, it is a sham. We show devotion in our jobs, ah, sham, to get a promotion. Motivation again. We show devotion to the wife or the husband, so that two can be motivated and not just a spontaneous flowering. Like that, it goes on and on in a vicious circle.
I AM NOT THE DOER; I AM BUT THE INSTRUMENT
But true devotion contains within itself the element of non-attachment. I am devoted to you for the sake of devotion. I care not two hoots if you follow the practices or not. I do not care if you understand the teachings or not, but I try. And if it sinks, some little word germinates somewhere; it is good. If it does not, seeds fall on barren ground; it will not grow, but because of the devotion I have within me to serve, I keep on serving, without expecting any result or reward.
You have teachers promising you instant self-realisation, and others telling you to start this practice, and within four lifetimes, you will reach self-realisation. Who is going to know what is going to happen in four lifetimes? There are schools of thought like that. There are such movements, and very big movements too. It just shows people’s weakness and gullibility. Those teachers are expecting results. Why are they expecting results? So that it could be said, Ah, that is a great guru. Yes, he is a good guru. He has done this and that. Why, why? That is not service. That is self-aggrandisement, ego. “Yes, that ah, I have been able to do this, I have been able to change the mind and heart of so many thousands or so many million people.” I, I, I, have been able to do this. No. Change the hearts and minds of thousands and millions of people, yes, but not I, He. Who am I but just flesh, bones, and blood, an instrument? Once the life force is out, even this flesh, bones, and blood are of no value. As I always say, its chemical value is one shilling and four pence.
Yes, motivation. Motivation. Non-attachment. And yet within the framework of non-attachment for the results, one performs the greatest service, because we realise, I am not the doer, I am but the instrument. It is not the pen that writes. The writer writes with a pen. This is the attitude that has to be created within teachers, then they are real teachers, for teaching is the noblest profession on earth. If a person is hungry, you give the person food, lunch. Three and a half hours later, he is hungry again. If you give a person some money, perhaps by the end of the month, he might not have any more. But give the person spiritual wisdom, without any motivation, without any attachment, and that wisdom is perpetuated, it will grow. The seed is planted, and it will carry on for lifetimes and lifetimes, and lifetimes.
THE PARADOX OF SELFLESS SERVICE, THE REWARDS COME NATURALLY
The idea is not to promise anyone self-realisation or God-realisation. No, that comes automatically. Illumination comes automatically. You do not even need to have the desire for that goal; just perform, as one should perform one’s dharma in life, and the results will follow. I always say that when we work for a boss and get a salary cheque at the end of the month, we are not thinking every moment of the thirty days: salary cheque, salary cheque, salary cheque. No. We keep on working, whatever kind of work we are doing. It could be in a shop, it could be in an office, I could be anywhere, any kind of work. And if we have completed our month’s work, automatically an envelope is placed on our desk. Of Course, the only time we start thinking about that envelope is in the third week of the month, when we start getting broke: “Why is the month not ending sooner?”
So even the desire for service has its pitfalls, and the pitfall is that what motivation is there? When one understands that I am acting, I have the desire to serve without motivation, without self, without the ego, self-expanding, and making us feel so great. Mind you, one can land in a state of euphoria, “Ah, such and such came to me for a consultation for a certain problem, and the person left so happy. I did that.” You see. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Every night before I go to bed, I go over the whole day’s activities; it is a habit of mine, of many, many years. When I was in a profession, when I was in business, that had always been my habit, that I have done, I have been able to do this today, that, or that, or that, or that. And then before closing my eyes, I say, “Thank you, Lord, or the powers that be, whatever name you want to call it, for giving me the privilege of being able to be your instrument.” And then I sleep so peacefully that in two hours of sleep, I get ten hours of rest. Then I keep on working again, see it is nice, it is nice.
That is what we teachers should really bear in mind: we work for the sake of work, for the sake of service, and if rewards are to come, they will come automatically. If we desire the reward, we will push the reward away. All the services performed will have no value at all, because in serving, we are evolving ourselves at the same time. But when we have that ego sense that “I am doing this,” we stop and block our evolution. So, to be devoted to whatever task we are engaged in, should be engaged in with a sense of non-attachment, not to the task but to the result thereof. It seems like a paradox, but it really isn’t.
… Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang UK 1979 – 05
