ensures

Dedicated to friends, Blinded by their “Sense of Service”

There is this popular story of a Sadhu who with a disciple on one of their trips in Himalayas, get stuck in a snowstorm. During a period when it lulls, the Sadhu looks down from the edge of slope and finds a body lying there, apparently with some signs of life. His disciple’s exhortation to save themselves before the storm resumes first fell on deaf ear of this Sadhu. He climbed down towards the victim while the disciple walked away towards safety. 

This Sadhu reaches the man who had a broken leg and was totally movement impaired. Sadhu wraps him up with a blanket, carries him and treks up the slippery path with this load. After trekking for hours with incessant snowfall with this heavy load, and perspiring profusely, he finally reaches a village and stumbles upon a body on the ice covered road and to his despair finds that it was this disciple, who he realized froze to a horrible death unable to withstand the cold. The Sadhu was saved due to this exertion of carrying heavy load, sweating and the body heat of the victim.

When you serve or perform, remember you are doing none any favor – you are doing a favor to yourself. It is no service if you seek rewards for it. Divine keeps providing you so many opportunities in order to enrich you with experience or save you from disaster.

“I would not have you declare yourself to the world until you have proved your worthiness. Do not yourself proclaim your name, but wait until the world proclaims it.”  

So said Queen Guinevere to Lancelot, considered the bravest amongst the Knight in the story of King Arthur. So relevant! It is for the world to judge you seva, not for us to wear up our sleeve and flaunt it 🙂

And there are some who seek a Quid Pro Quo relationship with a Guru. For the opportunity they get to serve, they seek an anointment into some Symbol of Power!   That for me is what a “Coolie” does – Expecting a payback for the services rendered. No way it is Seva!!! And such people in moments of conflict (our small mind) with a Guru, go “Far” from Guru where a true disciple goes “For” Guru. Creating a portal here, volunteering at one’s convenience there doesn’t make anyone a Disciple of a Master. Just Remember! No outsourcing of Devotion or Commitment! Guru’s Grace is not for sale 🙂

It is also relevant to remember Crutch is required only for Lame (applied to both Physical or Intellectually lame). S You resort to usage of crutches when your argument becomes lame. When you lose out on argument, you bring in God, Guru, Gyan…  blah blah just to obfuscate. Debate ends there, because winner or loser gets decided by spectators at that moment 🙂 In their eagerness to prove right they grab the wrong Crutch.

As His Holiness Pujya Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar of The Art of Living says, Seva for Seva’s sake. Real seva is when you feel you haven’t done enough.

PS: Nothing official about this post 😉

(My next blog is also on the same topic, Nothing Official About it)