Day 30 - Service to men is service to God. Why so? If God is spirit and the divinity in me is the same divinity in you, then the closes I can serve God is to serve my fellowmen. Not just my countrymen, not just my fellow Americans but ALL MEN. It is said that there is only one race, the race of humanity. Now is the time, more than ever to do service, not just lip service but real service. As we witness what is happening to our society, to our country's economy, to the world in general, it seems that we cannot rely on the government or an institution to provide the services that is necessary to treat/keep/improve a condition from getting worse, to lessen the pain or severity of a condition in our community that affect individuals and family unit in general.
"Service to men is service to God. Service springs out of LOVE and it scatters LOVE in profusion."
I grew up with nuns and monks and missionaries in my family. One aunt was a mother superior but was demoted because she was so strict with her students that one of them committed suicide. I didn't understand it for if you are a teacher is it not one of the highest form of service? Why would she be so strict in performing her services as an educator that it caused someone to kill herself? What happen to love and compassion? Can we do service without it?
If service springs out of love and it scatters love in profusion, then what about all the services that we hear about by NGO (non-government organizations) and the fund raising they have on public broadcasting? do we see and experience the love it scatters in profusion? If not, doe it mean that the service did not spring out of love but rather from a hidden agenda?
Back to when I was a teenager and I was asked by my aunt (the nun) to go with her to the penitentiary to distribute donates to the prisoners. So, we stopped by the doughnut place on the way ( it turned out that they are doing service by donating the doughnuts). When we get to the penitentiary, my aunt told me that there is not enough doughnuts to go around so I have to cut it in half. But, as I was cutting it , I noticed that they are all moldy and I told my aunt about it, to which she replied " those criminals should be happy and grateful to get the moldy doughnuts, they dont deserve anything " and when I asked about the donor of the moldy doughnuts, she told me something profound at the time - "when you want to do charity, you have to have extra that you can spare for charity, without it...................."
That incident stayed with me for so long. Because I really believe that if we are to do service and give something (food, clothing etc.) it has to be something that we ourselves would want (if its food, we should be able to eat it too; if its clothing we are giving away, we should be able to wear it ourselves, too) else it is no use giving. And that we should not discriminate who we are giving service to. If we serve nutritious food to our rich neighbors during a party, do we serve anything less or should we give moldy doughnuts to criminals to punish them more? We are all ONE, so why do we discriminate when we do service?
Another misconception about doing charity is that you have to have money or anything extra when you want to do charity. If we really want to do service, we do not really need money, we just need a heart. Look at Mother Theresa, she did not have any money. All she had was a big heart that scattered love in profusion all over India and now the Sisters of Charity scatters LOVE all over the world.
One other thing I remember while doing service was picking up bread from different bakeries so I can distribute it to the communities who needs it. One time, I was so sick but no one is available to pick up the bread, so I did it anyways but after finishing up the distribution, a few people came to me and told me that some of those picking up bread that we ration are driving fancy cars and are probably just there to sell the bread to buy alcohol or drugs and that they don't really need it. A lot of times if we are not practicing "constant integrated awareness", when we hear negative thoughts and ideas from others, we get affected and we react with the same negative intensity. But upon further analysis, if and when we believe that service to man is service to God and that if that service springs out of love, we are not there to pass judgment to those who come (the recipient off the services we provide. Once we give something, it now belongs to the receiver and it is up to them to do what they want with it. This is like saying - we have to be detached from the fruit of our actions. That being the case, when Service springs out of LOVE, it does scatters LOVE in profusion.
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