People say seva is selfless service, but I wonder if anybody knows the meaning of selflessness. Looking at the word selfless, we think, ‘Oh, I can be selfless.’ Let me tell you, it is not that simple or easy. Seva means service, so how can this service become selfless? I will give you an example of Sri Swamiji, when he was in the Rishikesh ashram. One day, Swami Sivanandaji called him. There was a sick person suffering from leprosy, with boils all over the body, and pus oozing out of those boils. Swami Sivanandaji told Paramahamsaji, ‘Satyam, go and clean his body.’ So, Sri Swamiji went to the leper and started to clean his body. For many it would have been a moment of great happiness and joy, ‘I am doing my guru’s bidding, and I am serving this poor, sick person.’ However, the poor, sick person whose body was being cleaned, cried out in pain and kicked Sri Swamiji. Sri Swamiji became angry. He said, ‘I am trying to help you and you are kicking me?’
He left the person and went back to Swami Sivanandaji, ‘I am not going to do this seva anymore. I am trying to help this person and he is kicking me. He does not realize that I am helping him.’ Swami Sivanandaji told him, ‘Listen, the person is sick. The person is in pain. It is natural for him to react to pain. You are looking at the person and his body. You are not looking at the person inside him, who is suffering. You have no love for the person inside, who is suffering. You think that you are helping the person by cleaning the outer façade, which is the body. Remember that God inside that person is suffering, and it is that God whom you have to serve.’
This was the lesson that Paramahamsaji learned and later propagated in the form of atmabhava, to see the divinity in everyone, to see oneself in everyone. Paramahamsaji described seva as nothing but love in action. If you love somebody, then no matter what the reaction of the other person may be, the other person may lash out at you, or hit you, yet out of your love, you continue to help that person, despite every reaction of their suffering. It is a simple thing, and many of you will now think, ‘Seva is love in action.’ Do you know what love is? Without understanding anything, we try to do something to please our own sentiments. If I help somebody, it is I who becomes happy that I helped somebody. When I become happy, my ego also becomes happy. When the ego is there, how can there be love and selflessness?
Seva is thrown into the trash, and the ego, ‘I am something’, comes to the forefront. This is the seva which everybody does. You have to understand that selflessness is something that has to be worked on. It is not an idea that you can express, it is a lesson that you need to learn and live. Love is not something that you can think about and express, it is an idea and experience that you need to live.
Seva is supported by sahayog, cooperation. People get too entrenched in their own selves and forget the idea of cooperation. I have seen people who go to somebody for help, and the other person simply says, ‘Sorry, I can’t help you. I am too busy doing my thing.’ I do not understand this type of attitude or behaviour. When I was working for the Bihar School of Yoga, looking after the ashram, departments and people, I do not recall that I have ever said ‘no’ to anybody. If people would come to me, ‘Can you help me translate this sentence?’ I would take five minutes from my time and help the other person translate a sentence, as the other person was in need of that support and cooperation. If I say, ‘Sorry, I cannot and will not’, I am denying that cooperation.
What harm is there if we are able to give five minutes to help somebody? We are not able to due to our entrenchment in our own mind. Somebody would come to me and say, ‘Swamiji, this is the magazine. Can you look at it?’ I would never say ‘no.’ I would say, ‘Listen, right now I am a bit busy. You can leave the file. I will look at it when I have free time, and I will return it to you.’ Paramahamsaji used to joke many times that Niranjan did his work in the toilet, as that was the only place where nobody would disturb me, and I would go there with my books and files and do my work. Paramahamsaji used to tell people that in the toilet, I had set up my computer, my library, my files. He used to laugh about it, but that was the reality.
I never refused helping anybody, no matter how busy I was.
If I could take time off for five minutes from my work, I would gladly do it. If I had to see something which would involve me thinking about the subject, I would say, ‘I will finish the job and then return the work to you.’ I never denied anyone any help, support or cooperation, and that was me. Today, due to their entrenchment in their own mind, people deny cooperation to people who need it, and that negates the whole idea of seva.
Another aspect of seva is common sense. Some people may think, ‘I have to cooperate with everybody, so I am going to kill myself doing it.’ That is lack of common sense. An example: a few months ago, a girl came to me and said, ‘Swamiji, I have been seeing the children of Bal Yoga Mitra Mandal, and I am inspired to work with children.’ I said, ‘Wonderful.’ She said, ‘I want to bring the training and teaching of Bal Yoga Mitra Mandal to different schools.’ I said, ‘Very good.’ Then she said to me, ‘I want you to help me make the syllabus and tell me how I can train them.’ ‘I said, ‘That is not my mandate. I am not going to sit with you, help you and prop you up on the pedestal.’ Like that many people say, ‘Swamiji, I want to teach yoga.’ I say, ‘Very good.’ Then they say, ‘Can you tell me how to do teach?’ I say, ‘No, I can’t. If you want to do it, you think about it, you plan it and give me the proposal. I will only say yes or no. Nothing more than that. I am not going to help you in any other manner. It is your plan and project. It is your brain thinking about what you want to do in life. Do market research, develop contacts, plan how you are going to approach the subject, how you are going to approach the people. Give it to me. I will look at it. If it is appropriate, I will say, ‘Go Ahead.’ If it is not appropriate, I will throw it in the trash, and you will have to rethink again.’ That is common sense.
Then there are many people, who will say, ‘Oh, such wonderful work. Yes, I will help you.’ They will sit down, talk for hours and work out something, which is not the vision of the person who wants to do the work. You do not know the limitations of the other person outside. You do not know anything about the other person’s plans and projects, yet you become the guide. Later you discover that the person forgot about it once they left the ashram. You are wasting your own time and not doing anything constructive or qualitative. This is where common sense comes in. When do you need to get involved and when do you need to back out? Seva is not just a mental whim wanting to do something, without understanding or even seeing the whole picture.
Seva, sahayog and common sense come together to make the result positive and effective. If you understand this you will succeed, and if you do not understand it, then, despite all your best efforts, you will fail. If you do not think of these aspects, your effort is not going to succeed. If you can bring all the aspects together, with simplicity and clarity of mind, then you will definitely succeed.
29 January 2023, Ganga Darshan, Munger