Service
Action is intrinsic to body and one cannot avoid doing one’s karma. For every action performed, one can use their free will to decide the course of action. Our focus, at the Sri Sivabala Yogi Kirpa Foundation, is to help those in need and to do those actions in spirit of surrender. In this spirit one can not only grow spiritually but it also helps to cultivate love between one another, without any notion of differences.
Action can be done via two ways:
With ‘I’ sense
eg. ‘I’ love her; ‘I’ hit her. This causes bondage to chain of birth and death & rebirth. Evil qualities of attachment, pride, greed, anger acts as a catalyst for such actions.
Satiation of one desire leads to birth of many more desires, all of which cannot be gratified.
Without ‘I’ sense
It means to do one’s karma without involvement of the ego. One carries on to perform same actions that one is destined to do but without a feeling that he/she is doing it.
This results in far greater spiritual reward.
Essence of service lies in doing all actions without sense of participation, without motivation to satisfy a desire or seeking fruit for one’s action. One should try to perform all actions along these lines on a daily basis.
Service disciplines and purifies the mind and through it one can develop divine qualities of love, devotion, compassion, contentment, humility, forgiveness and so on.Doing service brings joy to one’s heart. It is not meant to be forced labor that pleases some unseen master. The indwelling Atman (Self) feels happy when one acts for its sake. By helping others (in whatever small or large way) alleviate their pain, suffering from their heart, one in turn helps their oneself, spiritually.
Those that practice the path of service understand that the ever so gracious Lord resides in every Heart. Pain suffered by someone is the pain suffered by the Lord since It does not consider anything apart from It. To help those in need and to carry out one’s karma selflessly without wanting anything in return forms the crux of this path.
