How to Be of Service to the World

Each and every person has a unique existence, a unique reason for being here, for being in your life, for doing what you do. Everyone has a purpose. If you are on this earth, there is something that you can do for living beings, be it great or be it small. Everyone can give of themselves, and each person is unique in what they have to express, and what they have to offer to the world. Each has your unique gift. You each have something special about you to give to the world.

And there is a natural desire to express yourself, to make a difference, to give something to the world be it large or small. If you brighten a person's day with a smile or a nice comment, then surely you have given something to the world. If you help to support living beings—animals, plants, the natural environment—surely you have given something to the world.

​ If, in the work you do, you teach or you support others in their learning, you give them something. Surely you are giving something to the world. Whatever is your occupation, whatever your daily activities, they can be done in such a way that you are doing service to all living beings, or they can be done with self-centered attitudes and approaches.

If, whatever your work, whatever your daily activities, you begin with the thought, how can I serve others? What can I do today to do an act of kindness for other living beings? It can be very small or very great, it doesn't matter. But to have this approach to life makes a difference. And if you think every living being in the form of the infinite, that the divine infinite one exists in all beings, in the animals, in the plants, even in the rocks, all life is a part of an interwoven, integral whole.
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If you take this approach and you think all is being done by the divine one, all that is given is given from the infinite to the infinite one and that which is given is the divine also, then the feeling comes, not that you are great for doing some good acts, but that the infinite is acting through you. The divine is in you and through you expressing in the world, giving something to the world. And the one you are giving to, that you are serving, that is also that divine one. That is also the infinite being, the infinite conscious awareness. So that one is moving through you into the world. That one is receiving the gifts.

If you keep your mind ever in remembrance the infinite Brahma does all actions and receives all actions, and the people before me that I serve—the students, the customers, the friends, and family—they are all the divine Brahma. They are the divine one in form and my heart is with them and I do service to all beings.

With this approach you feel that there is something great, something that you are having in your life, and, you become, not the doer of actions, not the builder of karmic reactions, but immersed in divine love, immersed in the divine being. You feel that that one is pouring through you as the actions take place, as the service takes place, and the one being served Is the infinite Beloved. The service itself that is given is of the divine.

In this way, the mundane world turns into the sublime. There is no mundanity to the world then. The world is a place of love, a place of vibrant life and presence, and you are surrounded by the Beloved within you and around you. That one eternal essence abides in all things. Is the very substance of all that is.

So, take this sweet memory, this sweet approach of remembrance, then the sense of doer-ship and pride falls away. The sense of self-condemnation falls away. Who is there to condemn? Who is there to be so proud of and to have puffed ego about? There is only one. There is only the infinite.

When you realize this when you realize that all that you have defined yourself as is only confinement of eternal being. A container of belief holding eternal being, believing itself to be something other than its true nature. And believing yourself to be something other than your true nature, all the acts you do you feel responsible. You feel as if you have either done something great or you have not performed well and you diminish the feeling about yourself.

But when you stay with remembrance, rather than the confinements of the ego-self, the confinement of definition of belief, then all belongs to the one. The one who does all actions receives all actions. To that infinite one surrender all your beliefs, all your sense of self, and your constructs. Let that one be in you and around you. That is true humility. It takes great humbleness to accept the greatness within you. Namaskar.