"That which you can earn by service
you cannot get even by sadhana."

One who is disciplined alone is a disciple. In the ancient tradition, there are so many definitions for, who a disciple is - one who serves, one who learns under a Master, one who is obedient. But our concept of a disciple is a total one. When Babuji said 'discipline', He did not mean worship of a Guru, or cooking his food, or pressing his feet at night. That is by way of service, you see. Service is one expression, one way of expressing one's love, and at one end of the service we have the servant who works for a wage, for a living, and the other end we have the Master who serves without getting perhaps anything in return except the satisfaction of the work done and the satisfaction of fulfilling his own Master's orders.

So it is not important that you should serve your Master in many ways, but it is important that you should serve yourself and by serving yourself under His instructions, with His teaching, by adopting the practice that He gives. When you become that which He wants you to become, that is the greatest service you can do to the Master. All the rest is trivial. I mean in the sense that anybody can do that service; anybody can cook food; anybody can wash clothes. Sometimes we find well-to-do people washing the Master's clothes and they take a lot of pride in it. Justifiably so, because they never washed even their own clothes. So they feel a sense of happiness that "I have done something which I was never able to do. All for the love of my Master." Good. But service done in that sense is something less than what it should be because when one serves, one should not be conscious of service. "I serve," that idea should not be there. It should be something natural, spontaneous, like a mother looking after her child, the baby. She does not say; "I am serving the baby." And the baby accepts all that service without being conscious of it being served. So when the disciple is able to serve the Master in such a way that neither of them is conscious, one of serving, the other of being served, I think that is the perfect relationship between the Guru (Master) and the Shishya (disciple).

The Concept of Service
They also serve who stand and wait. Service does not mean doing something. Service means obedience. If Master says, "stand at the gate," you stand at the gate. "No, no, but Master! I am not doing anything." "Yes, but you are standing at the gate! Do you think it is not doing something?" So service is synonymous with obedience. It does not mean going around with pots and pans and making a lot of noise, and putting a lot of smoke in the kitchen, so the Master's eyes are burning and he says, "Oh! I am happy the kitchen is burning," you see. That is noise. That is smoke. A pure hundred percent efficient fuel generates no smoke. So when we are hundred percent efficient in our service, the service should not even be obvious, should not even appear as service, to Him and to us. We should not be conscious that this fellow is working for me, because it is as if he is working, when He ceases to feel any difference between Himself and His devotee. He looks and He sees working here, He looks and He sees another Himself working there, He looks there and He sees and a third Himself working there! The three blessed devotees of the Master who have become like Him, though maintaining their individual identities, their bodies and their character.

Brother Don's closeness with Babuji was something special for the people from the West, and that was because of his ability to serve him when he was sick. It is something the West has adopted, the ability to serve without distinguishing between good work and bad work, dirty work and clean work. I wonder how many Indians would be able nurse a sick man when he is vomiting, having diarrhoea and he has to be cleaned up. Because we may think we love, but we are not able to serve. Strangely enough, in the West, I don't think the ability to love is there, but they have the ability to serve. They don't distinguish between cleaning a toilet and washing a saucepan. No Westerner would hesitate to clean out a toilet. They do it all the time in their homes. They don't have servants. We would use a toilet but not clean it!

Different Aspects of Service
If a person truly wishes to serve the Mission and wants its good, wants it to grow, wants it to expand, not out of personal egoistic tendencies but out of that immense gratitude that what I have received, others too must receive, then there are other ways of serving the Mission. It is like a river, which flows from the Himalayas down to the sea. We are permitted to take that much of water that we need, but we cannot dam up the river at our doorstep in a selfish manner, because the river must flow and if you dam it up, the river starts stinking because it is now stagnant. Life must flow, rivers must flow. Here too, the good of the Mission means service must flow out of the heart of every abhyasi. The right aspect of service, service without bias, service without preference, service without seeking rewards is important. I emphasize this point particularly because very often we have abhyasis coming to us, coming to Master Himself, saying, "Babuji, I wish to offer my services to the Mission." And while their offers are very sincere and very genuine, they are somewhat premature because the concept of service is not properly understood and there are yet differences in our minds of what types of service we shall offer, how that service should be accepted, and in what form that service should be remunerated. Only when all these three aspects which are lying dormant in our minds (not really dormant but suppressed by us because we wish to appear sincere, we wish to appear spiritual, and therefore they are kept dormant, hidden from the Master, as they think but only really hidden from themselves) are understood and sublimated, are we ready for real service. Now it is only when this threefold idea of qualities of service etc., disappear from our minds, that the Sadhaka becomes a true Sevaka. There is a difference between a sadhaka(one who does practice) and a sevaka(one who does service). A sadhaka does for himself, while a sevaka does for the Master.

Social aspect: You can serve human beings all your life and you still remain what you are. So how does it help us? The problem is to serve yourself first and then become more and more capable of serving humanity. When you reach a certain level where you can serve them in the highest possible fashion, and obey the Master's instruction to serve humanity, then by serving humanity, we serve God. Not till then. So, for jana seva (service to public) to become Prabhu seva, (service to God) i.e., for human service to become the service of God, one must be a servant of God, serving human beings out of a concern of his own, arising for human beings.

We have to act on that which has to be acted upon, in the plane of its existence. If a person is hungry and if you want to fulfill his hunger, you have to give him food. You cannot give him platitudes and send him away with a few good thoughts. No doubt, he will benefit from those thoughts later, but only when his stomach is full. So, therein hinges the philosophy of social service, for instance. But in spirituality, my Master considers sthoola social service, that is, concretized social service, giving of alms, giving of cloths to the poor, things like that, as the lowest level of service that we can offer each other. And, my Master used to say that it is not really service, it is our duty.

So, it is in some way an arrogance to think that we are serving someone, when we are merely doing our duty to our brothers and sisters. At our level of human beings, we should have this idea that we are the common children of a father, sharing a common destiny, some aspiring, some not aspiring, some willing to aspire, some willing to be taught, some teaching - so this is a mutual service or duty that we perform to each other, in educating each other, in trying to bring up each other, in trying to make each other evolve, mutually sustaining one relationship with only one thing, that is, our LOVE for each other.

Physical aspect: What is it the Master really seeks of us? What is it by doing which we can really and truly serve the Master? After all, any one can help him to put on his slippers. Why rush to do it? Similarly, not much service is involved in handing him his walking stick or in opening the door of the car for him to get in. These are trivial things, and also things in which his need of our services is minimal. Then what should we do? Is there service of a higher order than merely physical action? Yes!
One can serve him by assisting him with the work of the Mission. The work of the Mission is his life work, the purpose of his mortal existence. In assisting him in that work, we certainly serve him in a more vital and necessary way. This does not mean that we should not help him find his slippers or his stick. We should not stop with this level of service. We should strive to rise ever higher in the levels of service available. We can offer our service in writing about his teachings and his work. We can offer our assistance in maintaining books of accounts, or by running the printing press. Engineers can offer their service by helping with designing and construction of ashram facilities and so on.

Spiritual aspect: I often wondered whether there was one way of serving him, which one could call the highest way, or the noblest way or perhaps even the most loving way of serving him. It came to me one day during group meditation with abhyasis at Mysore that there is such a way of serving him in the highest, noblest and the most loving way. What is it that he wants from us? Is it physical service? He can get this from servants. Is it the work of the ashram? He can pay staff to get this done. Is it giving a little money or donation? Certainly not, because one prayer from him can open the wealth of the Universe and put it at his feet. Is it wisdom-filled advice? He is the very repository of all wisdom.

Love? Can it be love? Regretfully, almost with tears in my eyes, I got the answer. No! Many love him, but do all therefore or thereby serve him? No! No doubt it is a high and noble offering. But service? No! Then the answer came to me in a blissfilled flash of light without luminosity. What is it he wants us to do? He wants us to 'become' that which he wants us to become. And in doing this lies the greatest service to the Master. He serves the Master most nobly, most lovingly; who becomes what the Master wants him to become. A simple answer. An illuminating answer. A soul-searing answer. A tear-evoking answer. All these, yes, also an understandable answer.

Is this not, after all, the very thing that every father wants of his children? What can exceed the grief and despair a person feels when his progeny turn out to be nothing: all his dreams and aspirations shattered: all the loving work bestowed upon them brought to naught: a lifetime of dedicated work ruined just because the person on whom all this was lovingly showered refused to become what he was expected to become. There is no greater disservice a son can do to his father than by this non-becoming, nor can there be a greater service than in the becoming.

If this is so with our worldly parents, how much more so of our spiritual father who is our mother too. Can his grief and misery be any less if we fail to come up to his expectations? And can his joy know any bounds if we become what he wants us to become? Master's work upon the abhyasis and his love for them is his service to us. In fully availing of his services and becoming what he wants us to become lies the greatest service that we can, in turn, do to him. The greatest service we can do is therefore to utilise the loving service he offers to us in the most devoted and dedicated manner. In the total acceptance of his service to us lies the totality of the service that we, in turn, can offer him.

What is it that we have to do to become what he wants us to become? The animal man has to become humanized and then we have to proceed on to the destination. The way is before us - meditation, cleaning, prayer and constant remembrance. We have already covered the journey from what we were to what we are. Now, that which we are, has to become 'THAT', which we ought to be. This is but another way of saying that our sadhana must be correct in every way, then only can the goal be attained. Many meditate, but few meditate as Master asks us to do. Many only 'think' that they are meditating. Many also use objects of meditation not specified in Sahaj Marg. During cleaning, cleaning is not done but thoughts are allowed to breed in indulgent fancy. Remembrance is rare, and if at all it is there then it is about other things and not that which we should remember. And so it goes on, the sad chronicle of our imperfect sadhana. How can such abhyasis ever truly serve the Master?

Our sadhana is purposeful, goal-oriented, and at the same time amazingly simple and undemanding. If in its practice, abhyasis don't progress, then one can only conclude that the will to progress to the destination is lacking. The motive force is lacking. That is, even the desire to serve the Master is lacking. If one accepts the idea that only the abhyasi who meticulously carries on his sadhana and proceeds unlingeringly towards his goal is really serving the Master, then all other aspects of service are seen to be merely lower order of service, at best. There is the danger that such service can even degenerate into hypocritical attitudes of self-seeking. Every currency needs to be 'backed.' Similarly our service to the Master must be backed by love, devotion, and correct practice as these alone help us to become what he wants us to become, and thus set the seal of true service upon our efforts.

Serving the Master
I have been very fortunate in accompanying Master on some of his travels. Wherever I have gone, I have noticed the eagerness which abhyasis have shown in serving the Master. The eagerness is generally so overpowering that a scramble frequently ensues among the abhyasis, each one striving his best to be the one to serve the Master. It is a common sight to see one abhyasi trying to help Master get out of his chair, while another abhyasi anxiously looks for his slippers. A third one is ready with Master's walking stick, while a fourth may be holding out a towel or napkin. All are eager and anxious that Master should accept the personal service so proffered. And surrounding the few happy ones who have managed to grab something with which to serve him, are the disappointed many who could not take timely action. This I have seen repeated again and again, wherever I have gone with Master.

Is Master happy with the services of the abhyasis so eagerly and anxiously offered? Some times yes, but often no. I have no doubt that Master is happy to see the idea of service developing in the minds of abhyasis. Nevertheless, one reason why he may not be happy is that few abhyasis, if any, take the trouble of finding out what exactly he wants. The wrong sort of service is offered. This generally comes about because we are anxious to serve the Master not for his own sake but for the sake of the pleasure it affords us. In thus trying to serve him, we generally hinder him or obstruct him. So the first thing that one wishing to serve him sincerely must do is to try to ascertain his needs and wishes, and then act appropriately. It is the rare abhyasi who seems to be able to sense the need of the Master and to offer him a glass of water, or a pillow to rest upon, without being asked for it. When this is accepted, all the others look on unhappy that they did not think of doing so. What is the secret in such cases? The secret is not to 'think' of what Master needs, but to intuitively feel it and act to fulfill that need. Love for the Master, a totally absorbing love for him alone seems to make this sort of intuition possible. Thus, only an abhyasi who loves the Master can really serve him. The others can only try to guess what he wants or needs and generally end up by obstructing him, and causing annoyance and displeasure to all.

It is easier to get from the Master through service than through devotion, love. Who knows what is devotion? Who knows what is love? I have said again and again, love is not so easy as we think. It is something which we have to achieve. So, it is easier through service. My Master was able to love his Master, and he never looked at another person, that is what he has written. But I don't have that ability, so I got through service. So what is the difference? Service is easier than loving, loving is a very difficult thing. Service is very easy. Put your heart and serve somebody, you automatically get his love and his obligation to you, and he has to give you whatever he has to give you. But we should not serve with the idea of getting something, that is one important thing. Then we become servants and we get only what a servant gets.

Master too serves, but only his Master: When we are devoted we must serve, and if we serve, it must be with devotion. I think this can be seen from my Master's life. I think he was at the summit of devotion to his Master, but that did not prevent him from becoming totally service-oriented towards humanity. So in him, we find that fusion of devotion, total devotion with total dedication to service. The only difference I can find is that both Martha and Mary are towards Christ. But when eventually, we are able to fuse the two attitudes into one, the devotion is towards the higher and the service pointed down towards those who need it. But it is not really a difference, because even though he serves humanity, it is his Master that he serves.

So when this fusion happens, the devotion for the Master makes us serve the Master by serving his devotees. To serve the Master is all right, but if the Master prefers that you serve his devotees, our devotion must permit that, because it is too easy to say, "I will serve only the Master and nobody else." That is what every dog does, but we have to be a little bit more than that. That is why one who is devoted to the Master, a Mary for instance, must be willing to become a Martha and leave the Master, and even go far away to serve the Master by serving those whom he wants us to serve. Otherwise, we should be like Mary sitting at the Master's feet, or like Martha, sitting in the kitchen. Here, we have to be mentally with the Master, and perhaps physically very very far away, and yet bring about a fusion of the two attitudes. That is, by constant remembrance I am permanently with him, and because of my Master's instructions I am able to serve him by serving those whom he wants to serve, though in time and distance we may be far separated from him.

Volunteer Service
Of Abhyasis: When we learn to exist on ourselves, which means not depending on others - and in spirituality depending on our self means the Self inside me, which is my Master - then we become a permanent source of illumination to others which cannot be shaken by any force of nature. And it also becomes eternal. So this is the secret of spiritual life, that we must be strong because we must be strong. Nothing to do with others. Not to expect anything from others. Which only means, I must expect the best from myself. Because that is the only way to become the best. And we should use such opportunities as a testing stone for ourselves. And use it to correct ourselves. Use it for our self-development.

So this quality of inner rocklike steadiness we have to develop. And that can come only when we have tolerance for the others. They are what they are. They represent what I should not be, so let me not be like them, Master helping. So every time somebody is angry, you become more tolerant. Every time somebody is rude you become stronger in your own faith about yourself. And we must be able to take abuse with a smile, all the time praying, "Master, please correct them, help them, because they are my brothers and sisters and in some way if they are like that, I will be a little less than I should be." So, we should try to behave with tolerance, with courtesy because the person serving us is serving the Master. When we accept their service we should behave as if the Master was there and not this boy or this girl. If the abhyasi would adopt this attitude, there would be no problem at all. One serving is serving the Master, those accepting the service are accepting the Master's service, everything is calm, harmonious. This is what we should try for.

Once when I was talking to Babuji, there was another abhyasi with us who had volunteered for service during Basant. He came to Master and said, "Babuji, I am not able to do any sittings. I am on this and this duty, and I am here only for three days. I do not have the benefit of your blessings. What is the use of my coming for Basant?" Just on the spur of the moment, even though he was addressing my Master, I said, "That which you can earn by service you cannot get even by sadhana, because we do not have the ability, we do not have the moral fibre, in today's world, to be perfect sadhakas. It is not possible."

It is our Master's desire that we should congregate and feed the people here and house them properly. So we do it. That is why I emphasised in the volunteer's meeting that our brothers and sisters, who are here, they are Master's guests, and therefore should be treated as such by us. Even brotherliness is not enough. They are Master's beloved guests and if we have the idea of service it should be something like what you offer to your sambandhi^{(Near and far relatives of the bridegroom)}. When the bridal party with the baraat^{(The arrival of the bridegroom's people at the marriage-hall)} comes, how much fuss we make about them. How many sweets we offer to them. How much attention we give to their every least comfort. This should be the aspect of service because here Master is the supreme bridegroom and all of us are brides. In the ancient principles there is one Purusha only and all the others are only females, whatever be their sex. So this should be the aspect of service.

When volunteers work for the Mission, they get something always. They do not have to attend, in fact they are told not to attend sittings. That is why I have said, the easiest way of winning the Master's heart is to work, not meditation and all this, you know. Nothing is necessary if you are a volunteer.

Of Preceptors: My Master was reluctant to give instructions because an instruction must be obeyed, whereas a hint is to be followed with wisdom, with love, because as preceptors we are doing voluntary work, we are not paid for it. There is no compulsion. But please remember that when you volunteer to do something and accept a responsibility, the responsibility is much more awful than that of a merely paid worker. A paid worker can leave. All that he renounces is his wage. And he can always be sacked by giving him compensation in terms of monetary benefits.

But where there is a relationship like ours with the Master, where there is a voluntary - in fact sometimes people wish, crave to serve, you see, - relationship, then the relationship is something beyond a merely worldly relationship; beyond just a human relationship. It is raised to a higher level where things like brotherhood, loyalty, they take on a new dimension of meaning. And there it should neither be necessary for an order to be given, nor for you to work in a spirit merely of obedience. Preceptors are expected to therefore serve the Master not with obedience but with love, something which they wish to do, something which they long to do, something which they cannot refrain from doing. It's like serving your child. No mother thinks that she is serving her child. She is looking after it, protecting it, cherishing it.

Babuji said, "Attach your heart with that of the Master and your mind with that of the preceptor." Preceptor is a guide. Listen to him, obey him, practice what he tells you to practice, but love the Master. Now we have to remember a very important thing. Babuji told me very early in my life, "Remember, a preceptor serves the Master." We do not serve abhyasis. Because if the Master says, "No more transmission," we have to stop. If we do not stop, he will stop it himself. Because the main switch is there. Therefore, we serve the Master. He says, "Take up this person and give him sittings," we do it. If he says, "No, this person is not for you," we stop.

When we serve, when we offer our services to the Master, there is often this immense temptation offered to us by abhyasis. They come to us and say, 'Sir you have done so much for us. You have spent so much of your time on us. You have been getting up at 4 o' Clock and going to bed at mid night, giving sittings and we are grateful to you.' I say this is a temptation because preceptors are human beings and if they get into their heads the idea that they are serving humanity, the first crime in spirituality commences, because none of us is serving anybody except the Master. We are only servants of the Master. It is my Master's desire that I should transmit to the abhyasis. So I do it.

We have to go ahead with a sense of purpose - not our purpose. A preceptor is true to himself and to the Master when his purpose becomes the purpose of those whom he is supposed to serve. Their lives must become your primary concern; their health is your primary concern, not yours; their upliftment becomes your primary concern, not your own. If you are able to achieve that state of being that, "It does not matter what happens to me so long as I can push a few of these people up," then this miracle can be possible that all are masters, otherwise, it is just a name, or a word in a book.

Service without Servility
We have this mystery in spirituality, "service without servility," as Babuji emphasized again and again. We serve but we are nobody's servants. Servants serve for money, out of fear, for existence. We serve because we love. So in marriage too, there must be this idea of service - the wife serving the husband, the husband serving the wife. We serve, but not as servants. We serve because it is our nature to serve. We serve because the Master says serve. We serve with pride in the Master; and therefore, we serve Him, though we are serving you. Now again you find this operation: that the person served is not the person apparently served, but is the person who does not need my service at all - my Master.

One who serves is not a servant. I mean, the Master serves you all the time, but he is no way your servant. You see, when the service is of a higher nature than what you expect, there is no servility. But when that service is of a lower nature than what you expect, it is service with servility - you are a servant. So we make ourselves servants. Nobody makes me a servant of himself.

So you see, humility should not be confused with servitude. Humility is an attitude of the soul, where I tell myself, "I am what I am, but I should be what I should be." And this gap is my humility. The more I am inclined to think that I am already what I should have been, the more arrogance it is. So when I am conscious that between me and my goal there is still something to be achieved, it makes for humility. It has nothing to do with human relationships. Humility is always an attitude in which we meet someone who is - I can't use the word 'superior', because it is not right - who is perfect. Like when you see a beautiful painting, you stand in awe and reverence before it. It is not servility. It is not servitude. It is not humbling yourself before something. Nevertheless, the attitude is one of humility. So when you go into a church, to go near the altar, the feeling comes of humility. Why? Because there is that towards which I am moving. You cannot go arrogantly towards your Christ or your Krishna. So we should not confuse these things. And service without servility is the purpose of life. And how to serve the Mission? By becoming what he wants you to become. There is no other answer. All the rest is superficial.

I believe this path to be the lion's path, in which, we must be willing to sacrifice, if necessary, even our spiritual evolution and continue to serve humanity through not only this life but perhaps for all eternity, if that is His desire, if that is His wish and if that is the plan of Nature.

"Serve and you will be served."