Part III
READINESS TO SERVE
THE aspirant always has to be in readiness to serve the cause of humanity. He need not apply himself to any type of work irrespective of his capacity. He has to select that portion of work which he is qualified to do by virtue of his Readiness to serve according to aptitude and ability individual aptitude and abilities. But whatever service he can render by virtue of his capacity, he renders even when the circumstances are most trying.
The ordeals through which he may have to pass are many, but his determination to serve whenever possible must remain unshaken. No claims of limited “I” He is not in any way attached to the idea of service, however, in the sense of maximum results being secured through himself alone. If any service needs to be rendered he is willing to render it with any amount of sacrifice, but he is never bound by the false idea, “I alone should have the credit for doing it.” If the privilege of rendering the service falls to the lot of someone else, he is not envious. If he were to seek opportunities for himself to render service it would be a form of selfishness. In service which really
counts in the spiritual life there can be no thought of the self at all. There should be no necessity felt to have something for oneself or of being the one who can give something to others. The self in all its forms has to be left entirely out of the picture. Service should spring out of the spontaneity of freedom if and when it is necessary; and it has to come in the co-operative spirit in which there is no insistence upon the claims of the limited “I.”
If the aspirant is completely detached from all works and their results he becomes free from the vitiating opposites of the great things and small things. Freedom from opposites of great and small things The worldly-minded feel their separative existence through achievements. Therefore they have a natural tendency to judge their achievements in terms of tangible quantities. They grasp at great things and avoid the little things. From the spiritual point of view, the so-called little things are often seen to be as important as the so-called great things. The aspirant has no motive to eschew the one and seek the other; therefore he attends to little things with as much zest as to great things.
In the spiritual life even little things matter as much as great things, but the conventions of the world usually fail to recognise this simple truth. Conventions restrict scope of service By following conventionally accepted ideas the scope of possible service to fellow beings gets artificially restricted to those things which are conventionally regarded as important. So many things which really are of vital importance to life are neglected, with the result that life is spiritually impoverished.
So, in a society which is dominated by merely material conceptions of life, service is interpreted in terms of providing for bread or clothes or other physical
