QUESTION: I have a contrasting feeling about that. For the last year I have been discovering the person inside of me. And the comfort of being with a group of people who I know are seeking that divinity, does not mean so much of sharing and but listening and of observing myself, and the gentle nature that I feel from being around people in less loquacious ways.
Raj, my question in my search during this last year, and all of the wonderful things that I have discovered that makes me feel a part of the universe, and of the word “service” has emerged a number of times, and the feeling of service has emerged, and as I listen to definitions of service and exploring what it might mean and how I might be as a person in service. And incidentally, the Mother Theresa film this evening I feel... I have applied to the Peace Corp and this is a dream that I have had since 1962, to be a part of that.
And so my question to you is: if you see me in that role? And if I feel it’s a logical extension and I would simply like some collaboration that you might give me on that path of service? And maybe if it’s not the Peace Corp, it’s something else. But I would like some direction about the meaning and your interpretation of being of service.
ANSWER: I will say first of all that it is a marvelously congruent next step for you.
Service... Servant... If you wish to serve your fellow man, you had better not try to serve your fellow man, else your fellow man will eat you up. You will sacrifice yourself. You will be what you serve. If you wish to be of service to your fellow man, you had better be in touch with what you Are.
I will soften that a little bit. If you wish to serve your fellow man, then I encourage you to desire to be in touch with your Self, with a capital “S”. I encourage you to daily say, “Today I will make no decisions by myself.” I encourage you to join, not with your fellow man whom you would serve, but to join with that ballast in you that keeps you in balance. And that ballast in you is the Holy Spirit (the disowned part of yourself that is held in trust, while you think that you are just an ego).
When you lean into, and depend upon, and yield to the Holy Spirit, you are integrating your limited sense of yourself with the wholeness of what you Are. And the wholeness of what you Are is not in anyway separate from everything else. And so in that experience of your wholeness you literally feel your oneness with everything. And without a false sense of separation that creates fear, there is the peaceful perspective of that which is utterly appropriate in your actions. And when you behave in the world from that place, everyone will say you have served them.
If you try to serve your fellow man without doing this, your fellow man will recognize your willingness to give your power away, and they will take charge of you, and you will be the puppet at the end of the strings that are attached to their fingers. And then you will say in all misery, “There must not be a God, because when I have decided to express love to my fellow man, I have just been used.” That’s because the fundamental, basic, initial, connectedness with your Being, and the joining with the Holy Spirit that that means, didn’t occur first, providing the ballast or balance that allows you to be truly appropriate in transformational ways.
This might sound like a complicated task, or a big hurdle to be able to get over, and maybe it will take you more time to get over it than you have before you should tackle joining the Peace Corps. No. Join it, today, tomorrow, while you are in the groups. Be with your fellow man and woman with the desire to know what the Father’s Will is, with a desire to have a perspective that is not based on what you perceive their needs to be, but based upon what you feel impelled by the Holy Spirit to do.
Your desire to participate in the Peace Corps, came as a result of listening. It is an evidence of emerging clarity. And so, it is appropriate for you to take that step. But just remember each step of the way, listen to the Holy Spirit.
Paul would become apparently utterly useless if he was really trying to help you, and if you became the focal point, and if he cared what you thought about his “help.” But his attention is with me, and he is expressing what is unfolding in his conscious experience as a result of that listening. And then, you might say, that as a result of that you feel unity, you feel touched, you feel heard, you feel embraced, and you are likely to say that Paul is very helpful.
And yet as I said earlier, he has been out of control for ten years, and has no sense of having accomplished a task of being helpful. Because, if you want to know the truth, he doesn’t even have any idea of why what I might be saying to you would be helpful. But it doesn’t change the fact that he is experiencing meaningfulness within himself, and everyone else is experiencing meaningfulness, and therefore there is fulfillment—obvious fulfillment.
I have said it before and I will say it again: The most direct route to your fellow man is right through the center of your Being. So if you want to help your fellow man, go into that place in you where you can experience your divinity, and in that experience have the inescapable recognition that your experience of your divinity proves the divinity of your fellow man.
And then, just as with Mother Theresa, you may look at anyone in any apparent condition and see the Christ. And in seeing the Christ, be that act of love that I have described as the recognition of that which is Real, with a capital “R”, in each and everything—which is transformational, which is the leaven that leavens the whole lump.
Enjoy this new adventure, but don’t become so excited with its novelty that you stop experiencing it from your best centered, connected place. That’s the end of the answer.
QUESTION: I have a follow up on that. There seems to be a conflict between being so self-centered, and then being interested in other people. And you described my problem very clearly in your answer to me.
ANSWER: That was a description of the solution.
QUESTION: Well, it’s also the problem. All right I’ve written it down, so I’ll review what you said as my solution. Thank you.
ANSWER: Indeed, you have illustrated a wonderful point. Everyone, at sometime or another, arrives at a point of saying in all frustration and despair, “I can’t do this.” And you judge yourself and you feel miserable and your words have stated the problem. And then in the moment of your deepest despair you realize that that statement is the answer—“I can’t do this.” And you feel the relief that you don’t have to continue trying to do what you can’t do.
The realization that you really can’t do it is a revelation that you had been bound by your concepts to do something that it was not reasonable for you to do, and your conditioning continued to tell you that it was reasonable. And the moment you say, “I can’t do it,” and you feel the relief of it, your world that expected you to do it, or supported your belief that you ought to be able to do it, will reconfigure and no longer support your belief that you ought to be able to do it. And it will confirm that you cannot do it, and that the world doesn’t expect you to do it.
It is a truth, “To thine own self be true, and it must”—it doesn’t say it might or it ought to—“it must follow as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.”
What is the gift you have to give? What is the gift that any of you have to give? You exist. There is a reason for your existing. The reason for your existing is to make the gift of who you Are—the Individualized, but unlimited expression of God.
How can you make the gift of your Self if you don’t know who you Are? It is selfish to make a gift when your hands are empty. It is selfish to ignore yourself for the sake of others and their perceived needs, which they will be most happy to convince you of and prove to you are real—for which there is no solution. They will be happy to convince you of that.
You know why it is selfish to serve others? Because in ignoring yourself you don’t make the gift of you, and it would seem that some aspect of God is unexpressed. You are withholding God from expression when you are trying to be what someone else needs you to be. And yet, if you do care enough to be what the ego calls selfish and you do yield enough, you do sacrifice the masks and the misperceptions and the false definitions of yourself, and you do begin to feel who you essentially Are, which means to feel the presence of God.
Then what will happen where you are is the Movement of God. And it will be congruent and it will be transformational and everyone will say, “You have been most helpful. You have changed my life.” And you will say, “But I didn’t do anything. I don’t know why you would say that. But I am very happy for you. And I thank you for loving me in your expression of gratitude.”
The ego is a hundred and eighty degrees out of sync, that’s why it’s a liar and the father of the lie. It says the exact opposite of the truth. And it says to be loving you must extend yourself to others at your own expense. Martyrdom is the sign of great spirituality. That’s the end of the answer.
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