Why selfless service?

My Guru, the living legend and the Father of Indian Healing, now also a Doctor, Avdhoota Baba Shivanand Ji says that there are 2 ways of living – either live a life paying for or utilizing past lives’ karmas OR change it for the better. There are 3 ways to reduce the effects of previously accumulated karmas. This is also called writing our own destiny. These 3 ways are meditation (sadhana), collective chanting (sankirtan) and selfless service (nishkaam sewa). These methods are instrumental in raising our consciousness and for our spiritual progress.

Many fellow sadhaks ask me – why do sewa at all? Sadhana is key. Meditation enables us to connect to our Guru and the higher divine powers. So, what is the need for running around and ‘wasting’ energy for doing sewa?

We constantly keep asking for something or the other from our Guru. We start from early morning, go on throughout the day, till we sleep at night. Every day, we are always begging and asking for favors and solutions to our problems, from our Guru. These may be financial, medical, personal, professional, spiritual, social, or any other problem. We are constantly in a seeking mode, where we seek relief from issues, for us as well as our loved ones.

The problems we face our due to our own accumulated karmas. Life is a nemesis. What we give comes back to us, in some way or another, some time or another. However, we constantly expect a solution for roadblocks in our lives created due to these karmas, from God. It is fine. It is good. If we don’t ask for solutions from God, then who else will we ask? We have the right to ask for relief, peace, removal of obstacles, happiness, and love… Moreover, the ability and the strength to create all these things…

But, along with the right, comes a huge responsibility as well. There must be at least some time, some moments, however minute they are – where we do not ask for anything! We just give. We must chalk out at least some time from our lives, where we do not receive or expect or ask! We just have a feeling of GIVING!

Now the question arises as to what can we, simple people, possibly give to our enlightened master? What is it that is ours, in the real sense, which we can offer at the lotus feet of our beloved Babaji? Can there be anything which the Guru, as mighty as our divine Babaji possibly want from us?

There is something…something that we can and should give. And that is – Thanks! An attitude of Gratitude. We must thank our Guru for connecting us with the higher powers, for everything that we have got in this life, for all the beautiful relations, people, circumstances, situations, comforts, luxuries, and everything beyond. Moreover, we must thank him for giving us the most precious and blissful thing – the opportunity to connect with HIM!

And Babaji says that if we ever want to thank him, we must serve his people. Babaji, along with his entire Guru Mandala are extremely pleased wherever there are Bhandara or Anna Kshetras (food served to underprivileged), Narayan bhoj (food and delicacies served to children), satsangs (collective chanting), shivirs (meditative workshops), animal care, environmental protection and conservation, care for aged people and children and any other activity which is conducted selflessly, for the benefit of mankind. All these are ways of doing selfless service for humanity – NISHKAAM SEWA.

Selfless service is unbiased, with no expectation of ANYTHING in return. It does not have conditions attached, types, sizes, or amounts. There is no recognition of any kind, leave alone expectation. In fact, there may be times and incidents when we are trying to do selfless service for the benefit of others and in the process, we unknowingly ruffle a few feathers and unexpectedly become receivers of peoples’ wrath.

It is OK. Perfectly alright. Babaji says that selfless service may involve the receiving of the most potent types of poison – halahal vish!

Selfless service is that which is done quietly, with complete surrender, with only the thought of ‘love and total surrender’ to the divine feet of our beloved Guru. We should just create and desire more opportunities for sewa and whatever is given to us, we must implement it to the best of our ability, capacity, and capability. This pleases Babaji and the entire Guru Mandala to the core. And they bless the sewa teams wholeheartedly. That is why Babaji says that innumerable accumulated karmas of previous births are dissolved by doing selfless service for others. The opportunities for selfless service also come to the most fortunate, most deserving, and the most blessed.

Sewa also helps in ensuring a better ‘connection’ with Guru Mandala and the divine powers. As and when the karmic layers are burnt away, the consciousness rises to higher dimensions. This results in clearer channels of communication with the divine forces brings in more clairvoyance and better manifestation of goals.

So, let us all indulge ourselves in the ocean of divinity spread by our ever-loving, graceful and magnificent GURU, by doing maximum sewa, as and when possible.