Estimated reading time: 8 minutes
Becoming the Change We Wish to See
It’s a natural aspect of spiritual growth to wish to be of authentic service. Most of us realize that we are not here just to paddle our own personal canoes. In the early stages, this will to serve is often channelled into pinpointing problems “out there” to fix.
In a goal-oriented world, it can be very easy to equate service with goal and personality-based achievement. We live in a world where people’s impact is often measured by their CVs, their activism, how many books they’ve sold or the numbers of their followers on social media. It’s tempting to think that our service has to involve a lofty job description and a list of achievements. Or else we can’t be having an impact.
This emphasis can blind us to the fact that our most powerful and far-reaching impact may be born out of our growing maturity and integrity. Authentic service is a natural by-product of ever-deepening levels of self mastery, self awareness and personal empowerment. People who would not even consider themselves spiritual may be very grounded and integrated in this regard. They often have a profound effect on the world around them without giving it much thought.
Growth as Authentic Service
As we grow spiritually, it brings value to everyone. Every single person who expands their capacity to love, their spiritual maturity and integrity, helps to raise the collective consciousness. Every step forward benefits everyone. As we finetune our own emotional and spiritual maturity, we contribute in a way that is non-interfering. It is respectful of everyone else’s intrinsic power to chart the course of their own destiny.
Often, the best way to contribute is the quiet, diligent work of inwardly becoming a more loving, kind, and self-responsible person. One of the gifts of such growth is that our presence becomes a more benign influence on those around us , even if we never say a word. This in itself is truly authentic service. We simply cannot judge the profound impact of our actions. We cannot see the ripples of effects that result from something we said or did. A rising tide lifts all boats.
It is an attitude and act of service to deepen our own self-love, to nurture our own emotional and spiritual growth and maturity. “If you want to change the world, start with yourself”: Gandhi. Similarly, to have the wisdom and humility to know when we need to get help if, for example, we are in deep emotional pain. “Pain that is not transformed is transmitted:” Richard Rohr.
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Everyday Service and Love
Often the most profound effects we have on others and on the world are from what seem very ordinary thoughts and exchanges. This is what Wordsworth meant when he wrote “That best portion of a good man’s life, his little nameless unremembered acts of kindness and of love”.
There is no such thing as a small or insignificant act of service. The most far-reaching and authentic acts of service may not seem at all obvious or impressive or on a grand scale. Although we may not even recall them, someone else may remember them for years. They extend so naturally from a loving, unselfconscious heart that there is no personal investment in self-importance or in grand gestures.
There’s nothing wrong with acting on a grand scale either, if that is what is needed. It has its place, too, but, in the greater scheme of things, grand scale acts may not be the most important aspect of anyone’s life.
The Gift of Presence
We can probably all think of people who, by their very presence, have a calming influence on tense or fractious situations. On the other hand, there are people whose very presence seems to trigger tension and controversy. Oscar Wilde quipped that: “Some people cause happiness wherever they go, others whenever they go.”
Am I an Agent of Peace or of Conflict?
At some point, almost everyone aspires to help to bring about world peace. How we approach this will depend on our level of spiritual maturity and integrity.
How do we become agents of lasting peace? If we want to assist in co-creating world peace, our immediate environment is a good place to start. It’s also an opportunity to assess how we are influencing our the world around us: family, friends, workplace. Someone who is at war with most of the people around them is more than likely to have the same effect on a larger, global scale.
“Charity begins at home.” Are we agents of peace or of division in the world around us? It doesn’t mean that everyone has to like us or agree with us. That’s pretty unlikely. But a few moments’ honest reflection will tell us how we are generally affecting those we live and work with.
Accepting our Power and Responsibility
The power to affect the world is in each of us. It’s in our ability to choose kindness, integrity and love. It’s in our courage to follow through on our choices. We can start by simply choosing to forgive and be respectful, and we might just inspire others to do the same. It may be some of the most authentic service we offer. A wave of forgiveness or kindness can be infectious!
What trips many of us up is a reluctance to acknowledge our own power as co-creators. To quote Marianne Williamson, “it is our light, not our darkness, which often frightens us.” We feel we could never make a difference, and part of us is very comfortable with that, if we are honest. We can therefore be reluctant to face the possibility of our impact on the world, because it is too challenging. After all, there are long-established comfort zones to be stretched!
Setting the Intention to Serve Authentically
It’s useful to remember that we are all on a path of growth. Sometimes, with the best of intentions in our current level of consciousness, our service may be a mixed bag of, say, kindness and meddling. On the human level it isn’t always easy to distinguish what is of true benefit to those around us. When is intervention necessary, when is it interference? Is it even my place to try to do something? These are all valid questions. The asking of them, in itself, shows a growing level of spiritual integrity.
However, while on a human level we will rarely be aware of the full picture, we can expand and relax into trusting that our spiritual intelligence is. The higher aspects of ourselves, whether we call them our soul, our higher self or something else, have access to far more information than our everyday conscious selves. Those higher aspects have been the guiding light behind all the synchronicities and inspiration that have led us to this point. That higher self can guide us, if we ask it, to the optimum service we can offer in any situation.
Thy Will Be Done: Let Love Be my Guide
A simple intention like “Thy Will be done”, or “Let Love be my guide today” or “Let me be truly helpful in this situation or in my life” can go a long way in setting our lives in the direction of increasingly authentic service. Love, and Life itself, are on our side, and on the side of those we wish to serve. We can let Love and Life teach and guide us.
We can gradually learn to trust that guidance. There will be less need for anxiety about what to say or do. We are here to represent the Love of God-Source and simply be a conduit for that Love. This approach simplifies life, and usually renders our service more effective and profound. Often we may not even think ourselves as “serving.” We’re acting naturally and kindly. And these may be our most profound moments of service because there is little or no self-consciousness.
Patanjali: “Where the heart is full of kindness which seeks no injury to another, either in act or thought or wish, this full thought creates an atmosphere of harmony, whose benign power touches with healing all who come within its influence. Peace in the heart radiates peace to peace in other hearts, even more surely than contention breeds contention.”
Authentic Service: From “self” to selflessness to “Self”
We can see Earth School as an opportunity to grow in understanding the meaning of Love. Similarly, we can also see it as fertile ground for learning what it means to embody authentic service. The deeper and more expanded our capacity for Love and spiritual maturity, the more we can be of service. This service may or may not be expressed in action in the world. It isn’t an either/or proposition. It’s not a case of either constant “doingness” or constant stepping back from engaging in the world. There are times when we must act. There are other times when, as John Milton wrote: “They also serve who only stand and wait.”
How can I serve? Our capacity for, and understanding of, authentic service, evolves alongside our capacity for Love and self-mastery. Our capacity for service emerges naturally from the depth of Love we embody. As we evolve spiritually we realize that the most effective action is born out of the still-point within us. That “action” may be as seemingly inconspicuous as a loving thought.
When everything is known as “Self”
As we gradually reconnect with knowingness of the Self, the sense of “self” and “other” gradually recedes. At the higher levels of enlightenment, there isn’t a need for “selfless service” because everything is known as the Self.
Gradually we realize that it isn’t a question of one or the other, of serving “self” or others. “If you light a lamp for someone else it will also brighten your path,” Buddha.
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