How Can I Be of Service?
Filed under Articles on 8. February 2007 »
If you were to read a transcript summary of your thinking over the course of a normal day, you might find that a lot of it centers around what you want for yourself; looking at things in terms of what’s in it for you, what you need to do in order to ensure your own comfort, how you can turn situations in your favor etc. And while you may not have many obviously self-serving thoughts, on a deeper level the general theme may still revolve around them to a certain degree.
The shift of going from “what’s in it for me?” to “how can I be of service?” has an incredible potential for transformation. When realized fully it has the power to completely annihilate the ego, because the shift occurs at a level fundamental to the egoic construct. Instead of merely snipping away at the stem, you pull the ego up by its roots. Not the first time around perhaps, but this is still probably one of the most effective pointers you can use to find freedom from suffering. Simply asking yourself the question over and over again as you go about your day can lead to tremendous insights and realizations, and is a very practical way of turning everyday activity into a sort of moving meditation.
The conditioning
Growing up in the world, most children are taught the virtues of being of service to others. Our parents and teachers encourage us to be generous, and we are told again and again that being selfish is bad; “share your toys and don’t be greedy” is the gist of it. And yet when we look past the words on the surface, what we are really being taught, by our parents, teachers, and the culture in general, is that we need to fight for our share. The underlying message is that of the individual’s need to fight for survival and dominance, and the ego is very much a driving force behind the thinking and actions of those around us. Not always obvious on the surface, but the deeper patterns of thought and behavior usually lean towards the “what’s in it for me?” mentality.
Some of it is probably rooted in a primitive survival mechanism, our animal instinct, but these basic tendencies are then amplified by the collective momentum of ego in our culture. Amplified to a point of self-destruction in modern industrialized societies, where narcissism has been given an opportunity to flourish on a larger scale than ever before. Our gods are people who have managed to secure themselves large pieces of the pie, and the ultimate goal in our mainstream culture is to reach a point where a person is able to devote him- or herself to bathing in luxury and self-gratification.
Fortunately these extreme forms of narcissism are not as common as they may appear in the media, but it’s still a very dominant attitude in our collective consciousness that has a toxic trickle-down effect throughout all of society. And because the force of selfishness is so strong in our culture, the ego in us has little problem keeping itself fed. Even if we don’t provide it with fuel through direct experience, the entertainment industry is overflowing with opportunity for derived ego inflation; have a look at a random selection of soap operas or Hollywood films and try to spot instances of the theme of egoic triumph, especially in those with the highest ratings and box office numbers.
When you start noticing the overall tendency of “what’s in it for me?” you will be amazed at how much it characterizes our society, and gradually you are able to break free of it.
The shift
Looking at our general attitude at any given moment, we can break it down to a dominant feeling of either wanting to have or wanting to give. It’s so very simple, and yet the difference between these two attitudes is like night and day. Wanting to have is, as we’ve been talking about, the prevalent attitude in our culture. It’s a deep seated pattern of thinking, a pattern that arises from our belief in separation and lack. We feel that we are not complete, that we need more, and thus we lean towards wanting to have rather than wanting to give.
The root of wanting to have is then not merely in the attitude, but a consequence of the illusion of ego. However, deliberately shifting from wanting to have to wanting to give, even if only on the surface initially, can be a very effective shortcut to lessening the intensity of ego. It is used to feeding on the mind pattern of wanting to have, of being in ‘accumulation mode,’ and so when you make the shift over to ‘generosity mode’ you cut off its energy supply.
And it feels good to be in the mode of giving. Because when your motivation is that of giving you have aligned yourself with God, to life itself. The function of the pointer &emdash; which could be to simply ask yourself “how can I be of service?” &emdash; is to direct yourself away from an ego centered stance, out of alignment with life, to one of presence and being in perfect alignment. With this also comes humility, and a deep feeling of inner calm; the unmistakable sense of aliveness and peace that comes with being of service to life, infinitely deeper than any moment of pleasure in having attained something on the level of form.
When we focus on giving, we are free. And everything we need will then be given to us.
