The role that service and sacrifice play is one of the deep mysteries and secrets of the genuine spiritual path. One of the great demands and gifts of the spiritual path is the opportunity to participate in the larger world, beyond the triviality of our self concern. It is a way to become free of the suffocating imprisonment of selfishness, self absorption, self will, and over focus on self. Become free of the spell that we cast on our own consciousness. Selfishness, self absorption, self will, over focus on self, is a spell that we cast on our own consciousness. It cuts us off from so, so unbelievably much. You can’t imagine how much until you get by it. You’ve got to experience it.
The service we’re talking about here does not mean work we are externally rewarded for. Like when somebody cuts your hair, we’re not talking about that. That’s service work in the culture. Being a waitress, that’s service work in the culture. We’re not talking about that when we say service. Even though that’s legitimate and nice, that’s not the work that will accomplish what service undertaken in the capital ‘W’ Work sense will.
Service does not mean work we are externally rewarded for. But real, real service where we are clearly disadvantaged in some way. Not like, I do this for you so now you do that for me. It’s not a tit-for-tat at all, at all! The minute we do that with each other, we disqualify it as service which has any Work value. Absolutely. We undermine that all the time because – I did such and such, now you do something. It’s not about doing something in payment for something else. Real service is where we are clearly disadvantaged in some way and endure some real pain and discomfort, beyond, beyond, not just as part of, but beyond the ordinary amount which is our lot in the give and take of life. In the give and take of life there’s a certain amount of discomfort you may incur because you help other people. This is beyond that. It’s something extra. We’re always incurring a little discomfort because we do something for somebody else. This is beyond that. It is a conscious labor and intentional suffering, a phrase you’re familiar with, for purposes beyond our normal, natural, justifiable needs and self concern. It’s doing something which is really about something beyond you, beyond anything in any direct way that serves you. It’s really when the stuff that you do truly serves others and others alone. You’re not looking for any kind of reward, you’re not expecting a reward. You’re not being paid for it. The minute that you get paid for it or you get any of those other things out of it, it does not have a spiritual implication. It’s merely a social implication. It’s socially valuable, but it’s not spiritually significant in any way, like the service we’re talking about. It’s a very different attitude than the one which people usually bring to service. It takes a long training to get to the place where you can derive real spiritual benefit from such service or even do such service.
The limiting formations of consciousness and identity, such as personality and ego, cannot be dissolved by deep meditative states or other work alone. This is contrary to a lot of new age thinking about it. These various identities – false personality, personality, ego, self and true self can be seen as a set of concentric circle. Each one of these identities operates as a veil, that more or less cuts you off from the ultimate Reality. As each one is removed, false personality being the smallest and meanest one, our consciousness expands correspondingly to include more and more of the universe and reality within the compass of our experience – resulting in a progressive unfoldment toward a fuller and fuller experience of Reality. Because someone who’s working beyond their self and what they are able to open up to is very different than someone who is working on getting by their personality. With false personality and personality out of the way you have a fuller experience. Ego out of the way – a much fuller experience. Self out of the way – an even fuller experience. True self out of the way – ultimately full, complete experience.
It’s true we can experience and taste states beyond the limitations imposed by these identities – false personality, personality, ego, self and true self – like experiences during meditation, altered states while running, as a result of overcoming major hurdles in yourself or your life, even at a really good party feeling merged with everybody. People have had experiences of total love and connection and openness and freedom from self and self concern during toasting circles and/or dancing hard afterwards. There are a lot of things that can move us beyond these identities. But while experience of states such as these can often soften these identities, making them easier to move beyond – they can do nothing more than set them up for the kill. Without service and sacrifice they cannot be eliminated!
One of the roles of service is to help us break free of attachments to anything and everything which binds us to the limited and erects a barrier between us and the unlimited. For instance, service can free us from attachment to our familiar states, from the compulsive need to be in control, and from attachment to – and this defines the culture – bodily comfort at a lower level of vitality than what comes from really using one faculties fully and being used. Real service asks of us and requires us to stretch ourselves and commit ourselves to actions which take us beyond these narrow ranges of behavior. You want a nice crisp definition of what people are usually after and settle for? Bodily comfort at a lower level of vitality than what comes from using one’s faculties fully and being used. Which makes it almost impossible for them to ever spiritually develop rather than at times merely experiencing temporarily altered states; I don’t care how much they meditate or how much they find great teachers to sit at the feet of – forget it! The exact opposite is a distinguishing aspect of genuine work on one’s self – the only way to move beyond low level comfort and low level vitality is to really live fully and work hard, which is why Rumi said, “Do not shun work, the treasure you seek derives from it.”
Another function of service is to help us discover and unlock in ourselves the realm of true inner freedom*, as opposed to the patterned and conditioned exercise of choice which we frequently mistake for freedom. What most people consider to be their freely chosen actions are usually nothing more than compulsions conditioned by false personality, personality, laziness, comfort seeking, cultural norms, fear, ego manipulation, attention seeking, etc. Initially the only real choice that anyone truly has is to choose against those conditioned impulses. It’s the choice that brings people to the Work, the legitimate choice people make to be involved and again and again must renew to stay involved. There is nothing else at the earlier stages of development that represents the standard of true inner freedom except choosing against their conditioned-ness and compulsiveness. That’s it.
And when people think they can exercise any real choice beyond that, they’re deceiving themselves because those choices still tend to merely be reflections of their conditioning and compulsions. Such as wanting to do whatever they want whenever they want to, not liking being told to do anything by anyone or being driven or compelled to do what they do by likes and dislikes – given their inability at first to make a truly independent and objective assessment of the real value and/or consequences of such choices that is truly free of their long entrapment by their conditioning, rather than colored or tainted by its bias. Even behaviors that superficially seem to contradict and go against the grain of their conditioning – habits such as laziness, etc., even ostensibly rebellious behaviors – are still merely byproducts of that conditioning or knee-jerk reactions to it. They don’t represent an expression of their inner essence coming from the depth of who they really are.
Wanting to break free of that whole complex of things is the only real choice people can make. Wanting to choose against that which is conditioning them, controlling them, entrapping them – personality, false personality, laziness, etc. Wanting to break free of the various compulsions and conditioning that guarantee that their so-called choices are not truly free choices. There’s only one choice that can be made or fails to be made, and that’s to choose against being dominated by all of that.
Service – which is about more and other than you – helps step you out of and away from your entrapment by the inwardly revolving door of ‘your’ conditioning and compulsions that keeps you centered in bound and stuck to an essentially small, narrow and mean existence. It helps you slip outside and beyond its dimensions to a place inside yourself which is other than that and from where you can gain the leverage necessary to eventually free yourself from its clutches.
Service helps overcome all those things which create barriers or blocks that separate us from the whole, from the fullness of everything. It provides a real opportunity to partake of the ongoing life of the universe and of others beyond the limited realm of I want and I need. Service and sacrifice help circuit us with the cosmic purpose and removes barriers that prevent us from being on the driving belt of the cosmic energies. It provides an opportunity to discover and bathe in the fullness of Love. Which pretty much runs the universe we know of, if we ever get to really know it. The transformative power played by service and sacrifice can only be truly understood by those who progressively give themselves and everything to it.
*Inner freedom – the freedom to be and ability to fully manifest who we really are at our deepest core, undefiled by outside influences.
