Baba says, “In order to become God’s helpers, you have to stay on the pilgrimage of remembrance and definitely become pure.“

After half a cycle of stumbling and living like an orphan, I come to Baba. His love and acceptance breathes new life into me, gives me strength and courage. I am filled with zeal and enthusiasm about being God’s child, about belonging to the Godly family and I am raring to serve my Father. “I’ll do anything, Baba”, I tell Him, “use me. I am here.” I see Him use me in ways that I didn’t even imagine; for example, I didn’t even realize I could cook but here I am helping in the kitchen. I didn’t know I could explain to people, but here I am explaining the knowledge at the exhibitions. I learn to do things I didn’t do before, I gain confidence, I come into my own. I am so grateful and can’t stop thinking: “Look at what God’s done! look at how good the Father is!”

Then, somewhere along the journey, I take a detour.

Now, my tune changes to: “Look at what I have built, look at how many students I have brought, look how good my intellect is, look how well received my lectures are, look how many likes I get” etc. etc. Success can be dangerous if I am spiritually immature because I might handle success the same way I have been for the last half a cycle: By thinking in terms of “Look what I can do…”. When I am spiritually mature, I realize that this confluence age is not about “look what I can do…”, it is about what all I am able to allow God to do through me. This is why Baba teaches that there cannot be true service without renunciation; the renunciation of ‘I’ and ‘mine’. Unless I can dissolve the ‘I’, I am not ready to be God’s instrument to allow Him to work through me; until I can stop promoting myself, I cannot reveal the Father.

God says: “You are messengers. You have to give the Father’s introduction to each and every one.” My job is to allow the Father to reveal Himself through me and thus become the instrument to forge a connection of the children with their Father. This, is service. I am the messenger of God, not God. Check, says Baba, why are you doing what you are doing? Is it to truly help the Father in His task of finding and rescuing His lost children or is it to promote myself? “To become God’s helpers, you have to stay on the pilgrimage of remembrance and definitely become pure.“, He says. Unless I am an embodiment of remembrance of who I am, Whose I am and what I am here to do, I will easily go off track. Unless I have a deep and loving bond with the Father, I will do ‘service’ for all the wrong reasons: I will do it to be well thought of by other Brahmins, or to make it into the ‘inner circle’ or because I’m interested in knowing what’s going on and I believe the best way to stay abreast of the latest news is to get involved in service or because I want to be visible.

When I have a deep bond with the Father, I don’t feel the need to do anything to be noticed by others, I don’t try to impress others nor do I fear what others think of me. Mine is One Baba and none other; all my relationships are with Him; whatever I do, I do it in His service, to further His task. When this is my attitude and motive, then when I do something, I won’t feel the need to announce it and try to gain visibility, I will be an incognito server, an altruistic server. If my motive is not pure, on the other hand, I will find it difficult if not impossible to stay incognito. Maybe I did a little yoga for a service project to be successful and if it does become successful, I can’t help tell everyone: “I did a lot of yoga for this to be successful…am so glad it helped…” Why not let God take all the credit?! Why not talk about how good God is and point toward Him? It was His power that helped anyway!

Even in bhakti, it is often said that when you do something good, don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. This means that I have to be careful about not even reliving over and over in my mind, how well something was received. If I really believe God did it through me, then I need to give God all the credit rather than relive how wonderful or smart or talented I am! Just as in bhakti, worshipping without knowing the One they worship becomes fruitless; similarly, here, serving without truly knowing the One I serve or how to serve, becomes fruitless. Such service neither bears fruit for the soul(s) I tried to serve nor does it bear fruit for me. In other words, neither are others’ hearts transformed nor do I receive the fulfillment, or experience the supersensuous joy that is my birthright. Simply to teach the course or give a lecture is not service in itself, explains Baba, souls have to experience some attainment. They have to be able to experience the Father, His hand reaching out to them, His help, His love.

Sometimes, I look at service in terms of ‘big’ and ‘small’. I behave one way when I am on stage and another way when I have to clean my kitchen. I think of one as service and the other as a waste of time. I treat people at the center one way but when it comes to those I live with at home, I look at them as if they are a bondage; an obstacle on my path to doing great service. If only I was free, I think, then I could have done so much! I don’t realize that taking care of the home, of the household is also service! Every thing, however big or small, however glamorous or not, is a task Baba has assigned to me. My duty as a true server is to serve with sincerity, and love. God doesn’t care about how many centers I opened, or how many lectures I delivered or how popular my website is; He cares about my heart. It is said that the Lord is pleased with an honest heart, not with a clever head. God is much less interested in what I did and a lot more interested in why I did what I did. What was my motive?

So, check in this way to what percentage you have done service with a true heart, that is, with the original sanskars of Brahmin life, says Baba. You have had so many exhibitions, programs, you have given so many courses, but what is the percentage of cleanliness and purity in that? To have a constantly clean intellect, a clean attitude and to perform pure actions is the easy method for success in service.