My beloved Atman! Service above self — it sounds so plain, so obvious, as if two and two make four. But often what appears most plain and obvious is not so at all. Life is so intricate, so mysterious, so complex, that it does not fit into such straight, simple slogans. Let me say another thing at the outset: you will hardly find anyone who openly denies this maxim. To find a person on earth who rejects it would be difficult. Yet it happens again and again that the more silently a maxim is accepted by the crowd, the greater the likelihood it is mistaken. There was a time the earth looked flat — it is not. For thousands of years millions believed the sun circled the earth — it does not. Even now that we know, the words sunrise and sunset refuse to die. “The sun rises, the sun sets” — nothing could be more false, yet the phrase lives on in language.
What I want to point out is: the truths that seem too obvious, too manifest, are often exactly reversed in actuality. And what we ordinarily never deny, that we go on denying twenty-four hours a day in our living. There is not even any need to deny it; if it ever hindered life we might deny it. But life proceeds perfectly well without it. The best of principles we never even turn into topics for discussion — because life gets along without them.
Surely you have heard “service above self” countless times. It feels like sheer common sense — we should place service above selfishness. But common sense often turns out to be nonsense. Let me invite you to think a few things through with me. First: in this world it is not possible to place anything above the self. It is an impossibility. To put anything over the self is unnatural, impossible. And whenever you think you have done so, if you look a little deeper you will discover you have not.
A man is drowning in a river. Ten men pass by. You risk your life, jump in, and drag him out. Surely everyone will say, “Service above self.” You endangered yourself to save another. But psychologists say the truth is altogether different. You had no real relationship with the drowning man; it was unbearable and painful to see him drown. To relieve yourself of that inner pain, you pulled him out. Even there, one does not go beyond the self; one remains within. No one has ever gone outside it.
If Bhagat Singh feels it right to die for his country, do not imagine he dies for the country. He dies for his idea that the country must be saved. All martyrs sacrifice for their own vision. That their vision serves your welfare is another matter. But their vision is their joy. Therefore, one like Bhagat Singh is not miserable on the gallows; he is delighted, fulfilled. He has done what he longed to do, to the very point of risking his life. Yet even this, deep down, is the joy of the self — still the self. Yes, the S may be small or spelt in capital letters — let me speak of that in a while. But it is self nonetheless. No one on earth has been able to place service above self.
When I say this it will sound strange. We have heard the names of great servants; our entire lore is filled with such names. But I tell you, the joy of service is also someone’s joy of self. And if a man tries to put service above self, he will never find joy in service; he will remain unhappy. Then he will seek to fill other gaps through service — will crave fame, wealth, at least a mention in the newspapers. So when the servant goes to serve, he does not forget to bring a photographer; he checks whether the press is around. In this country we have seen how those who serve have ridden on the chest of the nation. If we descend into psychological depths we must understand: the man who begins by pressing your feet will, today or tomorrow, finish by pressing your neck. For it is of no sense to anyone to press your feet.
To go outside oneself is as difficult as lifting yourself up by your own bootstraps — not difficult, impossible. Whatever you do will be self, will be of the self. Even those who seek Paramatma do so for themselves. If people seek moksha, it is also for themselves. Even those who dissolve themselves, dissolve themselves for themselves.
No one has ever gone beyond the self, nor can anyone go. But what do I mean by this? Am I saying all people are equally selfish? No. There can be a kind of self that leads you to hell, and a kind of self that carries you to heaven — but both are self. There can be a self that makes you a Ravana, and a self that makes you a Rama — but both are self. There can be a self that fills life with pain; and there can be a self that turns life into joy, into music — but both are self. In their being “self,” there is no difference.
Let me also say: one who drives his self on a journey to hell may or may not take others there — he surely succeeds in taking himself. And one who sets out to carry his self toward heaven not only arrives there himself; his fragrance touches others, becoming a lamp upon the path for many.
Understand this too: in whose life the self is not fulfilled, service can never bloom. There is no such thing as “service above self.” Rather: a fulfilled self becomes service. The more the self is contented, the more it overflows into service.
Service is overflow. You can give another only what exceeds your need — whether joy, love, or wealth. Whatever you truly give will be outflowing. Therefore, remember: whenever someone arrives at service through overflow, the one who receives feels grateful — and the giver also feels gratitude toward the receiver, for he has given him a path, a channel, for his overflow. Clouds, when filled, long to rain; the earth that drinks their drops receives their gratitude. A flower, when complete, opens; its fragrance longs to spread — the winds that carry it to the far horizon are thanked. A lamp, when lit, spreads light. The lamp gives to no one; it simply overflows what it has in abundance.
In truth, a fulfilled self transforms into service. And if the self becomes so full that service reaches toward the infinite, the self ceases to be a small s and becomes a capital S. In that moment a rishi can say, Aham Brahmasmi — I am Brahman. He can declare: now the small self is the Supreme Self; I am all.
Remember, as long as we say “place service above self,” we still accept that the “other” is other. And so long as the other is other, he is an enemy in seed; he cannot be a friend. Otherness is enmity. If I say, “I serve,” there must be someone else whom I serve — and someone who serves. In the decisive moment of true service, no other remains. Only then is service possible.
A mother serves her child — not because the child is other. The day her child becomes other to her, she quarrels; service ends. So long as the child feels like her own extension — my limbs grown longer, my body further unfolded, I am born again in him, he is my mirror — so long the mother can serve. She is not serving another; to be precise, she serves her own. Whoever has truly served has served his own — only, their sense of “own” is vast. It is so vast that others are lost, dissolved in it.
Jesus has a saying you have heard: Love thy neighbor as thyself. But no one can love his neighbor as himself so long as the neighbor remains. Only when the neighbor disappears and only my own is seen there can I love as myself. No one can love his neighbor as his own self. When the neighbor is no more, when I see myself even there, then I can serve as I would myself.
This principle — that we place service over self — led us into another danger. It did not create service; it created only hypocrisy. We cannot put service above self, but we can exhibit it. We can pose. We can deceive — and the deception has been going on. Ten thousand years of human culture — a great culture of fraud. Among the basic frameworks of this fraud is this maxim: place others, place service, over self. But it is not possible; it contradicts human nature. How will you place another above yourself?
I heard a little joke. A father was instructing his son: one should serve others. The boy asked, “Why?” The father said, “God created you to serve others.” Had it been an old-time boy, he would have agreed. He was a modern child. He said, “So I was created to serve others — then why were others created? Only so that I might serve them? Or were they created to serve me, and I created to serve them? Then God’s mind seems very confused! Better I serve myself and let others serve themselves. Why this needless tangle?” I call it a joke — but oftentimes jokes carry the greater truths of life, and life’s so-called great truths are jokes.
Think it through: you will not find any way to place another above yourself. It is psychologically impossible. Yes, it can happen in one condition only: the other is no longer other. But then only you remain; the other is gone.
What we ordinarily call service, if born of the impossible effort to put the other above oneself, becomes ego-centered. It will fulfill the ego. Hence it is hard to find greater egotists than “servants.” Service, too, strengthens this vanity: I am a servant. The servant ought to disappear. He should not even know he is. He should not even come to know that he served. Service that becomes conscious of itself ceases to be service. And humility that starts declaring, “I am humble,” is only another form of ego.
Life is intricate. Service becomes possible only when we stop trying to put another above ourselves, and begin to expand the self. There are two ways. One is to serve others — and that will be hypocrisy. That is why service goes on and on in the world and no end to suffering comes. Service goes on and the need for service never ends. Service goes on and the world sinks deeper into its sorrow. In fact, the more service increases, the more mischief increases.
The politician serves. The religious leader serves. The teacher serves. The soldier serves. The doctor serves. The lawyer serves. All are serving — and man has been brought to such a plight that it is hard to say how long he can survive among so many servants. So much service that it has become suicidal. There are reasons behind this.
Whenever we attempt the impossible, hypocrisy is born. Doing what can be done allows life to grow. Pretending what cannot be done turns life false and deceitful. I count this maxim among those impossibilities. It cannot be done.
What is possible? Not that I serve another. What is possible is that I become large, I expand, I grow so vast that there remains no room for the other. The other is gone. No way remains to be “other.” Then service comes — but it comes like a shadow behind you; it does not march ahead like a banner. You do not go announcing, “I am a servant.” It comes like a shadow; even its footsteps make no sound.
I have heard: in Greece a fakir attained to wisdom. The devas came and said, “Ask a boon. God is delighted with you, ready to grant whatever you want.” The fakir said, “But I have no desire left. God arrived late. When I had desires, you did not come. Now that nothing remains to ask, you have come — what am I to ask? You put me in a difficulty. Go back and tell God: now the asker is gone, the asking is gone; messengers arrived too late. Had you come earlier, there were many wants, and one who wanted.” But the devas insisted. When desire is finished, the world longs to give you much; even God wants to give. In truth, beggars get nothing; only emperors receive. Jesus has a saying: to those who have, more will be given; from those who have little, even that will be taken away. Inverted, but the arithmetic of life is upside down.
The devas would not relent. “Something you must ask.” The fakir said, “Then you give what you see fit.” They said, “Whomever you touch — if sick, he will be healed; if dead, he will live. If you touch a withered flower, it will bloom again.” The fakir said, “But that is dangerous. If before my eyes a patient is cured by my hand, the patient will be cured but I shall fall ill — with a terrible disease: the I, the ego. Have mercy; do not give such a boon.” They replied, “A given boon cannot be taken back.” He said, “Then give it in such a way that I never come to know any service has happened through me. For service that becomes known turns poisonous.” The devas were perplexed, then found a way: “We take the boon away from you and give it to your shadow. Wherever you pass, if your shadow falls upon a withered flower, it will bloom; on a patient, he will be healed; on a corpse, he will rise.” The fakir said, “Then grant me one more boon: that my neck can no longer turn backward. Let me look only forward.”
Service — true service — does not come by placing it above ego; it comes by wiping the ego away. How? By cutting it out? If you try to cut it, who will cut it? Whom will he cut? Many start cutting — renouncing wealth, position, palaces, standing naked. Ego is clever; its ways are subtle. In nakedness it whispers, “I have left everything. None is a greater renunciate than I.” It stands there too; it does not leave your trail. If you cut, it boasts, “I am the one cutting.”
There is only one way to dissolve it: let the ego grow so vast that nothing else remains. Let it expand. Gradually the boundaries of others melt; slowly the other disappears, and only I remains. The day the person is alone, when the Self is the only reality, then neither service remains nor the other remains. That day, from that Self, service flows as light flows from a lamp, as fragrance flows from a flower, as rain showers from clouds. It flows so.
A fulfilled self becomes service. A total Self becomes service. The Supreme Self becomes service.
This maxim needs deep understanding. People think: I will earn a thousand and give five to service. In truth, such a man is not merely earning a thousand; with five he buys a certificate of service. He is clever, calculating. He says, “If service comes this cheap, why not buy it too?” In such a mind, the I is the center. Service will go ahead like a flag — and wherever service becomes a flag, it becomes mischievous; trouble begins.
Servants have wrought more mischief than anyone else. If for one day, for twenty-four hours, the servants of the world took a holiday, you would find Vietnam silent — for it was servants who made it happen. You would find in China the killings ceased — those doing a “cultural revolution” to serve China were the doers. You would find Hindu–Muslim riots stopped — because someone is serving Islam and someone is serving Hinduism. May God one day grant a twenty-four-hour holiday to all servants; after such peace you would never let them return. You would say, “Forgive us; the twenty-four hours without you were so peaceful — do not come back.”
Mark Twain used to tell a joke. People had long imagined there must be men on the moon, but how to send a message? In his tale, the whole world agreed that on a certain day, at exactly noon, everyone would shout “Boo!” together for one minute. With so many voices, the sound would reach the moon; if there were people, they would answer. The hour came. People stood on roads, roofs, mountains. Temple bells rang to mark the time. But for one minute a total silence fell. No one shouted. Each thought, “Such a great chance — I must not miss hearing it. If I start shouting I will not hear. When the whole world is shouting, what difference will it make if one man doesn’t? Let me hear what the moon-dwellers will hear.” All thought the same. For one minute, for the first time, they tasted how extraordinary silence is — and how we squander it with useless noise. But who knows how old that story is — man forgot again. Perhaps we need another day for a global “Boo.”
If servants took a twenty-four-hour holiday, for the first time man would see that ninety-nine percent of his troubles arrive through service. In truth, whenever someone goes to “do” service, trouble will follow. Service should happen; one should not go to do it. Service cannot be an act; it must be living. The man who performs one act of service will do fifty acts in the same day to negate it. But the man who lives service cannot do anything contrary to it.
When will service become life? When service becomes the Self — when the Self itself becomes service. Before that, it cannot become life. Yes, we can keep our life centered on self and, once in a day, perform a service or two.
I heard a story. In a school a priest came and taught the children: at least once in twenty-four hours, do an act of service; this is the greatest duty toward God. A week later he returned and asked, “What service did you do?” One boy raised his hand, then a second, then a third — three out of thirty. The priest said, “That is much, for the earth has been turning a long time; even this percentage rarely agrees.” He asked the first boy, who said, “As you told us, I helped an old woman across the road.” The priest had given examples: help an old woman cross, save a drowning man, run to extinguish a fire. “Very good,” he said, “God’s grace will shower on you.” He asked the second. “I too helped an old woman across.” The priest felt a little suspicious — but there is no shortage of old women or roads. He asked the third. “I too helped an old woman across.” Now doubt deepened. “You three found three old women?” “No,” they said, “only one. The three of us together got her across.” “Was she so feeble that all three of you had to help?” “Feeble! She was strong! She did not want to go across at all. We somehow managed to drag her over. She kept running to the other side; we pulled her to this. But you said to do an act of service — so we did.”
If someone decides to “do” service, then service becomes a profession, a trade. Service cannot be a trade. No one can “do” service. One can live a life of service — but only when the other has fallen away and the I has expanded so vast that no one remains to whom you can say, “I serve you.” It becomes your own service. We can only serve ourselves — that alone is natural. We can enlarge the I — that too is natural. This expansion of I ultimately becomes the disappearance of I. If I becomes so vast that no “you” remains outside, then you are no more. And the day “you” is not, “I” cannot remain either — they are related terms. “I” falls with “you.”
I have said all this — and now I want to make it harder for you — so that “service above self” may become possible. I have spoken the opposite in order that service may rise above the self. I have insisted that service cannot be above self — yes, let the self expand so that life becomes service. I spoke against it all along, yet I spoke for it all along. Life is like that. It is not necessary that those who speak in favor are actually in favor, nor that those who oppose are truly in opposition. Often our accepted principles need to be shaken; only then do their soul and breath become visible to us. Old structures must be broken for the hidden essence to be revealed. “Service above self” has become a memorized sutra. We hang it everywhere. Nothing stirs in our minds. It has died; we have heard it so often that no life remains in it.
Great truths, heard too often, become worse than untruths — their sting is gone, their thorn is gone, their bite is gone. Therefore even the greatest truths must be broken and remade, scattered and reassembled.
I have said what the man who coined “service above self” must have wanted to say. But I have not said what you understand by it. I have said what the originator’s longing, his aspiration, must have been — but words are weak and fail to manifest truths. Whenever particular words take root around truths, slowly truth is lost and only words remain in our hands. So I traveled from the other side.
I say: stop emphasizing service — enough emphasis has been given, and man has not profited. Emphasize the self now. Not that what I say will not turn false tomorrow — if institutions arise and inscribe what I have said upon their plaques, then in time those truths too will become old and worn. Dust will gather upon them. Hearing them again and again, we will grow accustomed.
Man’s greatest difficulty is that he digests everything. He gets used to hearing; once accustomed, he sleeps. He turns on his side and rests. What is needed is to keep breaking your posture. Often people like me have only this work: someone came before me and turned you to the left; I come and turn you to the right. It looks as if I am doing the opposite — but the one who turned you left wanted to break your sleep; I, turning you right, want to break your sleep. You grew comfortable on the left and slept. After me someone will come and turn you left again. Man needs reshuffling all his life; again and again he falls asleep and resumes dreaming. We turn great truths into pillows and doze. “Service above self” has become our pillow; we lay our heads on it and sleep. Everyone agrees.
Remember: when everyone agrees with a “truth,” understand that it no longer has the power to awaken — otherwise everyone could not agree. So long as a truth awakens, everyone never agrees. When they make a pillow of even truth and go to sleep, only then does everyone agree.
Hence the very obvious truths are often only — what appears manifestly true is the dead corpse of a truth. The one who once said, “Place service above self,” what did he mean? He surely did not mean what we have made of it — to perform a few acts of service above the self. No. He meant exactly what I have said: may service become our life. May service become our self. May we be service. And the day you become service, you will not even know you have served. Ask a mother, “How much service did you do for your child?” She cannot tell. She can tell what she failed to do — proper clothes, proper food, proper education. But she cannot list what she did. Ask the secretary of an institution, “How many services did you perform this year?” — even what he did not do will be included in his list. An institutional secretary does service; a mother’s service happens. A nurse can count what she did; a mother cannot. The day a mother can count, know she has done only a nurse’s job, deluded into thinking she was a mother.
So I have said a few things, many of them against service so that service may be born; in opposition to service so that the flower of service may blossom in your life. But do not grow the thorn of the servant. The servant is a thorn; service is a flower. Do not become a servant. When the servant appears, mischief begins. Life should be effortless service.
Streams flow — they do not say, “Because you drink, we have rendered great service.” Light pours from the sun — it does not say, “We have graced your courtyard.” Paramatma creates boundless life — we have never thanked Him. Nor has He ever come to our door to collect thanks. Perhaps He remains hidden for fear that if He is found, we might start thanking Him. So infinite… If God were a servant, by now He would be bored, exhausted, terrified, mad — undergoing treatment in an asylum. But He is not a servant; He is service.
If you become a servant you will be caught in anxiety about being a servant. If service becomes your life, you will move beyond worry. Then service does not mean you must help an old woman across the street, or that you must serve by giving money, or by pressing the feet of the sick. Then even the blink of an eyelid becomes service. A smile toward someone becomes service.
Blavatsky came to India. As her carriage went, she would reach into a bag and scatter something out the window. People asked, “What are you throwing?” She said, “Seeds of seasonal flowers.” They said, “You are mad — to fling seeds from a moving train! When will you pass this way again?” “Perhaps never,” she said. “Even tomorrow is uncertain. How can I be sure of this route again?” “Then you are mad. Why throw them?” Blavatsky said, “Someone or other will pass this way. If in any eyes the image of these flowers’ beauty arises, if any nose thrills to their fragrance, if anyone smiles upon seeing them — I am already fulfilled.”
Service is not an act; it is natural living. Breath by breath, it becomes service.
It was the last hour of Buddha. As he was dying he asked his friends, “If there remains something to ask, ask now.” Physicians said, “Don’t — he cannot even speak.” But Buddha said, “Let no one say I could still speak, and someone’s question remained unasked — do not let such a charge be leveled at me. Let it not be said that while breath still came, a thirsty one came and returned thirsty.” His friends said, “We have asked all our lives; now you depart. We have nothing to ask.” Buddha went behind a tree, closed his eyes, and entered Samadhi. Then a man came running from the village. Many times Buddha had passed that village. People had told Subhadda, “Buddha is here — go, listen.” Subhadda always said, “Another time — customers are many, the shop is busy.” Today he heard it was Buddha’s last hour, that he lay on his deathbed. He shut his shop and ran. “Where is Buddha? I have a question.” “Too late,” the monks said. “He has entered final rest; his drop is falling into the ocean.” Buddha heard and rose, came back out. “Do not let it be said of me that I lived and a thirsty one came and went away thirsty. What is your question, Subhadda?”
Breath by breath — the blink of an eye, the raising and lowering of a hand, walking on the path, a truth spoken, even silence — all becomes service. Only do not become a servant.
How will this be possible? I offered a sutra: expand this self. To say “expand” is not quite right — a fault of language. Our mistake is imagining the self is confined to this body. That sun a hundred million miles away — if it were extinguished, I would be cold here, you there. We would not even know the sun had gone out, for even to know requires life; the sun dies and we die. That sun a hundred million miles away is also my self; without it I cannot live for a moment. And that sun lives by taking light and warmth from other suns millions of miles further away. Life here is a collective life. There is no delusion greater than “I.” The notion of “I” is the deepest madness. Every wave thinks, “I am.” It seems so: the neighbor wave falls and I do not; the neighbor rises high and I cannot. How can the wave accept that the thousands of neighboring waves are also I? But if the wave looks within, it finds the ocean — the life-breath of all waves.
If we look a little within this “I,” we see the ocean where self and other vanish, and only That Which Is remains. From the experience of That, the life that is born is called service. It is not the act of a servant; it is the life of a religious man.
I have said these few things. There is no need to believe. I am not your servant, trying to persuade you so that you agree. It is my joy. I felt good to say it; I have said it. Think it over: if something rings true to you — not because I said it, but because in your seeing it proves true — it will become a cause of transformation in your life. Truths that are ours do not leave us unchanged. And in the end, all I have said is for this: that “service above self” may become possible.
I am deeply grateful for the love and silence with which you have listened. Finally, I bow to the Paramatma seated within all. Please accept my pranam.
Osho's Commentary
Service above self — it sounds so plain, so obvious, as if two and two make four. But often what appears most plain and obvious is not so at all. Life is so intricate, so mysterious, so complex, that it does not fit into such straight, simple slogans. Let me say another thing at the outset: you will hardly find anyone who openly denies this maxim. To find a person on earth who rejects it would be difficult. Yet it happens again and again that the more silently a maxim is accepted by the crowd, the greater the likelihood it is mistaken. There was a time the earth looked flat — it is not. For thousands of years millions believed the sun circled the earth — it does not. Even now that we know, the words sunrise and sunset refuse to die. “The sun rises, the sun sets” — nothing could be more false, yet the phrase lives on in language.
What I want to point out is: the truths that seem too obvious, too manifest, are often exactly reversed in actuality. And what we ordinarily never deny, that we go on denying twenty-four hours a day in our living. There is not even any need to deny it; if it ever hindered life we might deny it. But life proceeds perfectly well without it. The best of principles we never even turn into topics for discussion — because life gets along without them.
Surely you have heard “service above self” countless times. It feels like sheer common sense — we should place service above selfishness. But common sense often turns out to be nonsense. Let me invite you to think a few things through with me. First: in this world it is not possible to place anything above the self. It is an impossibility. To put anything over the self is unnatural, impossible. And whenever you think you have done so, if you look a little deeper you will discover you have not.
A man is drowning in a river. Ten men pass by. You risk your life, jump in, and drag him out. Surely everyone will say, “Service above self.” You endangered yourself to save another. But psychologists say the truth is altogether different. You had no real relationship with the drowning man; it was unbearable and painful to see him drown. To relieve yourself of that inner pain, you pulled him out. Even there, one does not go beyond the self; one remains within. No one has ever gone outside it.
If Bhagat Singh feels it right to die for his country, do not imagine he dies for the country. He dies for his idea that the country must be saved. All martyrs sacrifice for their own vision. That their vision serves your welfare is another matter. But their vision is their joy. Therefore, one like Bhagat Singh is not miserable on the gallows; he is delighted, fulfilled. He has done what he longed to do, to the very point of risking his life. Yet even this, deep down, is the joy of the self — still the self. Yes, the S may be small or spelt in capital letters — let me speak of that in a while. But it is self nonetheless. No one on earth has been able to place service above self.
When I say this it will sound strange. We have heard the names of great servants; our entire lore is filled with such names. But I tell you, the joy of service is also someone’s joy of self. And if a man tries to put service above self, he will never find joy in service; he will remain unhappy. Then he will seek to fill other gaps through service — will crave fame, wealth, at least a mention in the newspapers. So when the servant goes to serve, he does not forget to bring a photographer; he checks whether the press is around. In this country we have seen how those who serve have ridden on the chest of the nation. If we descend into psychological depths we must understand: the man who begins by pressing your feet will, today or tomorrow, finish by pressing your neck. For it is of no sense to anyone to press your feet.
To go outside oneself is as difficult as lifting yourself up by your own bootstraps — not difficult, impossible. Whatever you do will be self, will be of the self. Even those who seek Paramatma do so for themselves. If people seek moksha, it is also for themselves. Even those who dissolve themselves, dissolve themselves for themselves.
No one has ever gone beyond the self, nor can anyone go. But what do I mean by this? Am I saying all people are equally selfish? No. There can be a kind of self that leads you to hell, and a kind of self that carries you to heaven — but both are self. There can be a self that makes you a Ravana, and a self that makes you a Rama — but both are self. There can be a self that fills life with pain; and there can be a self that turns life into joy, into music — but both are self. In their being “self,” there is no difference.
Let me also say: one who drives his self on a journey to hell may or may not take others there — he surely succeeds in taking himself. And one who sets out to carry his self toward heaven not only arrives there himself; his fragrance touches others, becoming a lamp upon the path for many.
Understand this too: in whose life the self is not fulfilled, service can never bloom. There is no such thing as “service above self.” Rather: a fulfilled self becomes service. The more the self is contented, the more it overflows into service.
Service is overflow. You can give another only what exceeds your need — whether joy, love, or wealth. Whatever you truly give will be outflowing. Therefore, remember: whenever someone arrives at service through overflow, the one who receives feels grateful — and the giver also feels gratitude toward the receiver, for he has given him a path, a channel, for his overflow. Clouds, when filled, long to rain; the earth that drinks their drops receives their gratitude. A flower, when complete, opens; its fragrance longs to spread — the winds that carry it to the far horizon are thanked. A lamp, when lit, spreads light. The lamp gives to no one; it simply overflows what it has in abundance.
In truth, a fulfilled self transforms into service. And if the self becomes so full that service reaches toward the infinite, the self ceases to be a small s and becomes a capital S. In that moment a rishi can say, Aham Brahmasmi — I am Brahman. He can declare: now the small self is the Supreme Self; I am all.
Remember, as long as we say “place service above self,” we still accept that the “other” is other. And so long as the other is other, he is an enemy in seed; he cannot be a friend. Otherness is enmity. If I say, “I serve,” there must be someone else whom I serve — and someone who serves. In the decisive moment of true service, no other remains. Only then is service possible.
A mother serves her child — not because the child is other. The day her child becomes other to her, she quarrels; service ends. So long as the child feels like her own extension — my limbs grown longer, my body further unfolded, I am born again in him, he is my mirror — so long the mother can serve. She is not serving another; to be precise, she serves her own. Whoever has truly served has served his own — only, their sense of “own” is vast. It is so vast that others are lost, dissolved in it.
Jesus has a saying you have heard: Love thy neighbor as thyself. But no one can love his neighbor as himself so long as the neighbor remains. Only when the neighbor disappears and only my own is seen there can I love as myself. No one can love his neighbor as his own self. When the neighbor is no more, when I see myself even there, then I can serve as I would myself.
This principle — that we place service over self — led us into another danger. It did not create service; it created only hypocrisy. We cannot put service above self, but we can exhibit it. We can pose. We can deceive — and the deception has been going on. Ten thousand years of human culture — a great culture of fraud. Among the basic frameworks of this fraud is this maxim: place others, place service, over self. But it is not possible; it contradicts human nature. How will you place another above yourself?
I heard a little joke. A father was instructing his son: one should serve others. The boy asked, “Why?” The father said, “God created you to serve others.” Had it been an old-time boy, he would have agreed. He was a modern child. He said, “So I was created to serve others — then why were others created? Only so that I might serve them? Or were they created to serve me, and I created to serve them? Then God’s mind seems very confused! Better I serve myself and let others serve themselves. Why this needless tangle?” I call it a joke — but oftentimes jokes carry the greater truths of life, and life’s so-called great truths are jokes.
Think it through: you will not find any way to place another above yourself. It is psychologically impossible. Yes, it can happen in one condition only: the other is no longer other. But then only you remain; the other is gone.
What we ordinarily call service, if born of the impossible effort to put the other above oneself, becomes ego-centered. It will fulfill the ego. Hence it is hard to find greater egotists than “servants.” Service, too, strengthens this vanity: I am a servant. The servant ought to disappear. He should not even know he is. He should not even come to know that he served. Service that becomes conscious of itself ceases to be service. And humility that starts declaring, “I am humble,” is only another form of ego.
Life is intricate. Service becomes possible only when we stop trying to put another above ourselves, and begin to expand the self. There are two ways. One is to serve others — and that will be hypocrisy. That is why service goes on and on in the world and no end to suffering comes. Service goes on and the need for service never ends. Service goes on and the world sinks deeper into its sorrow. In fact, the more service increases, the more mischief increases.
The politician serves. The religious leader serves. The teacher serves. The soldier serves. The doctor serves. The lawyer serves. All are serving — and man has been brought to such a plight that it is hard to say how long he can survive among so many servants. So much service that it has become suicidal. There are reasons behind this.
Whenever we attempt the impossible, hypocrisy is born. Doing what can be done allows life to grow. Pretending what cannot be done turns life false and deceitful. I count this maxim among those impossibilities. It cannot be done.
What is possible? Not that I serve another. What is possible is that I become large, I expand, I grow so vast that there remains no room for the other. The other is gone. No way remains to be “other.” Then service comes — but it comes like a shadow behind you; it does not march ahead like a banner. You do not go announcing, “I am a servant.” It comes like a shadow; even its footsteps make no sound.
I have heard: in Greece a fakir attained to wisdom. The devas came and said, “Ask a boon. God is delighted with you, ready to grant whatever you want.” The fakir said, “But I have no desire left. God arrived late. When I had desires, you did not come. Now that nothing remains to ask, you have come — what am I to ask? You put me in a difficulty. Go back and tell God: now the asker is gone, the asking is gone; messengers arrived too late. Had you come earlier, there were many wants, and one who wanted.” But the devas insisted. When desire is finished, the world longs to give you much; even God wants to give. In truth, beggars get nothing; only emperors receive. Jesus has a saying: to those who have, more will be given; from those who have little, even that will be taken away. Inverted, but the arithmetic of life is upside down.
The devas would not relent. “Something you must ask.” The fakir said, “Then you give what you see fit.” They said, “Whomever you touch — if sick, he will be healed; if dead, he will live. If you touch a withered flower, it will bloom again.” The fakir said, “But that is dangerous. If before my eyes a patient is cured by my hand, the patient will be cured but I shall fall ill — with a terrible disease: the I, the ego. Have mercy; do not give such a boon.” They replied, “A given boon cannot be taken back.” He said, “Then give it in such a way that I never come to know any service has happened through me. For service that becomes known turns poisonous.” The devas were perplexed, then found a way: “We take the boon away from you and give it to your shadow. Wherever you pass, if your shadow falls upon a withered flower, it will bloom; on a patient, he will be healed; on a corpse, he will rise.” The fakir said, “Then grant me one more boon: that my neck can no longer turn backward. Let me look only forward.”
Service — true service — does not come by placing it above ego; it comes by wiping the ego away. How? By cutting it out? If you try to cut it, who will cut it? Whom will he cut? Many start cutting — renouncing wealth, position, palaces, standing naked. Ego is clever; its ways are subtle. In nakedness it whispers, “I have left everything. None is a greater renunciate than I.” It stands there too; it does not leave your trail. If you cut, it boasts, “I am the one cutting.”
There is only one way to dissolve it: let the ego grow so vast that nothing else remains. Let it expand. Gradually the boundaries of others melt; slowly the other disappears, and only I remains. The day the person is alone, when the Self is the only reality, then neither service remains nor the other remains. That day, from that Self, service flows as light flows from a lamp, as fragrance flows from a flower, as rain showers from clouds. It flows so.
A fulfilled self becomes service. A total Self becomes service. The Supreme Self becomes service.
This maxim needs deep understanding. People think: I will earn a thousand and give five to service. In truth, such a man is not merely earning a thousand; with five he buys a certificate of service. He is clever, calculating. He says, “If service comes this cheap, why not buy it too?” In such a mind, the I is the center. Service will go ahead like a flag — and wherever service becomes a flag, it becomes mischievous; trouble begins.
Servants have wrought more mischief than anyone else. If for one day, for twenty-four hours, the servants of the world took a holiday, you would find Vietnam silent — for it was servants who made it happen. You would find in China the killings ceased — those doing a “cultural revolution” to serve China were the doers. You would find Hindu–Muslim riots stopped — because someone is serving Islam and someone is serving Hinduism. May God one day grant a twenty-four-hour holiday to all servants; after such peace you would never let them return. You would say, “Forgive us; the twenty-four hours without you were so peaceful — do not come back.”
Mark Twain used to tell a joke. People had long imagined there must be men on the moon, but how to send a message? In his tale, the whole world agreed that on a certain day, at exactly noon, everyone would shout “Boo!” together for one minute. With so many voices, the sound would reach the moon; if there were people, they would answer. The hour came. People stood on roads, roofs, mountains. Temple bells rang to mark the time. But for one minute a total silence fell. No one shouted. Each thought, “Such a great chance — I must not miss hearing it. If I start shouting I will not hear. When the whole world is shouting, what difference will it make if one man doesn’t? Let me hear what the moon-dwellers will hear.” All thought the same. For one minute, for the first time, they tasted how extraordinary silence is — and how we squander it with useless noise. But who knows how old that story is — man forgot again. Perhaps we need another day for a global “Boo.”
If servants took a twenty-four-hour holiday, for the first time man would see that ninety-nine percent of his troubles arrive through service. In truth, whenever someone goes to “do” service, trouble will follow. Service should happen; one should not go to do it. Service cannot be an act; it must be living. The man who performs one act of service will do fifty acts in the same day to negate it. But the man who lives service cannot do anything contrary to it.
When will service become life? When service becomes the Self — when the Self itself becomes service. Before that, it cannot become life. Yes, we can keep our life centered on self and, once in a day, perform a service or two.
I heard a story. In a school a priest came and taught the children: at least once in twenty-four hours, do an act of service; this is the greatest duty toward God. A week later he returned and asked, “What service did you do?” One boy raised his hand, then a second, then a third — three out of thirty. The priest said, “That is much, for the earth has been turning a long time; even this percentage rarely agrees.” He asked the first boy, who said, “As you told us, I helped an old woman across the road.” The priest had given examples: help an old woman cross, save a drowning man, run to extinguish a fire. “Very good,” he said, “God’s grace will shower on you.” He asked the second. “I too helped an old woman across.” The priest felt a little suspicious — but there is no shortage of old women or roads. He asked the third. “I too helped an old woman across.” Now doubt deepened. “You three found three old women?” “No,” they said, “only one. The three of us together got her across.” “Was she so feeble that all three of you had to help?” “Feeble! She was strong! She did not want to go across at all. We somehow managed to drag her over. She kept running to the other side; we pulled her to this. But you said to do an act of service — so we did.”
If someone decides to “do” service, then service becomes a profession, a trade. Service cannot be a trade. No one can “do” service. One can live a life of service — but only when the other has fallen away and the I has expanded so vast that no one remains to whom you can say, “I serve you.” It becomes your own service. We can only serve ourselves — that alone is natural. We can enlarge the I — that too is natural. This expansion of I ultimately becomes the disappearance of I. If I becomes so vast that no “you” remains outside, then you are no more. And the day “you” is not, “I” cannot remain either — they are related terms. “I” falls with “you.”
I have said all this — and now I want to make it harder for you — so that “service above self” may become possible. I have spoken the opposite in order that service may rise above the self. I have insisted that service cannot be above self — yes, let the self expand so that life becomes service. I spoke against it all along, yet I spoke for it all along. Life is like that. It is not necessary that those who speak in favor are actually in favor, nor that those who oppose are truly in opposition. Often our accepted principles need to be shaken; only then do their soul and breath become visible to us. Old structures must be broken for the hidden essence to be revealed. “Service above self” has become a memorized sutra. We hang it everywhere. Nothing stirs in our minds. It has died; we have heard it so often that no life remains in it.
Great truths, heard too often, become worse than untruths — their sting is gone, their thorn is gone, their bite is gone. Therefore even the greatest truths must be broken and remade, scattered and reassembled.
I have said what the man who coined “service above self” must have wanted to say. But I have not said what you understand by it. I have said what the originator’s longing, his aspiration, must have been — but words are weak and fail to manifest truths. Whenever particular words take root around truths, slowly truth is lost and only words remain in our hands. So I traveled from the other side.
I say: stop emphasizing service — enough emphasis has been given, and man has not profited. Emphasize the self now. Not that what I say will not turn false tomorrow — if institutions arise and inscribe what I have said upon their plaques, then in time those truths too will become old and worn. Dust will gather upon them. Hearing them again and again, we will grow accustomed.
Man’s greatest difficulty is that he digests everything. He gets used to hearing; once accustomed, he sleeps. He turns on his side and rests. What is needed is to keep breaking your posture. Often people like me have only this work: someone came before me and turned you to the left; I come and turn you to the right. It looks as if I am doing the opposite — but the one who turned you left wanted to break your sleep; I, turning you right, want to break your sleep. You grew comfortable on the left and slept. After me someone will come and turn you left again. Man needs reshuffling all his life; again and again he falls asleep and resumes dreaming. We turn great truths into pillows and doze. “Service above self” has become our pillow; we lay our heads on it and sleep. Everyone agrees.
Remember: when everyone agrees with a “truth,” understand that it no longer has the power to awaken — otherwise everyone could not agree. So long as a truth awakens, everyone never agrees. When they make a pillow of even truth and go to sleep, only then does everyone agree.
Hence the very obvious truths are often only — what appears manifestly true is the dead corpse of a truth. The one who once said, “Place service above self,” what did he mean? He surely did not mean what we have made of it — to perform a few acts of service above the self. No. He meant exactly what I have said: may service become our life. May service become our self. May we be service. And the day you become service, you will not even know you have served. Ask a mother, “How much service did you do for your child?” She cannot tell. She can tell what she failed to do — proper clothes, proper food, proper education. But she cannot list what she did. Ask the secretary of an institution, “How many services did you perform this year?” — even what he did not do will be included in his list. An institutional secretary does service; a mother’s service happens. A nurse can count what she did; a mother cannot. The day a mother can count, know she has done only a nurse’s job, deluded into thinking she was a mother.
So I have said a few things, many of them against service so that service may be born; in opposition to service so that the flower of service may blossom in your life. But do not grow the thorn of the servant. The servant is a thorn; service is a flower. Do not become a servant. When the servant appears, mischief begins. Life should be effortless service.
Streams flow — they do not say, “Because you drink, we have rendered great service.” Light pours from the sun — it does not say, “We have graced your courtyard.” Paramatma creates boundless life — we have never thanked Him. Nor has He ever come to our door to collect thanks. Perhaps He remains hidden for fear that if He is found, we might start thanking Him. So infinite… If God were a servant, by now He would be bored, exhausted, terrified, mad — undergoing treatment in an asylum. But He is not a servant; He is service.
If you become a servant you will be caught in anxiety about being a servant. If service becomes your life, you will move beyond worry. Then service does not mean you must help an old woman across the street, or that you must serve by giving money, or by pressing the feet of the sick. Then even the blink of an eyelid becomes service. A smile toward someone becomes service.
Blavatsky came to India. As her carriage went, she would reach into a bag and scatter something out the window. People asked, “What are you throwing?” She said, “Seeds of seasonal flowers.” They said, “You are mad — to fling seeds from a moving train! When will you pass this way again?” “Perhaps never,” she said. “Even tomorrow is uncertain. How can I be sure of this route again?” “Then you are mad. Why throw them?” Blavatsky said, “Someone or other will pass this way. If in any eyes the image of these flowers’ beauty arises, if any nose thrills to their fragrance, if anyone smiles upon seeing them — I am already fulfilled.”
Service is not an act; it is natural living. Breath by breath, it becomes service.
It was the last hour of Buddha. As he was dying he asked his friends, “If there remains something to ask, ask now.” Physicians said, “Don’t — he cannot even speak.” But Buddha said, “Let no one say I could still speak, and someone’s question remained unasked — do not let such a charge be leveled at me. Let it not be said that while breath still came, a thirsty one came and returned thirsty.” His friends said, “We have asked all our lives; now you depart. We have nothing to ask.” Buddha went behind a tree, closed his eyes, and entered Samadhi. Then a man came running from the village. Many times Buddha had passed that village. People had told Subhadda, “Buddha is here — go, listen.” Subhadda always said, “Another time — customers are many, the shop is busy.” Today he heard it was Buddha’s last hour, that he lay on his deathbed. He shut his shop and ran. “Where is Buddha? I have a question.” “Too late,” the monks said. “He has entered final rest; his drop is falling into the ocean.” Buddha heard and rose, came back out. “Do not let it be said of me that I lived and a thirsty one came and went away thirsty. What is your question, Subhadda?”
Breath by breath — the blink of an eye, the raising and lowering of a hand, walking on the path, a truth spoken, even silence — all becomes service. Only do not become a servant.
How will this be possible? I offered a sutra: expand this self. To say “expand” is not quite right — a fault of language. Our mistake is imagining the self is confined to this body. That sun a hundred million miles away — if it were extinguished, I would be cold here, you there. We would not even know the sun had gone out, for even to know requires life; the sun dies and we die. That sun a hundred million miles away is also my self; without it I cannot live for a moment. And that sun lives by taking light and warmth from other suns millions of miles further away. Life here is a collective life. There is no delusion greater than “I.” The notion of “I” is the deepest madness. Every wave thinks, “I am.” It seems so: the neighbor wave falls and I do not; the neighbor rises high and I cannot. How can the wave accept that the thousands of neighboring waves are also I? But if the wave looks within, it finds the ocean — the life-breath of all waves.
If we look a little within this “I,” we see the ocean where self and other vanish, and only That Which Is remains. From the experience of That, the life that is born is called service. It is not the act of a servant; it is the life of a religious man.
I have said these few things. There is no need to believe. I am not your servant, trying to persuade you so that you agree. It is my joy. I felt good to say it; I have said it. Think it over: if something rings true to you — not because I said it, but because in your seeing it proves true — it will become a cause of transformation in your life. Truths that are ours do not leave us unchanged. And in the end, all I have said is for this: that “service above self” may become possible.
I am deeply grateful for the love and silence with which you have listened. Finally, I bow to the Paramatma seated within all. Please accept my pranam.