Service As A Way Of Life

At some point in our lives we begin to feel the urge to help others, to make a difference, or to find our true purpose. It is at these times we begin to enter into some type of service to others. Our service activities will be varied and this is a very good thing; it is in this way that we cover wide ranging areas. You will know when you have found your true area of service because it will not be a burden; it will instead, fill you life with happiness and joy. It may, at times, seem to consume your every hour but this too will not be burdensome. It is your Soul speaking and working through you and this joyous union of effort becomes a real blessing in your life. ~Maryann Miller

SERVICE

From Esoteric Psychology by Alice Bailey:

“Service is a life demonstration.  It is a soul urge, and is as much an evolutionary impetus of the soul as the urge to self-preservation.  It is a soul instinct.  It is innate and peculiar to soul unfoldment.  It is the outstanding characteristic of the soul, just as desire is the outstanding characteristic of the lower nature. It is group desire, just as in the lower nature it is personality desire.  It is the urge to group good.  It cannot, therefore, be taught or imposed upon a person as a desirable evidence of aspiration, functioning from without and based upon a theory of service.  It is simply the first real effect, evidenced upon the physical plane, of the fact that the soul is beginning to express itself in outer manifestation.

Neither theory nor aspiration will or can make a man a real server.  Service has its affect upon the individual.  Soul laws are beginning to have a group effect in humanity itself.    It is a reflection in the lower nature of a higher consciousness, and therefore today we have much running after service.  There is the tendency to impose one’s own ideas of service and personal techniques upon other aspirants.  They must become sensitive to impression, but they oft-times misinterpret the truth.  They must learn to lay the emphasis upon soul contact and upon an active familiarity with the egoic life, and not upon the form side of service.  If care over the essential of service – soul contact- is taken, then the service rendered will flow with spontaneity along the right lines and bear much fruit.  Of this, the selfless service and the deep flow of spiritual life, which have been demonstrated in the world work of late, is a hopeful indication.

First:  The first thing the soul has to do when contact has been made and the man knows it in his brain consciousness and owing to the active impression of the mind, is to make the man aware that he is a living principle of divinity, and then to prepare the lower three fold nature so that it can automatically submit to the Law of Sacrifice.  Then it will offer no impediment to the life which must and will pour through it.  This is the first and hardest task, (becoming conscious that you are the soul and a living principle of Divinity and you prepare the lower three fold nature) and with this task the aspirants of the world are at this time engaged. When the rhythm of this law (you are the soul and a living principle of Divinity) has been imposed and the natural impetus of the man in incarnation is to be an expression of the soul, and when this rhythm can be established as a natural daily expression, the man begins to “stand in ‘spiritual being’ and the life which pours through him, gently and naturally, will then have an effect upon his environment and his associates.  This effect can then be called a ‘life of service’.

When the personal lower self is subordinated to the higher rhythms and obedient to the new Law of Service, then the life of the soul will begin to flow through the man to others, and the effect in a man’s immediate family and group will be to demonstrate a real understanding and a true helpfulness.  As the flow of life becomes stronger through use, the effect will spread out from the small surrounding family group to the neighborhood.  A wider range of contacts becomes possible, until eventually (if several lives have been thus spent under the influence of the Law of Service) the effect of the out-pouring life (of the soul) may become nationwide and worldwide.  But it will not be planned, nor will it be fought for, as an end in itself.  It will be a natural expression of the soul’s life, taking form and direction according to a man’s ray and past life expression; it will be colored and ordered by environing conditions, – by time, by period, by race and age.  It will be a living flow, and a spontaneous giving forth, and the life power and love demonstrated, being sent forth from soul levels, will have a potent, attractive force upon the group units with which the disciple may come in contact in the world of soul expression.  Nothing can stop or arrest the potency of this life of natural, loving service, except in those cases wherein the personality gets in the way.

There is a great need to stand in spiritual being; where there is this poised standing, there will be no need for others to incite one to service.  Let the ‘Forces of Light’ flow through, and the ranks of the world servers will be rapidly filled.  Let the ‘Spirit of Peace’ use the lower nature as an instrument, and there will be peace and harmony within the personal field of service.  Let the ‘spirit of Good Will’ dominate our minds and there will be no room for the spirit of criticism and the spreading of destructive discussion.  It is for this reason and in order to develop a group of servers who can work along true and spiritual lines, that there must be increasing emphasis upon the need for Harmlessness.  Harmlessness prepares the way for the inflow of life; harmlessness dissipates the obstructions to the free outpouring of love; harmlessness is the key to the release of the lower nature from the grip of the world illusion and from the power of phenomenal existence.

We have expressed our belief that one of the major sciences of the coming age will be build up around the active rendering of service.  We have used the word ‘Science’ because service, as a spiritual quality, will rapidly be recognized as the phenomenal expression of an inner reality, and along the line of a right understanding of service will come much revelation as to the nature of the soul.  Service is a method of producing [that produces] phenomenal outer and tangible results upon the physical plane; I call your attention to this as an evidence of its creative quality.  By right of this creative quality, service will eventually be regarded as a world science.  It is a creative urge, a creative impulse, a creative momentous energy.

Service is, par excellence, the technique of correct group relations, whether it be the right guidance of an anti-social child in a family, the wise assimilation of a trouble-maker in a group, the handling of anti-social groups in our big cities, the correct technique to be employed in child guidance in our educational centers or the relation between the religious and political parties, or between nation and nation.  All of this is a part of the new and growing Science of Service.

The Science of Service includes the awakening [in the individual] of the spiritual consciousness with its responsibilities, and the welding of the individual into an awakened group; it involves the imposition also of a newer and a higher rhythm upon world affairs.  This constitutes, therefore, a definitely scientific endeavor and warrants the attention of the best minds.

What are the characteristics of a true server?

Here we are concerned with those qualities which will emerge when a man is working under the impulse of the Law of Service.  They will appear when he is a real channel for the life of the soul.  His major characteristics will then be three in number:

1.  S/he will be distinguished, as might be expected, by the quality of harmlessness, and by an active refraining from those acts and that speech which might hurt or cause any misunderstanding.  By no work, suggestion, implication, innuendo or voiced dissatisfaction will he hurt his group.  You will note that I do not say ‘will not hurt any individual.’  Those working under the Law of Service need no reminder not to hurt any individual.  They often need, under the exuberance of spiritual stimulation and the intensity of their aspiration, to be reminded to demonstrate group harmlessness.

2.  The second characteristic is a willingness to let others serve as seems best to them, knowing that the life flowing through the individual server must find its own channels and outlets, and that direction of these currents can be dangerous and prevent the rendering of the intended service.  The server’s efforts will be turned in two directions:

1. a.    To the task of helping others to ‘stand in spiritual being’, as he himself is learning to stand.
2. b.    To aiding the individual to express his service in his chosen field as he desires to express it, and not as the on-looking helper deems that he should do it.

The work of the new type of server is directed towards those who are establishing soul contact and who can therefore work under the new incoming Aquarian Law.  This centers around the capacity to stand, not only in spiritual being, but together with others, working with them subjectively, telepathically, and synthetically (I’ll explain this).

3.  The third characteristic of the new server is joyfulness.  This takes the place of criticism (that dire creator of misery) and is the silence that sounds.  It is well to ponder on these last words, for their true meaning cannot be conveyed in words, but only through a life dedicated to the newer rhythms and to the service of the whole.  Then that ‘sounding joy’ and that ‘joyful sounding’ can make its true meaning felt.

Service itself is the result of a tremendous inner happening, and when that result is brought about, it will be found to have produced a number of creative secondary causes.  These are, primarily:

1. a change in the lower consciousness
2. a tendency to turn away from the things of the personal self to the larger issues of the group,
3. a reorientation which is real and expressive and a power to change conditions (through creative activity) which is the demonstration of something dynamically new.

As this inner event stabilizes into an equilibrised inner condition, the demonstration of the above changes becomes more regular and less spasmodic and the effects of the new forces flowing into the personality, to be later used creatively, will be seen in all three bodies (physical, emotional, mental).  Thus the true server comes into possession of his instruments (the 3 lower bodies) for service, and thenceforth creative work in accordance with the Plan can go forward on all three planes (physical, emotional, mental).  Thus has God in his wisdom chosen to limit Himself, and the work of evolution proceeds solely through the medium of His chosen builders and under the direction – on this planet – of those men and women whose lives are being transformed through soul contact and creative service, and who constitute the planetary Hierarchy.

When alignment has been effected, when the at-one-ment has been more constantly made, and when the antaskarana (the bridge connecting the higher and the lower) is in definite process of construction, the true nature of service, as practiced by any individual, begins to emerge. “