Service is of the highest of all actions. No one who has achieved spiritual realization has done so without the spirit of service in their heart. That spirit is to help others out of love for them, that they may achieve mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual wellness. We can do service in the smallest of ways, like holding the door for others or letting someone go in traffic. We can do service relative to our family, serving our children and our spouses needs and taking care of each other. We can do service by volunteering at a homeless shelter or donating at a blood drive. Finally we can do service by offering support to each other, mentally and spiritually, being a channel for each other's growth. What is your way to serve? Finding your opportunity for service can bring about major transformation.
Service is love in action. It is much like generosity (see “Generosity”). In service we have the opportunity to transform our hearts from one which mostly is self-interested and insular to one that is open to the needs of others and is expansive. The transformation which comes from service is more powerful than any action you can do, along side prayer and meditation. It takes the love you have in you and puts it to work, often disregarding our lower selfish wants and needs, that some greater purpose may transcend our own mere self-interest. The feeling of being in service almost feels like a dying, in that your lower natures are dying to higher ones, and you are becoming a vessel for something more than yourself. It is also like being reborn, and fully alive, in that when you plug into the current of service you tap into the vitality and great purpose that you can feel when you are in its midst.
When you are inclined to service, the whole universe supports you, and all that may benefit from your work. If you have an idea in mind to bring benefit to a population, then do what you can, the world will support you. If you believe in God, God will support you in your work, and open doors for you that you never knew were there.
Service is what our love looks like when it moves our body and mind. When we are an expression of service we participate in a lineage of all the great men and women who came before us and heard the call to service, like Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, H.H. The Dalai Lama, and Jesus. And it is with their blessing and the transcendent that we step into the light of service for other's sake. May we grow in our dedication to service, that the world and the people around us may know the highest purpose of serving each other in love.