Sadhana

 

What is the attitude with which we must take up the Sadhana of service? 

Just think for a moment: Are you serving God? Or is God serving you? When a pilgrim stands waist-deep in the Ganges, takes in his palms the sacred water and, reciting an invocatory formula, pours the water as an offering to the Deity, or arpanam as he calls it, what he has done is only pour Ganga into Ganga! 

When you offer milk to a hungry child, or a blanket to a shivering brother on the pavement, you are doing nothing but placing a gift of God into the hands of another as a gift of God! You are reposing the gift of God in a repository of the divine principle! 

God serves; He allows you to claim that you have served! Without His Will, not a single blade of grass can quiver in the breeze. Fill every moment with gratitude to the giver and the recipient of all gifts. Nurture the will to ‘give’, to renounce the little for the big, the momentary for the sake of the momentous!

~ Sri Sathya Sai Baba ~

(Divine Discourse - 19.5.1969)

In whatever activity you are involved in society, do it with a spirit of service. There is no one in the world who is not a servant. – BABA