The Soft-Spoken Sevadar
The grounds team had been enjoying a beautiful sunny morning clipping hedges, weeding, and tending to other tasks at our satsang centre. Suddenly, an unexpected thunderstorm hit prompting the sevadars to seek shelter in the garden tent. While waiting for the weather to clear, someone asked, “What’s the purpose of seva? With proper tools, the rain wouldn’t disrupt us, and we could complete our seva in half the time.” For a few moments the question hung in the air. Eventually, a soft-spoken sevadar replied, “The purpose of seva is not just the task at hand, but the transformation it brings. Working side by side, seva erases our ego, paving the way for Shabd practice. No fancy tools can achieve that.”
As everyone turned to see who spoke, the sevadar calmly continued, “The opportunity to serve the sangat helps us to realize our shared humanity and, by working together in harmony, we also come to recognize our unity as a spiritual family, with the satguru as our father. With this awareness, we treat each other with greater respect, kindness, and patience, which brings us closer to our Master.”
A somewhat confused group member interjected, “It’s good that seva makes you feel that way, but being completely honest, sometimes I find it frustrating. After putting all my heart into doing something, it’s disheartening if I’m asked to redo it or someone else changes everything I’ve done.” Heads turned towards the soft-spoken sevadar; what would the response be?
“We do seva for our Master so whenever I’m asked to redo something, I’ve found it useful to think of it as yet another opportunity to serve him.”
Someone in the far corner said: “It seems to me that differences of opinion cause most of our problems. If our view is different from the majority, how can we accept this?”
The quiet sevadar offered a practical suggestion, “Above all, the Master wants seva to be harmonious. Keeping this simple principle at the forefront of our mind can make it easier to accept decisions that we may not personally agree with.”
After a moment of reflection, another sevadar inquired, “What about seva at home?” Once again, the grounds team turned to the soft-spoken sevadar for a response. “Some of us confine ‘seva’ to tasks we undertake at our satsang centres. However, seva knows no bounds of location or time; it can be practised anywhere, anytime. It’s not about what we do, but the spirit in which we do it. I recall Hazur Maharaj Ji saying that every action has the potential to be ‘seva’ if it’s performed selflessly and in the name of our Master; this includes caring for our families. Here, nishkāma karma (selfless action) means looking after our loved ones without expecting anything in return. Achieving this, in some cases, is an extraordinary feat but that shouldn’t deter us from continually striving to be selfless.”
The sevadar added, “By itself, outward seva won’t lead to complete surrender; nor will it provide the bliss we seek from our inward seva. For that, we must attend to our meditation. When we serve our Master’s sangat we express our desire to please him, which in turn helps to purify us. There’s no doubt that physical seva is demanding, but mental seva is much more difficult.”
Another sevadar asked, “What do you mean by ‘physical’ and ‘mental’ seva? Are you saying that office sevadars’ service is harder than ours – because I totally disagree with that!”
“No, you misunderstand me,” replied the first sevadar, “Physical seva is when we use our bodies as instruments to serve the Master and his sangat. It can be a young person lifting heavy sacks of atta (flour), a senior sevadar who can barely walk folding bin liners, or someone working in an office. Using their individual strengths for seva, they are effectively offering their entire body to the Master. Service with the body is to subdue our self-importance, which is why we are all here, trying to do the best we can.”
The soft-spoken sevadar continued, “Mental seva involves making a conscious effort to control the five passions: lust, anger, greed, attachment and pride. It’s more challenging than physical seva because it requires us to override our instinctual desires and our immediate reactions to situations. In groups like ours, we need to be particularly mindful of pride and anger. If we find ourselves in a supervisory role, we must ensure that this doesn’t lead us to feel superior; when giving feedback, it’s crucial to communicate in a way that doesn’t leave a sevadar feeling inadequate or frustrated. Likewise, when receiving feedback, we should do so without allowing it to bruise our ego. Even if we succeed in managing our impulses in a particular moment, there often remains a tension between what our emotions crave and what our minds recognize as the right course of action. Reconciling these two forces is no easy task; only with a detached mind can we avoid lapsing into arguments.”
Someone jeered, “Is that why you don’t talk much?” Turning to face the speaker, the sevadar smiled kindly and replied, “Each time we control our impulses because we hope it will please the Master, we’re living Sant Mat; it’s no longer a theoretical philosophy but a way of life. This is why the Master’s most precious gift to us is simran. Its power is immeasurable; it turns our greatest weaknesses into our greatest strengths.”
A young sevadar asked, “I’m worried about my parents. They spend so much time doing seva at the satsang centre that when it comes to meditation, they say they’re too tired to do it. But isn’t meditation the most important seva of all?”
Once everyone had expressed their views, the soft-spoken sevadar explained, “As individuals, we each follow our own private path with our Master. Our aim is to work together and benefit from a harmonious atmosphere, like the one your parents help create. An agreeable atmosphere helps develop inner harmony, and we all share the responsibility for contributing to and maintaining harmony at our centres. Ultimately, the initial impression people form of the Master stems from the behaviour of his disciples. Therefore, by contributing to a friendly, welcoming and serene atmosphere at our satsang centres, we ensure that we represent our Master positively.”
“However, you’re right,” the soft-spoken sevadar said to the young man. “The highest form of seva is our meditation, and no other seva can replace this. The purpose of all other types of seva is simply to help detach the mind from the world so that we’re more focused during meditation. The Satguru is a channel for the Lord’s love for us, and we can reciprocate his love through all our various sevas.”
At that moment, the sun emerged, and the grounds team resumed seva. Since then, we haven’t heard much from the soft-spoken sevadar. However, we haven’t forgotten the insights that arose on that rainy day and the wonderful atmosphere in the garden tent, where we all bonded in our love for our Master.