What Is Seva?
Seva is love.
Maharaj Charan Singh3
Seva means to serve selflessly. In every age and in every spiritual tradition, great saints have come into this world to teach us about love and about service as the way to love. We often talk about love and service, but what do these words really mean? Let’s consider these two concepts from the perspective of mystic teachings.
Love is the goal
Saints come to teach us something we have forgotten, that God is an
infinite ocean of love and our soul is a drop of this ocean – that our
very essence is love. Baba Ji* has said that
love is the core of our being; without it we would not exist.
Our soul, however, has been held captive in this creation by the mind, in birth after birth, over aeons of time. But the soul never forgets. It longs for peace and rest. It yearns to be reunited with its source. This yearning manifests as a deep loneliness, a longing for something we can’t quite define.
If the beloved and the lover are separated, the lover cannot be happy, no matter what you give him, no matter how comfortably he may be living…. So long as the soul is separated from the divine ocean, from the Lord, it can never find peace in this creation.
Maharaj Charan Singh4
If our soul is love and God is love, then the path to reunion must be a path of love.
God is love, and love was in the beginning. The entire creation is the result of love. We have been sent down into this world through love, and the cause of our return will also be love.
Maharaj Sawan Singh5
The purpose of our life, then, is simply to learn how to love:
You live that you may learn to love.
You love that you may learn to live.
No other lesson is required of man.
And what is it to love but for the lover
to absorb forever the beloved
so that the twain be one?
The Book of Mirdad6
Mystics speak of love in a way that wakes us up: Love means to dissolve the separate ‘self’ and merge into the One, to become whole. Hazur Maharaj Charan Singh* also defined love in terms of the ultimate union:
Love means to become another being, to merge into another one, to lose your own identity…. Then only the Lord exists and we are no more. That is love.7
To journey from separation to union – to oneness – is to fulfil the supreme possibility of human life.
The path of love
When we cannot even see the Lord, how can we learn to love so
completely that we lose ourselves in that ocean of Love? How can one who
is blind find the one who sees?
agam agochar prabh abhinaasi
poore gur te jaate.God is inaccessible, incomprehensible,
and imperishable;
He is known through the true guru.
Guru Arjan Dev8
Aware of our limitations, the Lord has sent spiritual guides into this world in every age. This is because we learn best from another living person – someone who speaks like us and goes through similar challenges in life, someone we can listen to, laugh with, respect, and love. These saints and mystics are the embodiment of love. They come on a mission of mercy, to help souls filled with longing find their way home. They teach us that human beings have been given the unique potential to experience the formless, limitless Being within the self. And they teach us the way to do this.
Both soul and God are love, but saints share with us the missing piece of the puzzle. There is a bridge, they tell us, between the soul and the Lord. This bridge is the creative power called Shabd or Nam. Nam is the dynamic power of the Lord that created, sustains, and permeates the entire creation. It manifests in the inner spiritual realms as sound and light. In different mystic traditions this primal power has been referred to by different names – the Word, Name, Holy Ghost, Holy Spirit, Logos, Kalma, Nad, Dhun, Dao, and many more.
This power is pure love. Everything that exists has emanated from it, and it gives life to every cell of every living being. When souls left the Creator and descended into the creation, they did so on the wave of Shabd. And if an individual soul longs to return to the Lord, it can do so only by reconnecting with this wave of love.
naamai hi te sabh kichh ho’a
bin satgur naam na jaapai.Everything comes from Nam,
the Name of the Lord;
Without the true guru,
Nam is not experienced.
Guru Amar Das9
The Shabd and the living master are the two pillars of the inner path. But we might ask, “If the Shabd or Nam resounds within every cell of our being, why can’t we hear it? And why do we need a living master to connect us with it?”
Hazur Maharaj Ji would often answer these questions with the analogy of a radio, saying that even if the air were filled with radio waves reverberating with beautiful music, a radio that is not connected to electricity would not be able to catch the sound. We have to connect the radio with a power source and tune it to the right frequency; only then can we hear the music. When the master initiates us into the spiritual practice he brings us in contact with the spiritual power source – the Shabd. He then teaches the technique of meditation – the technique of tuning in to the divine melody of Shabd, which captivates our attention and pulls us within.
This essential connection with the Shabd cannot be made by reading books. Maharaj Sawan Singh explains: “The inner secrets cannot be expressed in words, either spoken or written. They can be explained only by the perfect master of the time.”10 To take even the first step on the inner way, the master’s loving guidance is essential. Initiation into the path cements a deep bond between master and disciple, and we experience this bond through the daily practice of meditation.
There are so many relationships of love, but no relationship is stronger, no bond is stronger than that of the disciple and the master.
Maharaj Charan Singh11
Meditation is a solitary practice, done in the quiet of our own homes. There are no outer rituals or ceremonies to follow. To support the meditation practice, the master advises a particular way of life. We take four lifetime vows: to abstain from meat, fish, fowl, and eggs, and anything containing their essence; to abstain from alcohol, mind-altering drugs, marijuana products, and tobacco; to live an honest, moral life; and to meditate for at least two and a half hours every day. We are also encouraged to be self-supporting and to continue living in society, fulfilling our worldly responsibilities to the best of our ability.
This, in a nutshell, is the path of love taught by the saints. Our task is simply to live the way of life taught by the master and to practise connecting with the Shabd every day through meditation – to slowly tune in to that power of God’s love.
Seva bends the mind Godward
In its initial stages, the journey of the soul is in fact the journey
of the mind.
Love has to start with the mind. The soul is always in love with the Father…. We are trying to create love in the mind, so that the soul gets release from the mind. And then automatically the soul will go back to the Father.
Maharaj Charan Singh12
To create love in the mind, we first want to understand the nature and function of the mind. Mystics say that when the pristine soul became separated from the Lord and entered the creation, it had to associate itself with the mind to be able to function in this material plane. But the mind is mesmerized by the world and its endless objects of desire. And its nature is never to be still. Responding to the pull of the five senses, it jumps from one thought to the next and from one desire to the next. In the process, the mind compels us to take action – to perform karmas – to get what it wants. But the universal law is that every action has a consequence. To reap the consequences of our actions, we have no choice but to take birth again and again. As a result, both soul and mind remain stuck in this creation.
The mind also carries an inborn sense of I-ness, of ego – the sense of being separate from everyone and everything – which is a huge obstacle on the path of love:
Ego is a block between us and God. Without elimination of ego, the question of meeting the Lord doesn’t arise at all, because God is love…. Love means that the other one exists – you don’t exist at all. Ego is just the reverse: Only you exist and nobody else exists at all. They are poles apart.
Maharaj Charan Singh13
Hazur used to say that a needle is always attracted by a magnet, but if there is a weight on the needle it becomes helpless. Similarly, the soul is always in love with the Father, but it has become helpless due to the weight of the mind.14
Our task is to create love in the mind, to make the mind want to turn from the world and return to its source. Two things are essential to reversing the attention of the mind – remembering the Lord and forgetting the self. This concept is central to all mystic paths and is beautifully portrayed by the story of Bulleh Shah’s first meeting with his future master, Inayat Shah. The master was transplanting onion seedlings when Bulleh Shah asked him how God could be found. Inayat Shah responded simply: “O Bullah, what problem is there in finding God? One’s attention only needs to be uprooted from here and planted there.”15
This is the essence of the path of love – to uproot our attention from the physical world and transplant it in the inner world. Hazur would explain that the mind will not detach itself from the pleasures of this world until we attach it to a “better pleasure” – the indescribable sweetness of Shabd or Nam. Once the mind becomes intoxicated by this celestial melody, it executes a U-turn, turning its attention from outer pleasures to the sweetness within.
This turning of the mind is the single most challenging aspect of walking the spiritual path, but once it is achieved the mind becomes a friend of the soul rather than its foe, and the rest of the journey becomes much easier. Along the way the mind comes to rest in its own source in the inner regions. Then the soul, finally freed from the weight of the mind, merges into the Lord.
dhun sun kar man samjhaa’i.
kot jatan se yah nahi maane,
dhun sun kar man samjhaa’i.Listen to the melody of Shabd
and bring your wayward mind into line.
A million other methods will fail to tame it,
it will submit only by listening to that melody.
Soami Ji Maharaj16
If the path home is a path of love, it must also be a path of service, because love and service are inextricably entwined. In love we say “I give,” and in seva, too, we say “I give.” Both are selfless acts of giving. This is why Hazur says, “Seva is love.”
Seva plays a crucial role on the inner path because the purpose of all seva is to bend the mind Godward. Seva helps the mind execute that crucial U-turn. It slowly saturates the mind with love of God, cleanses and purifies the mind, and makes it worthy of connecting with the divine Shabd:
When you want to fill a utensil with milk or anything, you clean it first, otherwise whatever you put in it will just get spoiled…. So the purpose of seva is to clean our mind so that we can withdraw our consciousness to the eye centre and attach it to the Shabd and Nam.
Maharaj Charan Singh17
Whom do we serve?
Most of us devote our entire lives to loving and serving
others – family, friends, employers, community, nation, and strangers in
need. Our love, attention, and service tend to flow outward.
But saints come into our lives and expand our awareness and understanding. They tell us that both love and service function in two arenas – inner and outer. This concept is beautifully explained in the Bible. Once a seeker asked Jesus Christ, ,“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” And Christ, quoting the Hebrew Bible, replied:
Jesus said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.”, This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.”
18
With our limited perspective, we might think of love and service as functioning in two separate arenas – inward to the Lord and outward to our neighbours. But the mystics broaden and deepen our understanding: they say that love originates within, and it is only love for the Lord that can create true love in our heart for our neighbours. Why? Because, as Hazur explained:
To love thy neighbour means to see the Lord in everyone, everywhere. And that you can do only if you have fulfilled the first commandment.
Maharaj Charan Singh19
This is why the sequence of these commandments is significant. The first, the primary commandment, is to love the Lord, because love for the Lord will take us back to the Lord, and love for other beings will automatically flow from this. Love means seeing the Lord in everyone, and this comes through meditation. If instead we focus solely on loving and serving others, the realization that the Lord is in everyone may not necessarily arise within us – and our attachment to others may keep us bound to the creation.
Saints also expand our understanding of who is our ‘neighbour.’ Hazur explains:
My ‘neighbour’ does not mean only the one who resides next to my house…. If I’m living in a house, the next house is my neighbour. If I’m living in one city, the next city is my neighbour. If I’m living in one country, the next country is my neighbour. If I’m living on one continent, the next continent is my neighbour. It means the whole universe becomes my neighbour.20
Hazur also clarifies that our neighbours are not just other human beings, but all creatures.21 When asked why a vegetarian diet is advised on the spiritual path, he responded:
Christ said, love thy neighbour. All creatures are our neighbours…. When you love anybody, you do not kill that individual; and when we love the whole creation, we cannot kill intentionally, nor could we find it in our heart to have it done for us by someone else.22
So the saints’ guidance is first to love and serve the Lord. This enables us to see the Beloved “in everyone, everywhere”, and awakens the natural instinct within us to love and serve our neighbour as ourself.
But how can we love and serve the unknown, unseen Lord? And how can we know the right attitude with which to serve our neighbours? For this we need a true master. Saints and mystics are the ultimate examples of service – they are sevadars of the Lord. They are sent into this world to serve those who seek the Lord, and in uniting souls with God they perform the highest service. In their compassion and love they provide a mirror in which we come to see the same potential for love and service within ourselves. From them we learn how to serve both the Lord and other beings.
Therefore the answer to the question, Whom do we serve? is that we serve the true master:
One should render all types of service to the dear ones of the Lord [the mystics], because no wealth, no sovereignty and no high status in life can equal the reward of this service…. The master or the guru is the treasurer of God’s wealth. Therefore, we shall certainly attain God-realization if we serve our master.
Maharaj Sawan Singh23
The master teaches us how to serve the Lord, and how to serve others.
Inner seva
Our most important work in this precious life is to unite our soul
with the Lord. To help us accomplish this, the master teaches us how to
meditate. Meditation is our inner seva – our service of the soul – the
highest service we can perform.
Meditation has three components: simran, dhyan, and bhajan. Simran is the practice of silent repetition, and dhyan is the practice of contemplation. Together they still the mind and draw the soul-consciousness to the eye centre, where the Shabd resounds. Bhajan is the practice of attaching the soul-consciousness to the Shabd, listening to its divine melody, and yielding to its upward pull. Meditation can be referred to as surat shabd seva – the service of attaching our soul-consciousness (surat) with the Shabd within. It is a gift that comes with the immense grace of God:
karam hovai satguru milaaye.
seva surat shabad chit laaye.By the Lord’s grace is the true guru met,
and then alone is one’s heart fixed
in the service of attuning the soul with Shabd.
Guru Amar Das24
Why is meditation referred to as a service? Hazur explains that when we meditate we serve our soul and thus the Lord:
Seva means to serve someone. So we are serving ourselves. It’s a service of the soul…. You see, now we do not realize that our real self is the soul. We think our real self is the ego, the body, the mind. To begin to realize that the reality is the soul, not the body or the ego, is also service. We are taking pity on ourselves, so to say – taking pity on the soul.
Since the soul ultimately has to become the Father, this service is known as service to the Father.25
Outer seva
The spiritual path involves many parallels in the outer and inner
worlds – outer and inner master, outer and inner darshan, outer and
inner satsang, and outer and inner seva. Initially we fall in love with
the outer master, darshan, satsang, and seva. This deepens our faith and
love, and with that our longing for what is within begins to grow.
The master uses the ‘outer’ to draw us in. Why do we send children to school? Why don’t we give them books and tell them to study at home? Because school provides an atmosphere that is conducive to learning; without it, learning would be very difficult. Similarly, meditation is the inner work we do in the quiet of our own homes. But we need some support. We gain inspiration for our inner work in the school of ‘outer’ learning.
One might assume that meditation on its own would be powerful enough to turn our attention within. It is. But just as we begin sitting still, just beginning to surrender to the inner master, even then our ego starts fighting back. This is where outer seva comes in. We are used to doing things for our own benefit and in our own way; but when we serve others without expecting anything in return, the element of personal gain is removed and the ego begins to dissolve.
External seva definitely helps us in every way. It helps to eliminate ego from us. We are so conscious of our rank, our wealth, our status, our achievements. These things make us so egoistic, and seva helps to eliminate all that. It brings us to the human level.
Maharaj Charan Singh26
To support the lifelong process of dissolving our ego, the master gives us three kinds of outer seva – seva with body, with wealth, and with mind. When we serve with body and wealth, we take an action to serve someone other than ourselves. When we serve with the mind, we take the solitary, inner action needed to redirect our mind towards God. Together these three kinds of seva create an atmosphere that encourages our inner seva – meditation, or seva of the soul.
Seva with the body
The first kind of outer seva is seva with the body, physical service,
known as tan seva. When we do any kind, compassionate, or
helpful act for anyone, we are doing seva with the body. And when we do
physical service for the master or the sangat – cook food, build a shed,
break bricks, plant trees, or guide traffic into the parking areas – we
are doing seva with the body.
Hazur explains the primary reason for doing physical seva:
Seva of the body is when we serve people with our body, so that we may eliminate ego from within ourselves and be filled with humility.27
Physical seva is a great equalizer. We work shoulder to shoulder with people from all backgrounds. If a basket of food needs to be carried from one place to another, our status doesn’t matter – we all carry the same food.
Physical seva is nothing but love in action. To provide help or support to someone, expecting no personal benefit, is to experience love. Only human beings are born with this divine endowment – the capacity to have empathy for all forms of life and the intellect to administer whatever help is needed. To get such an opportunity is a gift.
If we can do anything to help anybody, we should. That is our duty – we are meant to help each other. Humans are meant to help humans. Who else will help? Birds and plants won’t come to help you – you have to help each other…. Your heart should be very, very soft to other people and you should be very compassionate, very kind.
Maharaj Charan Singh28
Seva with wealth
The second kind of outer seva is service with wealth, known as
dhan seva. True saints do not want or need our wealth, and they
never ask for money. They live on their own income and always contribute
to the welfare of others. They tell us that if a master accepts money or
gifts from his disciples for his personal use, he is not a master at
all:
gur peer sadaaye mangan jaaye.
ta kai mool na lageeyai paaye.
ghaal khaaye kichh hathoh de.
Nanak raah pachhaaneh se.Never fall at the feet of such a one
who calls himself a Guru but goes around begging.
He who eats what he earns through his earnest labour
and from his hand gives something in charity –
He alone, O Nanak, knows the true way of life.
Guru Nanak Dev29
True mystics are the greatest of givers. Their teachings are free. Initiation is free. And they freely give their time and attention to spiritual seekers, often at great cost to their own health. Everything they do is a gift of love.
If we donate money in seva, the master utilizes our contribution to serve others – to feed and accommodate the congregation, to construct sheds for holding discourses, to build and run hospitals where all patients are treated alike and free of charge, and to support other charitable causes beyond the institution, such as helping victims of natural disasters.
Kabir Sahib explains the importance of giving charity:
jo jal baarrhai naav mein,
ghar mein baarrhai daam;
do’u haath uleechiye yehi sajjan kau kaam.Water within a boat
and wealth hoarded in a house –
Throw them out with both hands;
this is the wise thing to do.30
Kabir Sahib cautions that too much wealth has the potential to ‘drown’ us, to make us lose our sense of values and ethics. Excess wealth can attach us to this world, inflate our ego, and give us a false sense of superiority – all obstacles on the inner way.
Serving with our wealth presents us with the opportunity to detach ourselves from material things. We practise letting go of material ‘security’ and learn instead to place our trust in the Lord. This trust helps us let go of some of the worries and cares that play on the mind and brings greater equanimity. This is why every spiritual tradition has placed a value on giving.
We don’t have to be rich to give, but when we give – whatever we are able to afford – it is good to be judicious. Mystics remind us that charity should not be given blindly, without regard to whether the recipient will use the money wisely. If we give money to someone knowing that they are likely to misuse it, then our charity would be misguided, and we might actually be enabling their misbehaviour:
There’s no harm in giving money in charity to deserving institutions, to deserving people, helping people who are really in need. But giving to those people who will use it for drugs or alcohol or who will just waste the money in sensual pleasures is no good at all.
Maharaj Charan Singh31
The attitude with which we give also matters. If we expect praise, recognition, gratitude, or anything else in return – then we are not giving selflessly. Great Master, quoting Christ, would advise that the left hand should not know when the right hand gives.32
Brother, charity should come from the heart…. That is the first thing. Then, it should never be done to blow your own trumpet, as Christ says – just to gain public appreciation and impress people. We should never bargain with the Father – that if I give you one thousand dollars, you will give me twenty thousand dollars in the next birth or thirty thousand dollars in the next birth. That is not charity…. We do charity for our own good. He has given us so much surplus, and we want to use it in the service of his creation so that we may get detached from it.
Maharaj Charan Singh33
Seva with the mind
The third kind of outer seva is seva with the mind, known as man
seva. A simple definition of seva of the mind is: Anything we do to
control the mind and turn it towards God is seva of the mind. The
essence of seva of the mind is captured by Hazur in this quote:
Living the Sant Mat way of life and creating a foundation for meditation is seva of the mind.34
Here Hazur is saying that living the way of life advised by the master will create a foundation for our daily meditation. When we use our discrimination and willpower to make the small, daily sacrifices necessary to follow the four vows, we are doing seva with our mind. When we are kind and loving to others in thought, word, and deed, that too is service with our mind. All of this creates a foundation for meditation. Similarly, when we attend satsang or read spiritual literature and then imbibe those teachings and make them a part of our lives, we are doing seva with our mind. And when we remember the master by doing simran in our free moments, we are also bringing our mind into serving him.
In truth, anything we do to turn the mind within and bring it to the eye centre is seva of the mind. Hazur has also referred to the practice of simran and dhyan as seva of the mind:
With the help of simran and dhyan, we withdraw our consciousness back to the eye centre and hold it there – that is seva of the mind.35
As long as we are still operating in the realm of the mind, every spiritual effort we make involves seva of the mind.
At the core of seva of the mind is our attitude, our frame of mind that we bring to seva, no matter what type of seva we are performing. Only when seva is infused with the selfless desire to serve others with love, humility, and detachment can it truly be called seva.
It is the attitude of the mind that really matters.
Maharaj Charan Singh36
Seva of the mind plays a pivotal role in our quest to bend the mind Godward – helping us to live the Sant Mat way life and create a foundation for all our actions, including our meditation. Maintaining an attitude of humility and selflessness weaves a golden thread of love through whatever seva we perform, enriching everything we do.
dhan dhan suhaavi safal ghari
jit har seva man bhaani.Blessed is the moment when one loves
the service of the Guru.
Guru Ram Das37
Outer seva is enormously helpful in creating an atmosphere that supports our inner seva, but it is nonetheless a means to an end, “a help, not a must.” as Hazur used to say. To attain liberation, meditation is essential.
Real seva is meditation – withdrawing your consciousness back to the eye centre and attaching it to the divine light or melody within, attaching it to the sound within. Other sevas are means to that end.
Maharaj Charan Singh38
An integrated whole
While there are four kinds of seva – physical, wealth, mind, and
soul – this book is largely focused on the first of these: physical
seva, or seva of the body. But even as we engage in physical seva we
realize that it is never an isolated activity – physical seva is of
value only when done with the correct attitude of mind. Physical seva
and mental seva work in concert to support our meditation practice.
Each form of seva is a gift that helps our mind stay close to the master in its own unique way. Each seva complements and completes the others. Over time we stop experiencing the different sevas as distinct and separate, and seva – as an integrated whole – becomes an intrinsic and joyous part of life. Seva is a journey, not a destination. Seva carries us along the stream of life, enhancing our journey and enriching our life experience.
Slowly we discover the beautiful system the master has created to turn the direction of our mind. We discover that every facet of the spiritual path is connected to the whole in the most profound way: the four kinds of seva, the four vows, the way of life, and the inspiration of darshan and satsang – all work together to support our aspiration to find our way within.
man dhan jee’o pind sabh tumra
ih tan seeto tumrai dhaan.My mind, wealth, life, and body all belong to you.
My body is absorbed in your meditation.
Guru Arjan Dev39