Responsibility
The work is God’s work and not our work, that is why we must do it well.
Mother Teresa82
Once, a group of elderly satsangis visiting another country decided to attend the local satsang. A sevadar from that centre was given the seva of picking them up and bringing them to the centre. He arrived at their place earlier than the arranged pick-up time. “I didn’t want to be late for my seva”, he told them with a smile. Later they found out that he was always early for seva. After taking this group of satsangis to the satsang, he moved on to help another sevadar with a different task, but he kept a constant eye on the guests. When one of them needed water, there he was with a glass of water in hand. When another gentleman was looking for a pen, in a flash he went off and came back with a pen. The visiting satsangis recall being struck by his attitude, particularly because he was only twenty-two years old.
This is a simple example of responsible seva. As responsible sevadars, we show up for seva on time. When we take on a task, we try to complete it in a timely way and to the best of our ability. If a task is getting delayed, we let others know in time. And if we make a mistake, or if there is a problem, we don’t conceal it. We try to do our seva in a responsible way because the master has entrusted us with it, and other people are depending on us to do it well. And we also do it for ourselves – because we care about our seva.
A responsible sevadar doesn’t need to be constantly checked on to ensure that a task is finished on time and in the proper way. This is the sevadar that team leaders long to have on their teams, because they know that once this person is given a task, they won’t have to worry about it getting done. This is the sevadar people turn to when they are in a bind and need some help, no questions asked. There is an apt saying: When you have an important job, give it to the busiest person and it will get done. The responsible sevadar is that person.
We don’t have to be in a position of responsibility to take responsibility or to make a difference. Sometimes when we are assigned to a seva task that requires no special skills or experience, we may mistakenly think it has no value. We may think: How important can it be to trim a hedge to perfection, or clean a store room until it shines, or pick up fallen leaves until not one remains? But in seva, everything we do has value. Every little detail, every effort of every sevadar, contributes to making our centres and the Dera the uniquely clean, welcoming, spiritual havens they are.
Making mistakes
Being responsible and trying to do our seva as perfectly as possible
doesn’t mean that we will never make mistakes. For many of us, nothing
in our life experience has prepared us for some of the responsibilities
we’re given in seva. A construction worker may be tasked with tending a
vegetable garden; a shy computer programmer may become the sangat
secretary; and a person who has never been exposed to anything financial
may end up in the accounting department, writing cheques and balancing
books. We face learning challenges and people-related issues. There is
no road map to follow, no training school where we can learn the job. Of
course we make mistakes – we are not perfect.
There is an old story about the cracked clay pot. A pot that had a crack in it was always half-empty by the time the water-bearer carried it back home from the river. Ashamed of her weakness, the pot apologized to him. But the water-bearer smiled and responded, “Look at all the beautiful flowers that line the pathway, because you watered them every step of the way, every day!” So we are all a bunch of cracked pots, and it doesn’t matter – we can all bring something of value to seva anyway.
It is said that in Rumi’s time, a local government official once commented that Rumi was “a king without equal” but that his disciples were “extremely bad and meddlesome people.” Word got back to Rumi’s disciples and they became dejected. Rumi wrote to the government official:
If my disciples were good people, I would myself have become their disciple. It is because they were bad people that I accepted them as disciples, so that they might undergo change and become good, and enter the corps of those who are good and do good works.
I’m not blind but I possess the philosopher’s stone. That’s why I buy these counterfeit dirhams.83
The master doesn’t judge us. He tells us that each one of us has strengths and weaknesses, and we bring them with us into seva. He says we should understand what our strengths are and then build on them. How wonderful that the master doesn’t focus on our weaknesses or allow us to do so either. He looks at our attitude and effort and sees our unique potential. And he gives us opportunity after opportunity to overcome our weaknesses, in the safe environment of seva. The master often says that seva is a learning process. So even when we fail here or there, we cannot actually fail at seva itself. What a relief it is to know that if we give our time, do our best, and have the right attitude, we are pleasing him.
Mistakes are part of life. If people make no mistakes, they are probably not doing much at all; only a person who is trying will make mistakes. And mistakes are not a bad thing if we learn from them – not just what went wrong but how to do something better the next time.
At times, in spite of our best efforts, the end result may not turn out as perfect as intended because we’ve made some mistakes along the way. And that is okay, because the master is more interested in the attitude and love that we put into our seva.
What matters most is whether we approached the task with our best effort and tried sincerely to work in harmony with our fellow sevadars. If we did so, the master will always be pleased with our effort. Ultimately, it is our inner self, not our physical seva task, that is being moved towards perfection.
Being willing to apologize
When we make a mistake, we should simply take responsibility for our
action and apologize for it. When we don’t admit to a mistake and try to
cover up the mistake, the cover-up is usually worse than the original
error. We may feel guilty and be constantly worried that the mistake
will be discovered.
Why get embroiled in all this just to appear infallible to the sangat and other sevadars? Why spoil our relationships with fellow sevadars and lose our peace of mind? It is much easier to simply accept that we’ve made a mistake. It is to our benefit if we are not afraid to admit that we don’t know everything or that we’ve done something wrong. Why be afraid to say “I’m sorry?” When we apologize, we begin the process of fixing the problem.
Sometimes the higher our seva position is, the more unwilling we may be to take responsibility for our mistakes. Maybe we feel that other sevadars will lose respect for us, or worse, lose faith in our leadership. Quite the opposite: others are likely to respect us more for having the humility to apologize. And our humility and willingness to take responsibility will set a good example for other sevadars and will please the master.
Taking ownership – doing more
A king had a large boulder placed in the middle of a roadway. Then he
hid himself and watched to see if anyone would remove it. Some of the
kingdom’s wealthiest merchants and courtiers came by and simply walked
around it. Some loudly blamed the king for not keeping the roads clear.
But no one did anything about getting the boulder out of the way. Then a
peasant carrying a load of vegetables came along. When he saw the
boulder, he realized it could cause an accident. The peasant lay down
his burden and tried to move the boulder to the side of the road. After
much pushing and straining, he finally succeeded. To his surprise, he
found a purse lying on the road where the boulder had been. The purse
contained many gold coins and a note from the king saying that the gold
was for the person who removed the boulder from the road.
When the peasant moved the boulder off the road, he didn’t know there would be a purse of gold coins beneath it. His was an act of selfless service. In our seva, too, we come across such boulders – things that are going wrong, things that could hurt someone, things that could cause a loss. Do we take the initiative to move the boulder or bring it to the attention of the right person?
A young man who was not a sevadar once came to a satsang centre to meet his mother who was doing seva there. As he walked through the centre, he noticed a dirty stray dog sleeping in front of the cafeteria door. Disturbed at this, he went and found a sevadar from that department and told him it was unhygienic to have a stray dog near a place where food was being cooked and served. The sevadar replied, “That’s not my job. My job is to sell food coupons, and I’m doing that.” So the young man sought out the person in charge and related the incident to him. “Well, son,” was the response, “this is why we need people like you to join seva.” So he did!
As responsible sevadars we can keep asking ourselves: What can I do to make my seva better? It is so valuable to be open to continuous improvement. There is always something more that can be done to improve things – the same seva can be done in a more efficient way, or someone may have a new idea about how to serve the sangat better. But when we go out of our way to help someone or to improve something, it’s good to check in with ourselves first to make sure that our intentions are positive – that we are motivated by a desire to do what is in the best interest of the sangat and not by a desire to interfere with the work of another sevadar or department. There are times when it is best to do only what we are asked to do, and there are times when it is important to do something more to help. We can use our judgement to do what we think would best please the master.
And whenever we have a good idea or offer suggestions for improvement, we can do so with an open mind and a willingness to accept the final decision by the head sevadar. Sometimes our ideas and suggestions will be accepted; sometimes they will not.
As Hazur once put it so beautifully:
Who’s the host and who’s the guest? I don’t know. Satsangis are the host, satsangis are the guest. They come, they cook, they eat and they go – I don’t know whom to thank…. They think I do it, I think they do it. I’m grateful to them; they come and thank me.84
Being the master’s ambassadors
Hazur used to say that the saints’ biography lies in their disciples
and in their teachings reflected through their disciples.85 Sevadars are keenly aware that their actions
reflect on their beloved master.
Within the organization, the sangat often sees sevadars as role models. And in the outside community, sevadars tend to be at the front lines of the organization, working with local officials. Sevadars are the master’s ambassadors – they represent him and all that he stands for.
At a school in a large city in India, sevadars from a nearby satsang centre were waiting outside the principal’s office. Their sangat had grown a lot and they wanted to divide the present centre into two separate ones. For this they needed to rent a large hall at a school. When they were ushered into the principal’s office, they noticed that principals from several other schools were present in the room. The principal apologized for keeping them waiting, explaining that since his meeting with the other principals would take a while to complete, he had decided to take a break to find out what the sevadars wanted.
The sevadars made their request to rent the school hall. When one of the guest principals heard their request, he urged the principal to accept their petition, saying that he had rented his school hall to RSSB and had never regretted it – they took great care of the property and were prompt in their payments. Then another principal said the same thing. Then another! All told, three principals in the room were renting out their school halls to the organization and had nothing but good things to say. Reassured by their feedback, the principal agreed to rent out his school hall as well. The sevadars left the meeting stunned by the grace – the timing of their meeting had turned out to be quite a ‘lucky’ coincidence, and they were thankful for the foundation laid by sevadars from other centres. Because of the reputation created by those sevadars, their own task had become so easy.
It is sevadars’ patience in the face of opposition, and their integrity and sense of responsibility, that has built the reputation of the organization.
Making it enjoyable
Being responsible sevadars doesn’t mean we have to be serious all the
time. Seva is best when it is fun and we come away from it feeling
joyful. Often it’s enough just to smile, as a smile is contagious – it
lights up a room, makes sevadars feel welcome, and lightens bad
moods.
A sevadar relates that during a visit to the Dera, there was a fire in one of the stacks of fuel in the langar. She joined the dozens of people passing buckets of water to put out the fire. Suddenly Baba Ji arrived, stood on top of one of the stacks and began to direct the activity. The fire was easily controlled. Lots of people slowed down or stopped and focused on him. This sevadar recalls feeling irritated at the time, thinking that they had this task to do – to finish putting out the fire – but people were not focusing on it. That evening someone asked the master about the fire and he just laughed and said something like, “It was just an opportunity to do some seva and have some fun!”
The sevadar realized then that her narrow focus on the task alone diminished her experience. She had lost the opportunity to absorb and enjoy his presence. It was important to put out the fire, yes, but once the danger had passed and the fire had been put out, it was also an opportunity to spend time with the master, and the sevadars were enjoying that.
We should be serious about following Sant Mat, but that doesn’t mean that we should disregard the cheerful side of life altogether. Rather, we should feel more relaxed because we are following the path.
Maharaj Charan Singh86
How can people not be joyful when they are doing seva? They feel close to the master and close to their brothers and sisters on the path, and that joy naturally bubbles over.
The master himself sets the tone on this. When it’s time to be serious he is serious. But when it’s not, he initiates the fun and games and even plays pranks. And sometimes, when he wants to teach us a lesson, he uses humour to do it. We can learn from him to relax in seva. We can be responsible and at the same time enjoy our seva.
You see, except for humans, nobody laughs. I don’t think you have seen any bird laughing or any dog laughing or any animal laughing. They may smile, but the privilege of laughter is given only to humans. So if we want to remain human, humour has to be there, just to help us relax.
Maharaj Charan Singh87
There is a key difference between being responsible and ‘carrying the burden of responsibility.’ Being responsible is a frame of mind that helps us do our seva to the best of our ability. But if we carry the burden of responsibility, it can take the joy out of seva. It is a burden we don’t need to carry; the master will carry it if we just let him. Even if it is our seva to ensure that 200,000 people are fed during a satsang weekend, all we can do is be responsible and put in our best effort. Beyond that, if we surrender to the master and function as his agent, we will discover that he is already carrying the responsibility on his shoulders.
If you really surrender everything to the Lord, then you have no responsibility, whatever you may do.
Maharaj Charan Singh88
Doing it for ourselves
There is a story about a king who asked his prime minister to build
him a beautiful palace. The king told the prime minister to design it as
he wished and to spend as much money on it as he desired. The prime
minister built the palace. When it was done, it looked beautiful from
the outside, but in places where it wouldn’t show he had cut corners,
thinking that no one would notice. When the palace was ready, the king
walked around and admired it. Then he told the prime minister, “This
palace is not for me. I had it built for you, as a reward for all your
years of service. This is my gift to you.”
The prime minister was thankful to the king, but the gift was bittersweet. In his heart he lamented, “Alas! If only I had known this gift was for me! I would have put my heart and soul into it and done it much better.”
The king didn’t need the palace; it was always intended to be a gift. In the same way, the master doesn’t need our seva. Seva, in all its forms, is his gift to us. When we don’t realize this, when we think we are doing the seva for someone else – for the sangat or the sevadar-in-charge – we may be tempted to do it half-heartedly. But when we realize we are doing seva primarily for ourselves, when we realize that with our seva we are building our own spiritual treasure, we cannot but do it with our whole heart.