April 9, 2023
We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.
– Winston Churchill
To share often and much … to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Life’s most persistent and urgent question is: What are you doing for others?
– Martin Luther King, Jr.
I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.
– Albert Schweitzer
In nothing do men more nearly approach the Gods than by doing good to their fellow man.
– Cicero
The perfume of sandalwood,
The scent of rosemary and jasmine,
Travel only so far in the wind.
But the fragrance of goodness travels with us through all the worlds.
Like garlands woven from flowers,
Fashion your life as a garland of beautiful deeds.
– The Buddha
Reasons To Be of Service
There are many ways to find pleasure and satisfaction, but most are fleeting, often dissolving like a mist before the moment is fully past. On the other end of the spectrum, there are only a handful of ways that people have found lasting fulfillment or a sustained sense of meaning. Among those few, service is the path more have taken than any other. Perhaps this is because we sense that we are inextricably connected to others, to nature, and to everything at a fundamental level.
(The other primary paths to lasting fulfillment are discussed in my book –
Art, Science, Religion, Spirituality, and my Essays on “The Ultimate Journey” at https://ameaningfullife.org/the-ultimate-journey/
Whether it was helping a few people or many, commitment to a cause, or working to solve a problem that was afflicting a community, a whole society, or the natural world — the path of service has provided some of the most meaningful and fulfilling rewards life has to offer. As Martin Seligman put it:
“In a meaningful life you use your highest strengths and talents to belong to and serve something you believe is larger than the self.”
Martin Seligman was greatly influenced by the work of Viktor Frankl, whose lifework after surviving the Nazi concentration camps was to teach that life’s fulfillment comes from living meaningfully — which one can do, no matter the difficulties you are facing. Frankl’s own life provides a vivid example of how this is possible, so his conclusions are worth considering.
One of them seems paradoxical at first: “It is the very pursuit of happiness that thwarts happiness.” To understand this, it is necessary to consider the confusion in the modern world about what “happiness” is. Frankl defines happiness as immediate feelings of pleasure, a state of momentary satisfaction. To experience this form of happiness, there are numerous things we can do — drink alcohol, take drugs, have good sex, win a contest, enjoy a fine meal, receive money, have an adventure, get the best of or even take something from another person, start a fight we think we can win, and on and on.
Frankl is not saying that all of these things are bad or wrong. His point is, however, when we focus a lot of time on having these kinds of pleasurable experiences, we become increasingly narcissistic and end up spending more and more of our life energy chasing these momentary pleasures. As we do, pleasures become harder and harder to attain, for most ways of gaining immediate pleasure get old and become boring. To keep the pleasure train running requires more alcohol, more drugs, more and better sex, more wins, more dramatic adventures, or more and more money.
In the end, if you run after happiness, it will always outrun you. This is the reason there are so many stories, both fictional and in real-life, of privileged people going to greater and greater extremes to make themselves happy, while deep inside they are becoming bored, jaded, debauched, and cynical. In Frankl’s view, this path will never bring true happiness; in fact, if you focus on achieving momentary happiness for yourself, you will almost certainly fail at finding true happiness in the long run.
Skeptico: How do you define true happiness?
Wisdom Seeker: A feeling of overall life satisfaction, a sense that my life is on the right track, that I am doing what I am called to do. That I am living toward the highest and best version of myself. Such a feeling comes when what I am doing with my time and energy seems worthwhile, a sense that my efforts are worth making because they are guided by an intention in which I believe. In other words, the time and energy of my life is organized around something that seems meaningful to me, such as being creative, practicing love and kindness, serving a cause I believe is important, taking steps on my spiritual path, and being of service.
Within this framework, I might be engaged in activities that are very hard or unpleasant in the short run, but hopefully will result in an outcome that is meaningful. By undertaking such efforts, there often arises a deep sense of satisfaction, a deep happiness, no matter how hard or even dangerous the path might be. This is the kind of happiness Frankl had in mind when he said: “Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue.”
If, instead of pursuing small pleasures, you use your “highest strengths and talents to belong to and serve something you believe is larger than the self,” as Seligman put it, then a sense of life satisfaction and deep happiness will “ensue” — arise spontaneously from the depths of your being.
Happiness is, of course, a hot topic these days, so much so that a World Happiness Summit has been held for the last few years, bringing together the world’s leading “happiness” experts. At the gathering in 2008, the statement that summarized the Summit’s conclusions confirmed the view of Frankl when it says: “Happiness is a process, not a goal — a means, not an end. Prioritize for meaning, not happiness.”
Many people through the ages have understood this. William Cowper, an 18th century English poet, captured it perfectly: “Existence is a strange bargain. Life owes us little; we owe it everything. The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose.” Albert Camus said the key to happiness was in how we relate to others: “When you have once seen the glow of happiness on the face of a beloved person, you know that a man can have no vocation but to awaken that light on the faces surrounding him.”
And the great Buddhist mystic Shantideva summarized it perfectly:
All the joy the world contains
Has come through wishing happiness for others.
All the misery the world contains
Has come through wanting pleasure for oneself.
Experiencing a Call
There are various reasons for taking the path of service, but an untold number have taken it after experiencing a direct call, a powerful sense that they were being asked to undertake a specific task. Some felt as if the call was from deep within themselves; for others, it was a feeling that something beyond themselves was calling them to act. In both cases, however, the sense of being called to service has had a profound effect on many. Some of the most influential people in history have experienced it, and it changed not only their own lives, but human history as well.
For instance, Mahatmas Gandhi felt called to free India from foreign rule. Included in his call, however, was a profound moral sense that his work had to be done through non-violent means; otherwise, all that would be achieved would not be in service of the good. And both his determination to bring democracy to his country, as well as his commitment to non-violence, have had profound effects.
Nelson Mandela felt called to free his country from minority rule by almost any means. Then, after years in prison, his call grew to include a sense that successful change could only be accomplished if all groups and races learned to work together for the common good. Like Gandhi, both his work for his country and his message of inclusiveness had profound effects.
Martin Luther King, Jr. felt called to gain equal rights for his people, but he too embraced a moral position of non-violence, firmly believing that all people, enemies and friends alike, had to be treated with equality. And both his work and his message have both born much fruit around the world.
Another person who experienced a profound call was the famed doctor and musician Albert Schweitzer, who left his highly successful life in Europe to care for the poorest of the poor in Africa. Summing up his motivations, he said:
“I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.”
The call to service can be extremely powerful, and it has come to many others besides influential leaders. In fact, it has come to many more people than we usually suspect. I have asked dozens of friends for examples of individuals they know who spend a great deal of their time doing acts of service, and almost all had several examples to give. I have also found dozens of books with true stories of people helping and serving others. One of my favorites is Random Acts of Kindness, which includes this story:
I was heading with my girlfriend through the Santa Cruz Mountains on the way to a Samoyed breeder to pick up a new puppy. It was raining hard and the dirt road that was supposed to lead to the breeder’s farmhouse was only a wide rut. My Honda was having more and more trouble with the mud and the steep incline, and there was an ugly drop into a now-rushing creek bed to one side of the road.
Suddenly we ground to a complete stop: in the dark, stuck in heavy mud, with no tools, phones, or — so far as we knew — human being for miles around. We waited for about an hour, debating the merits of hiking in the pouring rain back toward civilization (miles away), trying to get the car unstuck (our attempts so far had just wedged us more tightly in the mud), and yelling (very, very loudly) for help.
We were sitting in the car feeling hopeless when we saw faint lights behind us — we hadn’t heard the engine because of the rain. A young man in a VW appeared. He was headed up the hill toward his home beyond the breeder’s farm. He told us he had towing equipment, and would come back and get us unstuck, and would also let the breeder know we were on the way. We settled back to wait, half doubting that he would return. After all, it was pouring, it was 10:30 at night, and if he came back to do what he promised, he would be completely covered in mud within minutes.
In forty-five minutes he was back with a truck and towing equipment. Half an hour later we sat in a warm kitchen, out of the rain, with hot cups of tea, and surrounded by teacup-sized Samoyeds.
Why would someone drive two extra hours late at night and work in the mud and rain to help total strangers? An answer often attributed to Winston Churchill: “We make a living by what we get. We make a life by what we give.”
The Wisdom Perspective
The wisdom traditions also give an answer for why a person would choose to go out of their way to serve another, even someone they did not know: It is that we are all connected in some way. In Buddhism, the Bodhicaryavatara says that reaching the highest state includes feeling we are not rally separate from others, so, “The Perfection of Charity is superior to all else. Once enlightened, one must be constantly active for the sake of others.”
This text clearly follows the teaching of the Buddha himself, who insisted we serve all others, not just those in our group or family. In a similar vein, the Bodhisattva Vow, taken by many Buddhists, is a pledge to strive to awaken for the sake of all sentient beings, not just for one’s own sake.
A story that captures this idea concerns three dedicated seekers crossing a desert together. Each is close to awakening, but none has yet achieved Nirvana. On their journey they come to a high wall and are unable to see what is on the other side. The first seeker climbs the wall, reaches the top, jumps over, and is not seen again. The second seeker does the same: climbs the wall, looks inside, jumps over, and is not seen again. The third seeker waits outside for a while, but after hearing nothing from her compatriots for a long time, climbs up the wall, looks over, and sees that it is, in fact, Nirvana over there. Slowly she climbs back down the way she had come, retraces her steps a short way into the desert, and sets up a way-station to help others find their way to this point. She is following the Bodhisattva Vow.
In Christianity, a central message is, “Love thy neighbor as thyself.” And one of the only times Jesus spoke about his mission, he said it was for the sake of the poor, the sick, the brokenhearted, and the oppressed. This message has inspired millions to sacrifice their own safety and comfort to help others ever since.
In doing so, they are following the explicit message of the Gospel of Matthew, where the “King of Heaven” says that those who will receive the Kingdom are the ones who fed him when he was hungry, gave him drink when he was thirsty, took him in when he was a stranger, visited him in prison, and ministered to him when he was sick. His listeners are confused, wondering when they did these things for the King of Heaven. His inspiring reply: “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these, my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”
In Judaism, a commitment to help those in need and the less fortunate runs deep. Two thousand years ago, the Jewish leader Hillel the Elder was challenged to teach the whole Torah in the length of time he could stand on one foot. Hillel replied with a version of the Golden Rule: “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor: that is the whole Torah while the rest is commentary.”
Hillel also said: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, who am I?” I take this to mean that if I do not value myself, I will be no good to anyone, to myself or others. But if I am only for myself (my small ego self), my identity will be too small to do much good for anyone, including my true self.
There are many, many other examples. Muhammad said, “A person’s true wealth is the good that person does in the world.” And the Koran says, “Do good unto your parents, and near of kin, and unto orphans, and the needy, and the neighbor from among your own people, and the neighbor who is a stranger, and the friend by your side, and the wayfarer.” That list includes just about everyone you will ever encounter, so the instruction is unmistakable: Do good to everyone you meet.
In Confucianism, the cardinal virtue is Ren, which emphasizes goodness, benevolence, human-heartedness — a feeling of shared humanity towards all others, as well as self-esteem for oneself.
And there is this from the Quaker perspective: William Penn, the founder of one of the first American colonies, said: “If there is any kindness I can show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not deter or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again.”
Skeptico: But you are quoting religious figures, and I have read several books lately saying that religions are the source of the world’s evils: wars, oppression, inhumanity. Are you saying they are a force for good?
Wisdom Seeker: There are those who blame everything on religion, but my sense is that we humans do bad things to each other out of fear, greed, anger, and ambition — none of which are caused by religions. When harmful actions become prominent in a culture, the religion of that time and place is often corrupted and put in the service of the bad actors. This is why harmful things have been done in the name of religion. But if you look back to the teachings of the founders of every single major religion, you find that the founders taught compassion, justice, love, forgiveness, goodness, and kindness. And all taught egoless, selfless service for those who needed help, whether the need was material, emotional, or spiritual.
All the religions have taught some form of the Golden Rule as a central tenet, insisting we treat others with respect. And one of the main reasons religions have gained acceptance through the ages is that they have mitigated the harmful urges we humans feel — many people have intuitively sensed how important this is for their own lives, as well as for their communities.
So, religions do not cause harmful actions; rather, doing harmful things is and has always been part of human nature. Bad things are done by people in every religion, and they are done by people who are not religious at all. The core teachings of religions try to modify our selfish, destructive tendencies, but any religion can be taken over and used by those who are controlled by their dark side in a particular time and place. Any religion can be taken over and used by those who are greedy, power hungry, self-centered, and even bloodthirsty. This has happened many times.
When it has happened, however, the teachings of the founders of a religion were not being followed; instead, personal ambitions were being cloaked in the rhetoric of a religion. Thus getting rid of religion is not the answer: Many of the worst horrors in history have occurred under regimes that were anti-religious, such as in Mao’s China, Stalin’s Russia, and Pol Pot’s Cambodia.
The only effective method in history that has ever been able to curb the dark forces in us so far has been the reemergence in a healthy form of the core teachings of one of the wisdom traditions. Such renewals have occurred over and over through history, with each adapting the core teachings of a religion to the needs of a specific time and place, and always including the deep principles that the founders of the great religions had in common.
Becoming More Conscious Is an Act of Service
Herman Melville is not usually considered a wisdom figure in the traditional sense, but he thought deeply about these questions, as have many other artists and writers. And a lot of them came to conclusions that echo the wisdom traditions. Listen to these dramatic words by Melville: “We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with all our fellow men: and among those fibers, as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as effects.”
Thought Experiment — Our actions run as causes
Consider for a moment that this might be true, that your actions might run as causes, affecting everything that will happen in your future life-stream.
Skeptico: Do you mean that I control everything that happens to me?
Wisdom Seeker: No, not at all. The way I understand Melville’s words is that you set currents in motion by each action you take, both good and bad, and those currents continue to reverberate through your life and the lives of others as you go forward. You are constantly affecting everyone in the life-stream, and the currents you set in motion are constantly affecting others, and also flowing back to you.
At an even more subtle level, the frame of mind from which you make decisions and take actions will affect the way you interpret and give meaning to whatever happens as your life goes forward. Thus, your frame of mind and the nature of your heart toward others will “run as causes” and come back to you as “effects.” The poet John Milton made this point vividly in his great work Paradise Lost, “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.”
One life-changing thing this has come to mean for me is that another person never makes me angry, or sad, or depressed. Whatever another person does or does not do, I am responsible for my response, and I can choose my response consciously. Rather than react from old patterns I adopted in similar situations in the past, such as anger, resentment, or fear, I can work to let go of my conditioned responses and move toward a conscious choice. I can choose to set more positive energies in motion — which will flow out from me and come back to me with the effect of creating a more positive world to live in.
Skeptico: But what if someone is being hateful to me?
Wisdom Seeker: You cannot control another person’s actions; the only thing you can control are your responses. You have the ability to notice when anger is beginning to rise up within you. When anger first arises, most of us respond by attributing our anger to the hateful actions of the other person.
Imagine, however, that instead you choose to look at that person’s situation from a compassionate point of view. Consider the possibility that the person whose actions you think are “making you angry” recently lost a loved one, lost a job, or was molested. Rather than taking what is happening personally, you can recognize that most actions by most people are not really about you at all, but about their own lives, fears, and desires.
Philo of Alexandria, a Jewish thinker who lived during the same era as Jesus, said: “Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.” What if you remembered this and tried to give each person the benefit of the doubt? After thinking about it in this way, you might still choose anger as your response; you might even conclude that anger is the healthiest response in the situation. You might choose to express your anger to the other person, and that might be the most skillful response. But this will only be the case if it does not come from your first angry feelings, for most initial reactions of anger are motivated by a projection of old wounds onto the present situation.
If, on the other hand, you have reached a place of wisdom within yourself, you might still feel that anger is the best response. If so, that is your choice, and not something forced on you by someone else. And this kind of anger is very different from the immediate anger that erupts of its own accord within you.
Consider a different situation: Imagine that the person toward whom you are beginning to feel anger is someone for whom you have felt great love in the past. As you pause, instead of organizing around the immediate anger, focus on the love you felt and make a determined effort to remember those feelings. If you can do this, what feeling will you then be immersed in?
Skeptico: Love, I guess.
Wisdom Seeker: Yes — no matter what the other person has done, you will be experiencing the energy of love. If that love is strong enough, the negative energy of the other person will not pull you in; the energy you will be feeling in that moment will be love. This is exactly the example many of the great saints and sages of history have exemplified for us — giving love and compassion to everyone, no matter the circumstances, no matter what the other person is doing or has done. St. John of the Cross said it this way: “Where there is no love, put love, and there you will find love.”
But it is not only the saints and sages who are capable of this; it is within the reach of anyone. At least sometimes. I have seen a number of people do this with a person they loved. Sometimes even with a stranger. I have seen parents — and especially grandparents — do this with a child who was misbehaving. Although the grandparent might appear stern in their reaction to the child, I could feel the underlying love, care, and compassion radiating out to the child. And I am certain the child could sense it as well at a deep level.
Skeptico: I can imagine doing that with a child. But with adults, wouldn’t it mean I would be letting hateful people walk all over me?
Wisdom Seeker: Not at all. You can be filled with love and still take forceful action. Three well-known examples are Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and Martin Luther King, Jr. All acted forcefully, but did so from an energy that was healing. Each was strong enough to stay grounded in a positive vision, and each therefore could act forcefully in the world. And each did much work inside themselves before they were able to effectively deal with the fires of hatred and malice burning all around them.
Skeptico: Why did they feel compelled to act in the world if they had achieved a fairly advanced place inside themselves?
Wisdom Seeker: Many of the great saints and sages have told us that serving others is one of the main ways the most advanced among us spend their life energies. This is the source of the Bodhisattva Vow. And a dramatic Christian parallel is the life of Catholic nun Teresa of Ávila. She described the spiritual journey as involving seven mansions, seven stages, and if you ever come to permanently dwell in the Seventh Mansion, then:
“Before death and ultimate union, the soul must let ego bring it back to the ordinary world, to the seeming separateness of individual life.”
According to Teresa, when consciousness comes permanently to dwell in the Seventh Mansion, you become a new person filled with a new energy.
“There is a lasting transformation: The soul who has dissolved into God reemerges with a vibrant wakefulness. There is now a permanent place of peace from which the soul can approach day-to-day tasks and responsibilities.”
Skeptico: But why does someone who has reached the ultimate state have to come back into the world of separateness?
Wisdom Seeker: To finish the work that having this marvelous thing called existence is all about. And perhaps to help all of life move toward greater awareness, love, and joy. The difference is that, if you are dwelling in the seventh level, you are able to interact with others in a different way than you did before, no matter the difficulties you are encountering, because you are in “a permanent place of peace.”
For Teresa, this meant tireless service to others. Numerous shining examples of committed service can be found among the most advanced spiritual beings in history, such as Jesus, the Buddha, and Confucius. All spent most of their time and energy after reaching an advanced spiritual state helping and teaching others.
Skeptico: But Teresa had many difficulties dealing with the world, as did Jesus, Confucius, and many other saints and sages.
Wisdom Seeker: Yes. None of them said the path was easy, or free of difficulties. But they said that the path they suggested was the way to true fulfillment and meaning. Of course, all those who hear this message will not accept it. Some will oppose the message and those who deliver it — sometimes violently. A modern example of this is a story about Bawa Muhaiyaddeen, who played a role in inspiring Coleman Barks to begin his translations of the poems of Rumi.
Bawa was a Sufi mystic from Sri Lanka, born around 1900, who emigrated to the United States in 1971 (he was thus about 71 when he began teaching here). Previously he had spent many years living in the jungles of Sri Lanka and traveling to holy sites, gradually relinquishing any connection to his ego life and his identity in the world. In so doing, he seems to have reached a place of complete peace and freedom.
Jonathan Granoff (an accomplished lawyer, Vice President of the Committee on Disarmament at the UN, and President of the Global Security Institute) visited Bawa many times after he came to the U.S., and recounts this powerful experience he himself witnessed:
One day, while I was there, a fellow came in absolutely shaking with rage, filled with enormous violence and hatred. I was sitting right by (Bawa), and this guy pulls out a knife, the kind of knife that you use to cut bamboo. He pulls it out and he’s screaming. I understood enough to hear that some tragedy had befallen his family …
When he pulled the knife, I was very close, close enough that I could have easily sucker punched him. … But my conscience said: ‘No, it’s not for me to step in front of the sage. I’m here purely as a student, and it’s not for me to intervene.’
So here sat this small, frail man in front of a knife-wielding crazed attacker—filled with anger and rage. At that moment, Bawa opened his arms fully wide. He had no shirt on.
He leaned his neck backwards, exposing himself fully to this flood of violence, and looked, with eyes of melting gentleness, at his assailant and said: “My brother, will taking my life give your soul the peace it is seeking?”
It was as if the molecules in the room began to scintillate and vibrate with the power of Love. That love just filled the space we were in like a tangible presence, and the man with the knife became like a puppet, whose strings had been cut. He collapsed on the ground, dropped his knife, and gazed at the sage’s eyes.
Bawa embraced him with such kindness, an almost motherly absorption, and said, “Go home and clean yourself, then come back, my child.”
Skeptico: I am still struggling to think of myself in the company of these rare spiritual individuals you are talking about. Give me some examples of people who were somewhere in between complete fulfillment and total focus on themselves.
Wisdom Seeker: Let’s return to Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and Martin Luther King, Jr. All were intensely engaged with the world but did not always act as if they were spiritual beings. But each felt a call to do something that seemed important to a lot of people, and all suffered a great deal for the cause they felt called to serve. Each risked everything for their cause and consciously sacrificed many personal desires for what they felt was a higher good. And each suffered because they took on a symbolic role. Each was punished for defying entrenched forces of ill will. But each triumphed in the end.
Skeptico: Were they satisfied with their lives in the end?
Wisdom Seeker: Each became increasingly aligned with serving a Higher Good as their lives went on. They chose to risk everything for what they believed, and in so doing ended with a sense that their lives had been worthwhile. By the end of their lives, each seemed to have a sense of meaning and fulfillment.
Skeptico: But I can’t do anything remotely related to what they did!
Wisdom Seeker: Perhaps not, but if you just do the inner work that will allow you to live with more love and less anger, you will have a positive effect on the world. In addition, the energies that come back to you will more likely be positive. On the other hand, if you act out of fear, anger, or hatred, you will be pouring fuel on the fire of those energies in all those you touch, and those fires will burn ever hotter. Eventually they will consume everyone in their path. This is why some conflicts rage on for generations.
The only way to shift these negative energies in a positive direction, as Jesus counselled, is to turn the other cheek. In the same vein, the Buddha said, “Hatred never ceases with hatred, but by love alone is healed.”
If you live from anger, you will feed the anger around you, and it will flow back toward you. If you live from love, you will grow the flowers of love in the garden of your life, and you will be more likely to find that the fruits of love will be your harvest. This is how one’s actions come back as effects. More, the flourishing garden of your life will pollinate all the other gardens around you.
Reprise: Why So Many Have Chosen To Serve
Skeptico: One of the top ten bestselling motivational books of all time is entitled Looking Out for #1, and there are many similar books with astounding sales on the market today. Tell me again why you don’t agree with that popular advice.
Wisdom Seeker: The best answer I have is that we are all connected, we are all part of a larger identity that in some way is shared by everyone and everything. Intuitively we sense that our actions toward others come back to us through the web and impact our own lives. As Bradford Shank put it in Fragments: Crystallized reflections on the meaning of life, “In the end you receive only that which you have given.”
One philosopher who deeply explored the reasons people choose to help others is Arthur Schopenhauer. In On the Basis of Morality and several other books and essays he addresses the issue directly:
“How is it that suffering that is not my own, nor of my concern, should immediately affect me as though it were my own, and with such a force that it moves me to action?”
After having considered various possibilities, he concludes:
“When I experience a spontaneous urge to serve, I have, to some extent, identified myself with the other, and therewith removed for a moment the barrier between “I” and “Other.” For that instant, the other’s situation, his want, his need, become mine. I then no longer see him from my mind’s construct of “other,” as one strange to me, indifferent to me, completely other than myself; in that moment, I suffer as the other, in spite of the fact that his skin does not enfold my nerves.”
This image brings us to another way to understand the word happiness — reaching a place in which deep joy merges with happiness and the two become the one. In this place, we step outside of our ego stories completely and experience an identity that is much larger, an identity that includes others, nature, and even the Divine. In this place, there is a powerful feeling that I and Thou are one, and from that place we serve others, and that service reverberates back to us as joy. Indian poet and Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore captured it this way:
I slept and dream’t that life was joy
I woke and found that life was service
I acted and behold … Service was joy.
I believe many people intuitively sense the truth of this, and it is the reason an incredible number through history have risked their lives to save another, even people they did not know. I have read so many such accounts. They actually occur with great frequency in every culture.
Skeptico: I have done it myself! I didn’t risk my life, but I have taken a risk to help others a few times. But I also have to admit there are other times I could have done something but didn’t. What I am realizing is that I have many several different motivations present at the same time in difficult situations.
Wisdom Seeker: Me too. When I have seen someone in danger in the past, and helping would be dangerous, I have felt several reactions at once — to run away, to wait until someone else does what is needed (let’s wait for the police), to hide, to protect myself, and also the altruistic urge to take the risk and help. I remember feeling all these urges in several situations, and the actions I took in different situations were different.
Skeptico: How do our competing urges and motivations get sorted out within us?
Wisdom Seeker: No one knows. This is especially the case when a person has time to stop and think about whether they will undertake a dangerous mission to help others. In the absence of any evidence for how this occurs, the best approach might be to listen to the explanations given by those who have made the choice to take the risk — to listen to what they have to say about why they made a conscious choice to risk themselves. And the answer they give over and over is that they simply responded to the need of another despite the risk to themselves. But as Schopenhauer says:
“This is something really mysterious, something for which Reason can provide no explanation, and for which no basis can be found in practical experience. It is nevertheless a common occurrence … It is not unknown even to the most hard-hearted and self-interested. Examples appear every day … one person helping another, coming to his aid, even setting his own life in clear danger for someone whom he has seen for the first time, having nothing more in mind than that the other is in need and in peril of his life.”
At another point Schopenhauer observes that, as we get older and look back over our lives, events that once appeared accidental seem to fit into a pattern — so much so that at times one’s life begins to appear like a “cleverly constructed novel.” Going a step further, he notes that if one could step back far enough to get a glimpse of the whole pattern, including all the actions of all the people in our lives, the whole picture might appear as a single novel containing many characters. In this multi-faceted drama, we each experience ourselves as separate, yet all the stories fit together to form one complete whole, as if each life trajectory were coordinated with all the others.
To say this in a different way, each ego sees the life it is living from its own self-centered point of view. But anyone who can step into a larger perspective for a moment, beyond the ego’s limited vision, will see that all the parts are related.
In his book Inner Reaches of Outer Space, Joseph Campbell considers Schopenhauer’s ideas and concludes that it seems as if “the whole context of world history is of destinies unfolding through time as a vast net of reciprocal influences.” And this, of course, brings us back to the ancient Buddhist and Hindu image of the Net of Gems, in which the universe is a vast net of many threads with a jewel at each intersection. Each jewel reflects the reflections in the jewels close by, so that every jewel contains a trace of every other jewel in the entire net, creating an infinite interconnection between each and all.
Schopenhauer’s reflections eventually led him to the overwhelming thought that, although we seem to have separate existences, perhaps this separation is only an appearance created by the conditioning effects of space and time. When we are in a dream, we experience the different dream characters as separate from us. When we wake up, however, we realize that all the dream characters were created by our own single consciousness.
This analogy leads Schopenhauer to consider the possibility that the seemingly separate lives of all the people we encounter “are interlocked so artfully that each, though experiencing only what is profitable to himself, is yet fulfilling the requirements of others.” Going one step further, he says that all of life is perhaps “one great dream.” If this is the case, then anyone who can step beyond their own perspectives will see that, in the end, “everything links and accords with everything else.”
After considering Schopenhauer’s thought, Campbell comes to an extraordinary conclusion about how this web of connectedness applies to mythology:
“The universally distinguishing characteristic of mythological thought is a sense of identity of some kind, transcendent of appearances, which unites behind the scenes all the actors on the world stage.”
In other words, despite our egoic experience as we go about our daily lives that we are separate from others, we are actually united with all others in some mysterious way — in the one great drama that includes all of life.
Whatever the reasons, this is certain: People sacrifice, even risk their lives for others every day. Stories pour forth from battlefields, natural disasters, the slums of Calcutta, the barrios of Los Angeles, and automobile accident scenes all around the world. There are numerous reports of people rushing to a burning car to save a total stranger — risking their own life for someone they do not know. Why do we do this, and frequently? Perhaps at some level we sense what Schopenhauer and Campbell are saying: We are all in this thing called life together.
The Shadow Side of Service
As with everything, it is important to be on the lookout for the shadow side, and there is definitely a shadow side to service, ranging from the problematic to the destructive. People do things for others for lots of reasons, including to be liked, to manipulate, to fulfill a sense of duty, to get something in return, and out of fear of rejection or being punished. Those who are conditioned in their youth to take care of others before they have developed a healthy sense of self easily fall into a pattern of taking care of others for the wrong reasons. For those whose needs haven’t been sufficiently met, service can become an attempt to meet their needs.
Some young people have even been conditioned to believe that the only thing they are good for is to take care of others, which is not healthy for either the caregiver or the ones cared for. Some who were forced by fear of abandonment to care for others when young will continue to feel they have to take care of others so they won’t be abandoned as adults. Some young people are abused and forced to care for others, and are therefore afraid of being punished if they don’t take care of the powerful figures around them. This type of service often becomes co-dependency, where a person sacrifices for another in a way that supports negative behavior (such as alcoholism, sexual abuse, cruelty, hatred, rage, and the like).
Skeptico: How do I avoid the shadow side of service?
Wisdom Seeker: Healthy service comes from a place of inner strength, so your task is to become conscious, centered, and clear rather than needy, weak, and afraid. The best path to healthy service is to use your heart, mind, and intuition to make sure your actions arise from a strong and clear place within. One way to do this is to recognize that the person you have the greatest responsibility for, the individual in whom you have the greatest opportunity to foster love, joy, and peace, is yourself. If you can develop these qualities within yourself, you will be able to share them with others.
On the other hand, if you are depressed, feel unworthy, are lost in unhealthy energy, it will be very hard for you to help others find a better life. Most actions from an unhealthy place do not help you or the other person. This is a crucial reason for self-knowledge. Gandhi said it well: “Service which is rendered without joy helps neither the servant nor the served. But all other pleasures and possessions pale into nothingness before service which is rendered in a spirit of joy.”
Skeptico: Are you saying I should not try to help others when I feel bad?
Wisdom Seeker: Skeptico, you are getting better and better with your questions. The answer is complicated. Sometimes you should refrain from service and deal with your own issues when you are feeling bad; other times, though, the best thing to do when you are feeling bad is to forget yourself and be of service to others. Helping others can shift the focus from your ego and lift you out of a depressed or stuck place.
Skeptico: Let’s be specific. Right now I am not in a very good place. Should I try to help others?
Wisdom Seeker: Being of service is something you can do as a practice, no matter how you feel in the moment. Focusing on helping another can get us out our own egos, our own self-centeredness. But danger is afoot. The critical factor is being conscious enough to know why you are acting. If you are just trying to escape your own problems, you will not know what will really help another, so your actions are as likely to do harm as be of help. And if you are projecting your own needs and fears onto the person you are trying to help, the results are likely to be harmful rather than helpful.
The corrective to these shadow elements is to become conscious. If you know you are not in a good place and choose to help anyway, look carefully at your expectations. If you can recognize the dangers and go forward with some clarity about what you are doing and why, then helping others can be a valuable practice that moves you along to becoming the person you would like to be. In that case, your service will benefit both you and the recipient.
Thought Experiment — Service that is beneficial
Looking back on your life, identify times when you did something for others that in retrospect seems to have had value to another. Now think of a few times when you believed you were being of service, but in retrospect it doesn’t seem that your actions were beneficial. Can you catch a glimpse of the reasons for the difference? How can you include more of the first kind of service in your life and less of the second?
Skeptico: I would do a lot more for others if people would treat me better when I help them. Why don’t others focus more on the times I helped and acknowledge what I have done?
Wisdom Seeker: The first step in answering that question is to look inside yourself at your motivations for helping. If you are like most of us and are honest with yourself, you will recognize that many of the things you did for others came from motives that were self-centered, or you were just doing what you were taught you were supposed to do. This is not all bad, but if you do acts of service from self-centered goals, many of the people you are trying to help will sense that and be less likely to give you the appreciation you would like. They sense that your motives are mostly for yourself and that they are just pawns in your drama. You are not making them feel they are unique and worthy human beings.
This is a primary reason the wisdom figures of history stood out as being so different — they were organized around something more than their own personal goals and desires. People sensed this, and thus were drawn to them and gathered around them. The great saints and sages helped the people they served feel their own worth.
We all want to be appreciated, but only those who are not seeking anything for themselves are able to be of service in a way that is likely to be effective. Most of us spend our time trying to be loved and appreciated, so what we do for others arises from mixed motives. It is only when you can get beyond your own ego goals that you will be able to give selfless service, which is of the greatest help. It is almost a rule that, if you do something because you are looking for praise, the odds are small that you will receive as much appreciation as you want.
Skeptico: OK, I have to agree that I have mostly helped others from motives such as duty, wanting to be seen as special, to impress others, and sometimes wanting to seem “better than” those I was helping. How can I move in the direction you are suggesting?
Wisdom Seeker: Work to bring more and more of your unconscious parts into consciousness, otherwise there is the constant danger of unacknowledged parts being in control. A great example of this is given in A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. In the story, Scrooge is totally caught by losses and feelings from his past. And he is trying to escape those feelings through greed, cynicism, and bitterness toward everyone and everything. “Bah Humbug!” has become a well-known expression because it captures that spirit so well.
Fortunately for Scrooge, he is visited in a dream/inner intuitive vision/spiritual encounter — take your pick — by the ghost of his dead partner, who then sends three additional ghosts to bring unconscious motives to light and guide Scrooge to an understanding of what is truly important.
In that first encounter with the ghost of Jacob Marley, his dead business partner, Marley is bemoaning how he wasted his life, and Scrooge says:
“But you were always a good man of business, Jacob.”
Marley replies:
“Business! Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”
Dickens was not a particularly religious man, but here he states as clearly as any religious figure the heart of why so many through the ages have felt called to be of service to others. But before Scrooge could get to this place and experience joy in his life once again, the vital step was facing his past wounds and mistakes and realizing he did not have to continue on the path these unconscious forces were carrying him on.
Even more fully than Scrooge, the highest beings came to know themselves so thoroughly that neither their egos nor unconscious forces ran their lives. On the contrary, they understood their inner worlds, and their egos had been harnessed to serve something greater than their individual selves. They had realized they were connected to everyone and everything. For them, helping another was like caring for a wounded part of their own body, or a beloved child — as Scrooge did for Tiny Tim at the end of the story.
The Importance of the Small
Our attempts to be of service can be beneficial, but can also crash on the rocks of grandiosity. Those who act from a desire to “be an important person” or who feel superior to those they are helping often do more harm than good. Mother Teresa had it right when she said: “We cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love.” True service does not require a large act; most “big things” are about the ego of the doer rather than the needs of those being helped. William James saw this clearly in his later years:
“I am done with great things and big plans, great institutions and big success. I am for those tiny, invisible, loving human forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, which, if given time, will rend the hardest monuments of pride.”
Service is most effective when we simply do what we can to help those who cross our pathway. If each of us would just take the small opportunities that arise naturally to offer a hand when it is needed, the world would be a much better place. Each of us can offer service to those we meet all through the day, even if it is no more than a kind word or a smile.
One valuable way to be of service, which is often unacknowledged, is to recognize that those you are helping are helping you in return. At a minimum, they are accepting your gift, and often they are doing much more. Your task is to recognize their offering and accept their gift with gratitude.
Another often unrecognized way to be of service is to receive in a healthy way. Many of us would rather give than receive, but receiving with sincerity and grace is also a service. When server and served see the exchange as a valuable human interaction, then the giving and receiving becomes mutual — service flowing back and forth — and all are blessed.
Another way to give is to become conscious of your mistakes and own up to them. From Random Acts of Kindness:
I was driving home from work one day, and the traffic was terrible. We were crawling along, and out of nowhere, this guy just pulls out onto the shoulder, passes a whole line of cars, and cuts me off so quickly I have to slam on the brakes to keep from crashing into him. I was really rattled. About fifteen minutes later, I’m stopped at a light and I look over and there is the same guy next to me, waving for me to roll down my window.
I could feel my adrenaline starting to flow, and all my defenses coming up, but for some reason, I rolled down the window, and he says, “I am terribly sorry. Sometimes when I get into my car I become such a jerk. I know this must seem stupid, but I am glad I could find you, to apologize.”
Suddenly, my whole body just relaxed, and all the tension and frustration of the day, the traffic, life just dissipated in this wonderfully warm, unexpected embrace.
Skeptico: Wouldn’t it be wonderful if all those people who offended us, hurt our feelings, caused us pain and suffering would apologize like that?
Wisdom Seeker: Yes, it would be wonderful, and it would change the world. Unfortunately, you and I do not have the power to bring that about. There is one thing we can do, however.
Skeptico: What’s that?
Wisdom Seeker: Search carefully for all the times we have offended another, hurt someone’s feelings, or caused pain, and do what that driver did — apologize. This will change the world we experience dramatically. And it just might inspire others to act in the same way. By doing that simple thing, perhaps you will begin a meaningful change in the world.
May the renewal of the season help you find your own unique way of service,
David