The Yoga of Sri Aurobindo - Part 7

Service Human and Divine

To wish to serve humanity, to do good to it shows ambition and egoism? How?

Why do you wish to serve humanity? What is your purpose? What is your motive? Do you know in what consists the good to humanity? And do you know better than humanity itself what is good for it? Or do you know it better than the Divine? You say the Divine is everywhere, so if you serve humanity, it is the Divine whom you serve. Well, if the Divine is everywhere, he is in you too; so the best and the most logical thing should be to begin by serving yourself.

Is there then no need for service to humanity? Hospitals, nursing organisations, charitable institutions have not been useful to humanity? Has not the spirit of philanthropy mended and improved the conditions of human life?

Has it, I ask? You have tried to help a few people here and there. But what does it amount to compared to what needs to be done? The proverbial drop in the ocean or less than that even. You remember the story of St. Vincent de Paul? He began giving alms to the poor. On the first day there were ten, on the second some twenty, on the third more than fifty and the number went on swelling in more than geometrical progression. And then? Colbert, the King's Minister, remarked seeing the plight of the

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saint: "Our brother seems to be giving birth endlessly to his poor people".

I do not think that the spirit of charity has in any way improved human conditions. I do not see that men have become either more or less subject to disease and indigence than before. Charity was always there and misery has coexisted with it ever. I do not think the ratio between the two has diminished in any way. You remember the ironical but pertinent remark of someone who said in view of science's attempts to cure and remove misery: "Poor philanthropists would be in a sad plight, their occupation will go!" The true reason why one wishes to do charity is elsewhere, it is to please oneself, it is for self-satisfaction. It amuses you to do the thing: it gives you the sense that you are doing something, that you are a valuable member of humanity, not like the others, that you are somebody. What else all that is except that you are vain, full of self-importance, full of yourself? That is what I meant when I said that it is ambition or egoism that makes you humanitarian. Of course, if it pleases you to do the work, if you feel happy in doing it, you are at perfect liberty to do the work and continue. But do not imagine that you are doing any real or effective service to humanity; particularly do not imagine that by that you are serving God, leading a spiritual life or doing Yoga.

Just an illustration of the quality of the spirit that animates humanitarianism. A charitable man will give generously for a thing that is known, recognised, appreciated;

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he will be liberal if he finds his name attached to the work, announced and pronounced, if there is fame for him in it. But ask him a dole for something genuine, comparatively modest or out of the way, something that is truly spiritual and divine, you will find his purse-strings tightened, his heart closed up. A gift that bears no value to the giver does not tempt the ordinary humanitarian. There is indeed another different category of givers, of the opposite kind, who want precisely to remain anonymous: they would be displeased if their name were announced. But the motive here too is not very different; in fact it is the same motive acting a rebours, backward as it were. Here there is the additional element of self-glorification: one gives and people do not know who, it is something all the more to be proud of.

You must look into yourself, question yourself before you do a thing simply because it is the thing normally done and it is how things are normally done. You can do good to others, if you know what is that good and if you possess that in yourself. If you wish to help others, you must be on a higher level than theirs. If you are one with the others, level with them in nature and consciousness, what can you do but share in their ignorance and blind movements and perpetuate them? So it happens really that the first thing to do is to serve yourself.

You will make a remarkable discovery as you proceed to know what you are and who you are. That is how you should begin. "I want to serve humanity. How can I serve? Who is this 'I' that wants to serve?" You say,

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"I am such a person, this form and this name." But the form you have now was not there when you were a baby: it has been changing constantly. All the elements of your body are being renewed totally. Neither are your sensations and feelings those you had a few years ago. Your thoughts and ideas have moved through revolutions. The "I" covers a sum of everchanging factors. There is nothing particularly to be called "I": it is only a ring of changes. An empty name seems to be the only constant thing. One element at a time comes forward—an idea, a feeling, an impulse—and that is your "I" for the moment. At another moment another element comes up and becomes your "I". You are not one "I" but a crowd of many "I"s. So what is the value of the declaration of one of the I's that it has found the goal, the truth, the duty you have to follow? Thus if you proceed further, questioning and analysing yourself thoroughly and sincerely, you will stumble upon the reality. You will find that "I" does not exist at all. What exists is something else: it is the one indivisible reality, the Divine alone.

It is this self-discovery that will give you the basic knowledge, the foundation of your life, the discovery that your self as yourself does not exist, you are indeed nothing. This sense of nothingness must pervade your being, fill all the elements of your being before the truth can dawn upon you and the Divine Presence can be felt. And what you have been doing all along is the very contrary thing, asserting your egoism, your vanity— pretending that you were somebody, you could do something,

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that the world needed your help and you can give that help. Nothing of the kind. When you discover this truth and accept it, when you are humbled and in true humility you approach life and reality, you will find your real career and vocation.

In a deeper sense it is indeed by serving yourself that you serve others best. When you discover a dark spot in you, a grain of egoism, ambition, selfishness, when you do not yield to its impulsion but surmount it, when you thus conquer in your self a movement that leads you astray, in the same gesture you make the conquest for the sake of others too, you create the same possibility in others. There can be nothing more dynamic than this setting of personal example. It is not that others observe you and imitate you; the influence is more subtle and more powerful. You create the opportunity, make an opening, bring into active play the force of your realisation, even without the knowledge of others; the others are only benefited by the invisible help that is lent to them. But you must be on your guard here too. You must not say, "I will help others, so let me improve myself." There should not be any such spirit of barter or bargain. Confine yourself to your own business; how others are affected or not affected is not your concern. If you entertain that kind of idea, you invite the same vanity and egoism, by the backdoor. Yours should be like the blooming of a flower; it blooms out of its own joy and delight of self-fulfilment; in the process, by its very existence it spreads its perfume all around, fills the

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surrounding with its glad vibration, but that simply happens, it does not do all that purposely or intentionally. Even so the soul that perfects himself: the victory he wins for himself is contagious and extends automatically.

I have said your ego is an illusion. Your "I" does not exist at all. There is nothing like separate, distinct individualities and individual fulfilments. The Divine alone exists and the Divine's Will. He is the single and unique and all-embracing reality. What then is the source of this variety and diversity of existence? What is the significance, if any, of the many individualities and personalities, their appearance and play on the world-stage?

That is another story. I leave it for a future occasion.

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