Humanity begins with an obliging nature. If a person were to follow the goal of developing the quality of humanity, he would soon attain liberation which is the end goal of spirituality.
Religion begins from the moment you give happiness to others. You will be happy if you give happiness to others. And compassion begins when one is not worried about his own happiness but is constantly preoccupied with helping others in difficulty. True compassion is when you do not think about yourself at all. Only then, does spirituality (the liberating knowledge) manifest.
Sharing his own experience, Param Pujya Dada Bhagwan, the Spiritual Master, says, that his main goal in life was to give happiness to all who met him. He never thought about his own happiness. He was always looking for ways to ease other people’s miseries. That is the reason compassion and the extraordinary divine spiritual science of Akram Vignan manifested within him.
So, let’s begin by giving happiness to others
Your happiness begins from the moment you do something for others. Therefore, have a constant desire to help people in difficulty. Spend for the welfare of others. When you see someone hungry or unhappy, give them food, water and comfort. When some poor is getting married, give them some money so that their life improves. If you comfort someone, God will surely comfort you!
Let your pocket be picked. When that happens, it is your past karmic account that is being settled. But if you comfort someone now, you will definitely be rewarded in future. So, give happiness to everyone. Such should be our quality of humanity!
Let No Living Being be Hurt by Me
If you cannot provide service to the world, then serve your own Self. He that serves the Self serves the entire world. The service to one’s own Self is higher than the service to the world because the one who serves his Self does not hurt anyone!
Make sure you do not hurt anyone; even if they have caused you problems. Those who come to us can collect some happiness from us. And those that come to make us unhappy, we shall willingly accept his deed. A person hurts us because of the effect of our own past karma unfolding in this life. We must have had some pending karmic accounts which we can now settle. According to the law of Nature; we only get what is due to us, otherwise nobody has the power to bother us. Hence, accept whatever they give you and act in a manner that does not hurt anyone or makes anyone unhappy.
God resides in every living being. Therefore, hurting anyone even in the slightest degree would mean we are violating our moral duty, our religion. For this, Param Pujya Dadashri suggests, “Every morning, with a true heart, ask the Lord within you: “May I not cause slightest hurt to any living being in this world, through my mind, speech and body.” Repeat this sentence five times every day!”
Other qualities of one serving the Self are: you do not lie, steal, commit violence or hoard money.
Serve Parents, Elderly and Guru, Seeing God in Them
The first and foremost service worth doing is one for your parents. Serving parents is every human’s moral duty. The more a person practices this, the happier he will be and you will not lose your peace of mind too. Narrating an incident, Param Pujya Dada Bhagwan illustrates, “I met a man I once knew in a spiritual community and asked him what he was doing there. He told me that he had been living there for the past ten years. I told him that his parents were seriously ill and were living in extreme poverty. He told me that he could not do anything because helping his parents would mean forsaking his dharma (religion). How can you call this dharma? Dharma is to embrace your parents and your family. Your worldly interaction should be ideal. How can forsaking one’s relationship with his parents and his duty be called dharma?”
Further, amongst those who suffer the most in this world are the elderly. But who do they complain to? Therefore, serve the elderly. It will give you happiness and our spirituality also blossoms. How can one serve an idol? The legs of an idol do not ache, do they? And one who serves his Guru attains the spiritual path to liberation. Therefore, always serve parents, guardians, the elderly, and Guru!
The purpose of human life is served when you use your mind, body and speech for the good of, and in service of others. And the spiritual path is all about remaining in the bliss of the Self.
The Path of Liberation Comes After the Path of Service
When you develop the quality of humanity and go about with an inner intent of serving God residing within everyone, you bind good karma, for which you receive very good rewards in your next life. However, spirituality begins only after Gnani Purush gives you the knowledge of the Self.
You may be serving people very humbly, not maintaining any air (ego) in the service you provide, but until one knows that really ‘who am I’, one unknowingly has the ego of doership i.e. ‘I am helping / serving people, I am seeing God in those I have served, I am developing the quality of humanity.’
Param Pujya Dada Bhagwan explains how the state of one who has attained Self-Realization is,
“If I ask this man here who he is, he would tell you that, ‘For the world I am ‘Chandubhai,’ and, in fact, ‘I am a Pure Soul.” To say this, is the absence of ego. The ego of a humanitarian is for a good cause, but it is ego nevertheless. If one’s ego is for a bad deed, he would be called a devil! And if the ego was for a good cause, then he would be called a divine person. Ego is ego. Ego makes one take life after life. A person can experience liberation, right here, the moment his ego is gone.”
One says, ‘I am doing this’ and therefore, it is egoism. Until one has a belief, ‘I am doing it’, it binds good karma. A shackle of gold is nevertheless a shackle that binds, isn’t it?! Therefore, from here on, one should try to find the answer to the question, ‘Who am I?’ You should make the effort to understand this, so that all the puzzles of life can be solved and, thereafter, no new puzzles will arise. Once this happens, You become independent. You will continue to serve others even after having received Self-Realization. But such service will be pure service, without a tinge of egoism.
Service to society with a true heart develops the quality of humanity, It, to some extent, destroys the feeling of ‘my’. However, on gaining the knowledge of the Self from Gnani, ‘my’ is completely destroyed. Thereafter, following Gnani’s teachings, spirituality keeps flourishing until we become the absolute Self (Parmatma)! Then, bliss alone is what prevails!