We all aspire to live in a state of happiness. Enjoyment obtained from material comforts is short-lived, comes in bursts, and is not entirely predictable. We need a way to enjoy “ourselves” – not just enjoy the material comforts. To enjoy ourselves, we must be enjoyable. To feel good about ourselves, we need evidence of our goodness. This evidence comes from the satisfied looks of those whom we benefit. We feel our lives to be useful, when we become useful to others. The satisfaction obtained from such service is a thing to be enjoyed. It lightens our hearts and makes us pure. We spoil our enjoyment if we do this for petty side-effects such as fame, reward or return of service.
One reason why many of us don't serve is because it is difficult to identify whether a person is actually needy. How do we trust if someone is really needy or not? And if our service will be put to good use? It is the same problem with organizations that ask for donations for various causes – how do we trust that they will put our money or service to good use? Worse, they may even put it to bad use!
It is also perhaps difficult to find people who are sincerely needy. Most people can help themselves and if we help them, we spoil them. They get used to an easy life and expect to be helped. They become parasites to society. Perhaps some people don't know that they can help themselves – in such cases we do the best service by merely showing them that they can – not by actually helping them. In spite of that if they do not help themselves, they probably deserve no help.
On the other hand, there is indeed a concept of sincere need: People who are so poor, hungry and miserable, they cannot have any inclination of helping themselves until they are out of their immediate and urgent need. Such people need to be helped – but again only till the point where they are out of their dire condition. When people start expecting to be helped, it is an indication that they are out of their dire condition – they are no longer “satisfied” by our help; we don't find the evidence of our goodness and we don't feel good about it.
It looks like there is only a small window of opportunity in which it is worthwhile to serve. Perhaps then the reason that few of us actually serve is because such an opportunity is rare.
When there is opportunity, there are many ways of doing service, some more direct, and some less so.
In some cases, you may be more efficient at doing your own work – you can “serve” your organization by working more than what is required for salary – assuming that your organization is working for a good cause. Similarly, you can serve your family by doing more than what you do by unplanned habit. These are perhaps indirect way of serving the needy. After all, if society is well-organized and everyone does their share of work, the causes of poverty, hunger and misery might be eradicated.
A slightly more direct approach to service is to donate money to organizations that do the real service. Again finding such organizations that are trust-worthy may be difficult. The opportunity to serve is indeed rare! An even more direct approach of service is to donate money directly to the needy. However, when money is abundant in a section of society, but there are no helping hands, it is time to go to the field and serve people directly. Give them what they need – usually, food. Beggars who reject a donation of food and demand money instead are not really needy.
We can more clearly and directly see satisfied looks when we serve people directly. For this sake, let us at least once in a while make efforts to serve people directly, even when abundant helping hands are available. Our professional skills can help us serve. If you are a software engineer, you can write open-source software for good causes. If you are a doctor, you can give free consultation.
In summary, I will repeat the first paragraph – it is worth repeating a thousand times:
We all aspire to live in a state of happiness. Enjoyment obtained from material comforts is short-lived, comes in bursts, and is not entirely predictable. We need a way to enjoy “ourselves” – not the material comforts. To enjoy ourselves, we must be enjoyable. In order to feel good about ourselves, we need evidence of our goodness. This evidence comes from the satisfied looks of those whom we benefit. We feel our lives to be useful, when we become useful to others. The satisfaction obtained from this is a thing to be enjoyed. It lightens our hearts and makes us pure. We spoil our enjoyment if we do this for petty causes such as fame, reward or return of service.
The satisfaction of service is increased when we know or believe that the person whom we are serving is good and worthy. Then, what better experience can there be than to serve the personification of virtue – who resides in the innermost hearts of all people? For maximum enjoyment, let us visualize this personification of goodness and perfection in those whom we serve.
Remember Saint Thyagaraja's keerthana: Dorakunaa ituvanti seva (Can we find the opportunity for this kind of service...).
Comments/suggestions? Contact: