Service and Spiritual Discipline
Late Dr. Thobjorn Meyer from Denmark, Director of the European Sathya Sai Educational Institute, was an ardent devotee of Bhagavan Sri Sathya Sai Baba. He worked tirelessly for many decades to develop and promote the Sathya Sai Education in Human Values program throughout Europe and Russia.
To identify oneself with Sathya Sai Baba’s teachings, be willing to accept the practical consequences of one’s own deep conviction, and take full personal responsibility forx this, means that we are guided into becoming instruments in His divine mission. When the individual fulfills these prerequisites, it means uninterrupted work with oneself, a process that never seems to end.
Although we may intellectually know the answers to spiritual questions such as, “Who am I?” “Where do I come from?” “Why am I here?” and “Where am I going?” we are faced with the necessity of an actual realization. The path to this involves acceptance and understanding of our selves, such as we actually are, self‑important, hiding behind masks, full of frustrations (inhibitions), upholding preconceived opinions, causing us to judge others and to be intolerant toward others, etc.
How have we become like this? Have these things been caused by disappointments, grief, and fear? Do they originate from earlier lives and/or are they childhood experiences now governing me from my own sub-consciousness? Is it possible for me to break the illusion (maya), the false identification with the body, which is the cause of my disharmony, isolation, and egoism, and instead become spiritual, so that the isolation is broken and I then approach unity and love on an unselfish level? How do I really turn inward and upward? Am I willing to change myself radically? And can I accept that all resistance, anger, fear etc., which I encounter during this process originates from my self? Do I understand that everything that I have emanated/created necessarily must return to me as its source/creator?
This is the same irresistible force that as a natural law forces man to seek unity with the great cosmic Creator. If I deny that which I myself have created, I seek to deny part of my self, and thus I only create increased conflict and disharmony within myself and my relationship to the cosmos. I therefore have to accept it as my own, to receive it again and transform it into love. This is like the phoenix [mythical bird] that burns to death in its own nest to be born again in a changed quality. Am I willing to do my best, always to focus on the positive with the eyes of love and if I am to point at errors, then only to point at my own? These are the ones and the only ones that I am to take care of, to change. And am I willing only to criticize another, when I can do it in love, only from the depth of my heart, in order to help?
Are these demands hard to meet? Maybe, but those who want to be His instruments only want it as a step on the path to realizing themselves as one with Him. And that path is not always easy. All the activities of the Sai organization serve only one purpose: the removal of all the obstacles that stand between the individual and God. The total realization, which the spiritual seeker is striving for, includes a willingness to give up everything, to die on the level of the body and the material world, in order to be born—made conscious—in a spiritual sense.
Do we have a longing, which is sufficiently profound and great, which is indeed all‑embracing and eternal, so that we can make such demands on ourselves? Can we enter the process with joy and expectancy, knowing that we shall be “undone” bit by bit in order for the illusion to be broken and a new, conscious, and harmonic person to be created? Are we ready to make the priorities in our lives in accordance with this? Each one must answer for himself. No one else can! No one else can walk the path for me!
In our contact with other people and especially when we are doing seva sadhana (serving unselfishly as a spiritual discipline), we shall meet apprehension, fear, grief, depression, anger, and possibly physical pain, too, and we shall be aware that the only thing we can give is love. In our hearts there is no doubt about unselfish love being the main key to the solution of all our problems. But we can only really give unselfish love when we are willing and able to put our own small self completely aside (overcome it or “sacrifice it”). It is not difficult to understand that we must accept and love ourselves in order to be able to really accept and love others. Self‑acceptance requires understanding of one self and one’s situation. In this way the necessary self‑confidence is achieved. This includes taking responsibility for one’s self, one’s actions, and one’s own shortcomings.
~Dr. Thobjorn Meyer, Denmark
Source: Sanathana Sarathi, Oct. 1986
