The waves and the sea
I remember the small room under the water tank where Mr Vyasa Murthy (1) was giving free homeopathic medicines. He was serving the people this way for the last 15 years. Their group members contribute money every month, from their modest salaries to buy medicines. They do not believe in taking money even from the affluent people. They started one more center in another nearby village also.
There was a hand written quote on an irregularly cut small card board sign hanging slantingly on the wall. The quote says “Serve until you (really) forget you are serving”. The bracketed word ‘really’ is my addition. Their spirit is permanently etched in my mind.
What I have seen in many people who are genuinely into service activities, is that their minds are highly conditioned (or dogmatic) in a particular fashion. Any conditioned thinking reduces our closeness to others. It makes us feel separate from others and less human. How to get rid of past conditioning is a life long task. Total de-conditioning automatically leads to spontaneous service, because we realize that all of us are part of one big thing though we all look different.
Metaphorically, we are like the waves in an ocean, each wave having a unique look, whose shape keeps on changing from non existence, to its maximum height and finally back to non existence. If we are continuously changing as above, what is our permanent identity? We have to choose one of the two – either we are a wave or the ocean. As the zero-to-zero (ever changing) wave, can not be my permanent identity, it has to be the ocean. All the waves, big and small, the fine water droplets in the spray and the water that seeps back into the sea after hitting the shore, are all the ocean itself in different forms. They start from the ocean, form differing and constantly changing shapes and finally merge into the ocean. The realization that we are all part of the ocean of humanity is not easy to achieve. It may happen after long period of meditation for most people because getting over the mental conditioning since birth that we are individuals is a very difficult task. Once it is achieved, serving others feels like serving own self, as others and self are felt to be the ‘One’ in different forms.
Knowing and agreeing on this concept is one kind of game. Really feeling it inside and acting on it, is a totally different game. The real test of our inner acceptance of this concept is this: Do we feel the same kind and degree of closeness and compassion towards one and all – own family members, outsiders living in poor conditions, shabbily dressed people, handicapped people, sick people, dying people, mentally sick people, abusive people, corrupt people, thieves, murderers, rich people, prostitutes … so on. If we do not feel ‘One’ with everyone of them, our actions are still arising out of conditioned thinking. We have a long way to go.
(1) Vyasa Murthy was an ardent follower of a spiritual teacher.
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