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2. As far as possible, do not allow your service to be known;
do not try to reveal it. If it gets revealed, feel yourself ashamed.
3. Do not feel proud by doing an act of service.
Do not seek anything from one whom you serve. Do not desire that he
should feel obliged to you. Do not upset by his shortcomings. Do not
feel irritated with him, Do not censure him.
4.. Do not advertise your service, and thus make the recipient
of service uneasy about it. This will make him hesitate to accept
your service in future. He will repent for having accepted your
service, and thus the value of the service lost.
5.. When an opportunity of service presents itself before you,
do not wait for special time and special resources. Take up the
service with whatever resources you may possess at the time.
6. Generally speaking, all creatures can claim our services,
but service to elders, to aged men, to widows, to house holders
suffering from poverty, to the humble and distressed, to persons
suffering from disease, to creatures without any protectors, are
matters of supreme dharma (duty). It should be considered a
privilege when one gets an opportunity to serve such people.
7.. When you discover one who requires your service, do not
enquire who he is, whether he is higher or lower to you in caste, or
in social position of wealth and status. There should be no
questioning about rendering service to one's wife and children; one
should be prepared to serve them whenever they require any service
from him. .
8. Do not support , either directly or indirectly any
enterprise which may tend to affect adversely the livelihood
of poor labourers. Help them to get at least their full meals,
necessary clothing and a place to live in. he who seeks to
perform charities by earning wealth through the exploitation of the
poor can never earn any religious merit.
9. The more a person is humble, indigent, helpless,
poor and diseased, the more he should be treated as an object of
true consideration. show him respect in your dealing with him and
try your best by all means at your disposal to lessen his distress.
10. After rendering service to a person, do not feel that you have done him some real good. Pride or self-conceit remains concealed under such feeling. And pride lowers value and glory of service. Reflect whether you could do more than what you have done, whether there was any self-interest, any spirit of disrespect involved in your service. If you detect any such taint, be careful in the future.
11. Do not serve with a view to gain honour, position and
worship, and at the same time do not hesitate to serve when an
opportunity of service presents itself before you.
12. Do not serve with the idea of making the person you serve your
follower and discipline. Serve you must, but serve only from a sense of duty.
13. Serve in such a manner that none may feel any hesitation in
accepting your service. The service should be secret, it should meet
a genuine want, the thing with which you serve may be insignificant
from your point of view, you may be inclined to give him better
thing than that, but do not impose any obligation on him, do not
give any air of superiority even by a hint, do not entertain the
idea you have control over by virtue of your service, show him
respect with a sincere heart, do not allow the thought of any
self-interest through him to cross your mind, and do not accept any from him in return.
14. When you do not see any result from your service, when with the
best of your efforts you fail to remove anybody’s suffering, do
not feel that all your labour has been in vain. Your part of the
duty you have done; the result will be what it is fated to be. The
next time apply more energy to your service.
15. If you make a gift to a person, does not keep it with him,
hands it over to another, on advertently loses it, do not feel
distressed or aggrieved over this. Your service was done as soon as
you made the gift. Once in possession of the gift, the receiver was
free to do whatever he liked with it.
16. Do not be anxious to serve one who is already followed by a
crowd of people to serve him. Do not make yourself a member of that
crowd. But he who has none to serve him, devote yourself to his service.
17. To help a person under a vow of discipline to preserve his
discipline, to create a favorable circumstance for his practice of
the discipline, is a form of service to him. Contrary to this, any
service done to him out of fondness or attachment, which while
giving him comforts threatens to undermine his discipline, is a misuse of service.
18. Renunciation is necessary for service, and for renunciation
control of the senses. He whose senses are not under control can do no service.
19. Not to treat a person with disrespect is a form of service.
20. To protect oneself from the influences of lust, anger and greed,
and enmity, quarrel, pride, and attachment, is a great service to the world.
21. Lend your ears to the stories of suffering which your
dependants, indigent neighbours, servants, children and men in
distress generally, want in their eagerness to relate to you. Do not
treat them with contempt, and try as far as possible with a
sympathetic heart to satisfy their legitimate wants.
22. That service is most valuable about which nobody can say who is the doer.
23. To guide a man who has lost his way, and show him the proper
road sympathetically is also a form of service.
24. Do not allow the tongue to express anything which may put
another to shame, and make you blush for it yourself.
25. Observe the defects of another only with a view to remove them,
and not to lower him in public estimation by bringing them to light.
Try to remove those defects by following the very same methods you
apply for the removal of your own defects.
26. Seek through your service only the increase of your power of
service. And take care even while seeking it that no pride or
attachment finds a lodgment in the heart.
27. When there is an opportunity of service, let you not be found
wanting even if you have to do it by sacrificing your all.
28. Derive genuine pleasure if the credit for the pleasure goes to
someone else, if in your place another earns a name through it.
Never feel jealous. Nor try to bring out that you were the real author of the service.
29. Do not do anything unthinkingly in the name of service that may
increase another’s difficulties. In that case serve him only with
the genuine sympathy of your heart.
30. Do not regard yourself as qualified to receive service from
others, and others as your attendants. If you are forced to accept
any innocent service for another’s pleasure, accept it delicately
with a good deal of hesitation.
31. Feel obliged and grateful to one from whom you must
have received service, at any time under certain circumstances, and
try as far as possible in an innocent way to do him under some good.
32 Feel yourself extremely obliged to mahtmas
(great souls) to disinclined to accept any service, but who
relax their vow and accept service fronm you under pressure of your requests.
33. Not to expose the sins of another, but rescue him from the
path of sin by the powers of your love, is a great to him.
34 Service leads to purification of the heart, and pure and
true service can be rendered when the heart is pure.
35. When a man in distrees recounts his sorrows, do not
imagine he is drawing an exaggerated picture. Give whatever help you
can give him in the alleviation of his sorrows.
36, If you yourself become the victim of some form f
suffering, take it to be a blessing; for developing your spirit of
service. Without going through actual suffering oneself, it is
difficult to measure the suffering of others.
37, under no circumstances imagine that you do not
require anybody's help. When our very existence depends on other
people's help, we should be papered to help others as best as we can.
38, The day you are privileged to offer a higher type and mode
of service, feel delighted like a miser when he accidentally receive s a windfall.
39, If no opportunity of service presents itself to you,
feel sad at heart and pary to God to provide opportunities of service.
40 He who only receives service and does not want to do any
service, know him to be an unlucky, an unfortunate fellow. The
fortunate soul is he who never gets tired of service and consider
whatever service he does to be an opportunity and privilege.
41, If you detect somebody lacking in a virtue which you
yourself possess, by your conduct place that virtue virtue before
him, and place it in such a manner that he may accept it.
42. Do not render such service to a person that it may
lead to fall from his high objective of life, make him negligent
about duty, extravagant and luxurious in habits, lead him away from
God and bring about his moral fall. Such service is no service at all.
43. If the service you have done tends to make you proud,
remember the services of those who are much superior to
you in the the line of service. Never imagine that there is none
greater than you in the field of service. None knows how many have
already passed, how many are present today and how many will come in
the future who excelled and will excel you in service, both in
regard to its quality and quantity.
44. During any set of service, he who considers himself better
than, or superior to, to the object of service will fail in
rendering service in the real sense of the term.
45. In dealing with subordinate workers, servants or
labourers, instead of allowing them to turn idle, careless,
slow, foolish, shrinking, immoral or addicted to any
intoxicating drug or drink, try through your affectionate treatment
and high ideals to make them pure in conduct, free from the habit of
drink and drug, dutiful, inteligent and obedient. Therein lies valuable service in them.
46. It is a great service to the public to arrange, from place
to place, discourses on religious books by teachers who are
qualified to teach and possess no greed.
47. To rescue a friend or a relative from the evil path
and guide him along the path of virtue is a great service to
him.
48. Not to accumulate more things than are necessary is
a great service to society.
49. Earning wealth through virtuous and honorable means, to
employ it in the service of the poor is a great service to society.
50 Freeing the mind of all desire for wealth, honour and fame,
to propagate pure spiritual ideas , rightness of conduct and
universal love is a great service to people.
51 To prevent children from the cultivation of bad
habits is a great service to humanity.
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