First, know that who you are matters!

In service we help each other to deepen our sense of community and interdependence. Center For Spiritual Living, Santa Rosa is an inclusive spiritual community of diverse people, where all can be of service in caring, supportive ways.

The more we share, the more we have. Compassion and humility are born in the loving hearts of service. "From you I receive, To you I give, Together we share, And from this we live." (from a poem by Danaan Parry.)

Seva: The Gift of Service

"When you surrender completely to God, as the only truth worth having, you find yourself in service of all that exists. It becomes your joy and recreation. You never tire of serving others."

– Mahatma Gandhi

Seva: The spiritual practice of selfless service. Seva is one of the simplest and yet most profound and life changing ways that we can put our spiritual knowledge into action.

There are two main benefits in practicing seva; the healing impact it has on other people and the environment in which we are offering our service and the transformation that takes place within us as we come to new understandings about God, ourselves and the spiritual knowledge that we have gained. Seva is an ideal way to both give and receive simultaneously. We are giving the very best of ourselves to the people and the activities we are engaged with and by the nature of spiritual law we cannot help but receive in return the inner inspiration, revelation and fulfillment that is also the very best that God has to offer us.

The practice of seva is not something we do in addition to everything else that we are doing in our lives; it is something that we do while we are going about the normal business of every day living. To put this practice into action for yourself all that you need do is mentally pause before you begin an activity or an interaction with someone and establish the intention to offer your seva to the activity. This can be as simple as sitting in your car before you go into your place of work and doing a treatment to see God in all the people and circumstance of your work and to offer your selfless service to the One in all Its forms by means of your thoughts, words and actions today at work. Or you can take a moment before you begin to prepare a meal for yourself or your family and do a treatment to prepare this meal in a seva consciousness. In fact, there is no relationship or activity that will not be tremendously uplifted and affected for the better by our intention to bring our spirituality to the forefront of our attention. After all, what good is our spiritual knowledge if it does not change the way we live and interact with others on a daily basis?

From Minister's Message, Awareness, February 1997

Written by :

Christine McCaull