To: K-list
Recieved: 2001/01/24 02:51
Subject: Service (was Re: [K-list] Back to David, to answer...)
From: Garner1969
On 2001/01/24 02:51, Garner1969 posted thus to the K-list:
In a message dated 01/23/2001 9:35:00 PM W. Europe Standard Time,
CLEOCATRAsATnospamaol.com writes:
> Not having "things" is so unimportant anyhow. And it is relative... I
> remember when I felt so needy and feeling sorry for myself, I went out
> instead to do volunteer work with people who had far less than I did, and
I
> came home feeling very wealthy indeed. Well, I trained myself, I guess,
4000
>
> hours of voluteer work later, it's just a part of me now.
I relate to this and I don't know how many hours I racked up over a
ten year span of time. Thirty hours a week was not uncommon.
And one day I realized I didn't enjoy it any more... I just wasn't looking
forward to helping the next person. Previously, I had ~really~ enjoyed it,
but I changed. So I let go all my service commitments and spent
a difficult six months doing not very much and no formal service at all.
A lot of my identity
was around that service work and so when I gave it up,
a lot changed for me inside.
For years, the identity of "helper", and the work of helping, brought me
closer
to my Higher Self and I certainly learned many things I couldn't
learn any other way. If you want to know something, teach it!
In doing service to others, we are internalizing through practice
an aspect of the goddess, and we are forced to learn in the course
of that experience, some things that goddess only knows. :-)
But eventually that "helper" identity came to stand ~between~ myself and
being my Higher Self. It became a hindrance rather than a "help" to me.
So that was the time to let it go. I haven't been given
much to replace it with
and I speculate it is because any identity at this point would be
more a hindrance than a help to me. But I am not sure on this point
(or on any other).
I think the path of Karma Yoga (service) is a true path and I am grateful that
I walked it. It got me here. I never expected to be called off that path
myself
but it happened.
My current yoga teacher is a karma
yogini (she would never call herself that, but it is obvious in how
she cares for her students and everything she does for them.
She gives with no strain and her giving is utterly graceful.).
I have
flourished in her class like in no other and I think it is because
it is such a gift to be taught and cared for by someone who is deeply
following the path of service that the Goddess laid before her.
It isn't just me who is flourishing; she deeply affects her students
for the good in a gentle but very powerful way. She is not a flashy
person, and her students are physically a lumpy imperfect lot,
just like her.
I am catching her at the time in her life when she has
matured on her path; I imagine she like the rest of us had
her share of bumbles and miserable learning experiences along the way.
I doubt she started out doing such effective service.
One thing I did learn myself and I also see in how my yoga
teacher does service, is to look for the win-win. If I
am hurting myself to help another, I am doing bad service,
something is wrong in how I am going about it.
Thanks for the food for thought.
Serena
http://www.kundalini-gateway.org
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