The Path of Service. Karma Yoga. Actions. Cause and effect. Doing good in the world. Seeing something that needs doing, and doing it. Fun service projects. Following the aliveness, honoring the eros, witnessing what unfolds.
This is a spiritual path. It’s not the one I expected to be on, but it is the one I am on. Where I expected stillness, I am in motion. I thought I would be in silence, but I am speaking and writing and listening every day of my life. I thought I would be sequestered in a monastery, but I am embedded in the thick of the activity of the world.
I thought service meant self-sacrifice, the denial of self for the benefit of others, but I have learned that U cannot serve all beings if U omit the benefit of one. We are the locus of our experience of the world, the center of action—we act from here, we love from here, we serve from here. So we must love ourselves; we must begin with self-knowledge, and respect, care, and love for oneself.
I thought service meant something that was boring and painful, a burden, but I have discovered that true service is a joy, a delight—an endless party, day by day, each better and fuller than the last. And in it, through it, we become ourselves more and more; we are overjoyed to discover who we truly are, to witness how that manifests in the world.
Fundamentally, the path of service is one of the cultivation of virtue. We cultivate patience, determination, vision, creativity, kindness, curiosity, and more through simply doing.
If U play ur cards right, U will voluntarily put urself in a corner, one where U will inevitably be shown ur own limitations, blind spots, weaknesses, patterns—and be forced to find a new way forward.
Being backed in a corner in this way is very good spiritually, ethically—it is very wholesome, and also very convenient, because there’s no other option but to change and grow.
It is admittedly also painful, challenging—but paradoxically perhaps less so than when there is still a choice, when U can squirm and wriggle and hem and haw.
Doing everything U know how to do, as fully and whole-heartedly as U possibly can, will, without fail, reveal to U everything U do not yet know, but need to—it will take U to the very edge of ur capacity and gently invite U to grow, vigorously demand that of U.
The people U collaborate with on ur projects, the people U serve through ur work, will hold U to that. They will see what U cannot, they will point to what U are afraid of seeing, they will insist U witness the blind spots U have conveniently missed for years and decades of ur life.
They will whisper at first, and then speak louder, and eventually scream, if need be, if U do not pause to listen, if U do not take steps to grow.
The world is beholden to reality, not ur concept of it. The world is predicated on honesty, not ur comfort in it. This is the harsh truth of existence, and our saving grace; the means by which we learn, the road by which we walk to cultivate virtue.
This is the forcing function that, if implemented, will polish away our weaknesses and limitations, will bring out our latent gifts, and reliably transform us into our fullest selves. This is our fulfillment, and the world’s benefit. The seed becomes a tree that provides shade for all.