My Guru greatly emphasized on Service and repeatedly taught his students the importance of service. His courses cover the benefits of service extensively. His teachings could motivate even a lazy person like me to dedicate some time for service. In this blog, I am going to share a recent experience related to service.
Our mentors Ruchi Sanjil formed a group named “IWC Service Team” which brought like-minded Arhatic Yogis at one place and provided opportunities to do service. Recently, one of the members of this group – Vijaya Lakshmi garu – invited the members for Seemanthonnayana functiona(baby shower) of her daughter-in-law. She organized group meditation at her home and asked us to share blessings for her daughter-in-law and the soul who is going to enter into her family soon. Thanks to my Guru who talked in detail about Soul in his course Arhatic Prep-1, I realized the value of this service opportunity and decided to attend the event. I thought it hardly takes 3 hours and I also thought its a small service I will be doing like the squirrel who helped Lord Rama in his mission. (Now a days, this squirrel became my role model)
Now, I am a person who does not like to attend functions or rituals and somehow, I cannot connect with the rituals which don’t explain meaning. Recently, my husband and I performed baby shower function of a close family member as a family tradition. Though we stood in the position of primary care-takers and performed the function, I could not connect with the ritual as this ritual only focused on social customs like lavish food, 5 types of sweets,fruits, sarees, decoration, pleasing the groom’s family endlessly, complaints from relatives etc. It took us massive effort, time and patience to do the function and it got me so exhausted that I could not even take 5 minutes of my time to bless the mother and baby.My time was spent in organizing and taking care of things rather than inviting the soul. The purpose of seemanthonnayanana ritual is to bless the mother and lovingly invite the soul but the social customs made it so complicated that inspite of spending time, money and energy, my husband and I could not find time to perform the function in its true essence. I felt – “why cant people do rituals with true essence where everyone involved enjoys(rather than getting tired) and invite the soul with love and joy rather than complicated process?”
As a divine answer to my thought, Vijaya Lakshmi garu organized seemantonnayana event for her daughter-in-law and invited IWC Service Team. I gladly attended the event . As a group, we did Meditation on Twin Hearts and Meditation on Higher Soul. With all our love and joy, we invited the soul and became a channel of blessings. We prayed for the well being of the mother and baby. My husband and I hardly spent 3 hours of time(including travel time) but the joy and peace it gave us is amazing. It was just our small group , meditations and nice lunch with satsang. 3 hours of time is not much time. I thought its just a small service like the service did by little squirrel. But like Lord Rama generously blessed the squirrel and left his marks of gratitude on the squirrel’s body, I have also experienced a miracle out of this small service
3 years back, I had a question related to a subject and I have been searching for an answer. I read many books on the subject, listened to discourses but nothing could satisfy me. I also came to the conclusion that probably I will not find answer to this question till I get enlightened and I made peace with the question and left it. Surprisingly, the meditations we did at Vijaya Lakshmi garu’s home gave me answer. Little did I know that 3 hours of service can provide answer to 3 years of quest.
These two miracles have the potential to shape my future life in a new direction.Its like a new world has opened infront of me. And all this with just 3 hours of whole-hearted service.I realized next time when someone invites me for a meditation at their home to invite a soul ,I should utilize it without fail and I also realized I should do meditation as a service to my family members and friends who are pregnant whether they believe in meditation or not(I can meditate at my home and silently bless them). I also realized any service opportunity is precious and I should utilize these opportunities as much as I can.
My whole-hearted thanks to Vijaya Lakshmi garu for blessing me with this beautiful service opportunity and for her inspiring hospitality. Thank You Ruchi Sanjil, IWC Service Team, my Guru, angels, higher beings and Supreme God
Lokah Samastha Sukhino Bhavanthu
