Recently, I completed a 21 day meditation practice, led by Oprah Winfrey and Deepak Chopra, called Creating Peace from the Inside Out. This was not the first time I had participated in this 21 day series. I find myself returning again and again to many of the 21 day meditations offered through The Chopra Center. Each time I circle back, I feel the meditations go deeper, and I feel an opening of understanding, awareness and yes, peace, that was not present before.
In this particular meditation, I was reminded of the three traditional Indian practices of Seva, Sadhana and Satsang. Seva is a Sanskrit word that translates as “selfless service”. It means to help others without an agenda for any personal gain, reward or recognition. Sadhana refers to walking a spiritual path: your own spiritual path, which is unique to you and you alone. And Satsang means to share your truth in community, in a group of like minded people. While each of these practices deserves its own spotlight and reflection, it is Seva, this idea of selfless service, that called to me for a deeper dive and more intimate contemplation.
Thinking about Seva called to mind the concept of dharma, an idea with which I have been obsessed for over twenty years. Dharma is a Sanskrit word that appears to have multiple meanings across different religions. Its Sanskrit root literally means “to hold” or “to maintain”. In the Bhagavad Gita, an ancient Hindu spiritual text, dharma is referred to as a moral law or code of conduct, a sacred duty to yourself, others, the universe and God. In simpler terms I have heard dharma being referred to as your purpose in life, the unique gift you are here to bring and give to others. To me, this seems to translate more simply as your calling in life, the one thing ( or maybe several things) you are here to contribute that nobody else can bring to the world in the unique way that you can. “How can I serve? How can I help?” seem to be the questions that are central to living your dharma.
Seva and dharma, in my mind, are closely connected. And this recent re-introduction of Seva reignited this struggle I have been experiencing over the last couple of decades with this concept of dharma and this idea of selfless service. For years, I translated this idea of “selfless service” as something akin to misery, the equivalent of “ life is just an endless series of waking up and doing what you don’t want to do”. Since I was 14 years old, I have been in the service industry in one form or another. Though the form in which this has manifested has changed several times over the years, what I have received from it has not: very little joy. Sure, moments of pleasure and sometimes, triumph ( largely connected to ego), have come and gone. But as a whole this concept of true purpose and selfless service, while out there doing good things in the world and providing essential services for others, has left me personally bereft.
Prompted by this meditation, I was encouraged to deeply reflect on what Seva, and dharma, at this stage in my life, actually mean to me personally. I am a hard worker, and I have always given my best to any service in which I have found myself employed. I push myself beyond my comfort zone, telling myself to work harder and dig deeper ( like a Shaun T. workout video, and yes, I do them, and yes, they are hard). Years ago, when the Nike slogan, “Just Do It”, went viral, I emblazoned it in my heart and mind as my personal trademark, even though ( sorry Nike) I never bought a pair of their sneakers. If you are sensing an OCD perfectionist pattern here, you’ve hit the jackpot. Part of it has served to push me, but the larger part has served to hinder me.
Somewhere along the line, I absorbed the belief that life is a struggle. Life is hard. Life is a series of doing what you don’t want to do. And while I still believe that these things can be true and that life can be full of challenging experiences, I am beginning to realize that somewhere in there, joy should be allowed to blossom, like a single flower, that despite all odds grows and stretches its way to the sun from a meager patch of dirt within a slab of granite. And with that joy a sense of alignment with who you are and who you would like to be in this world. If you could allow yourself to plant even the tiniest seed of possibility of joy in your life, who would you become? What would you do? Who would you be with? And what sort of service would you perform? And could it, by any stretch of the imagination, become a service performed out of joy? A joyful service, which is aligned with your dharma, which would be a reflection of your truest self?
I have come to believe that for me to provide joyful service to others, I need to be fully engaged in what I am doing, emotionally, physically, spiritually and mentally. Selfless service can be joyful service, and not simply a means for survival and not just a form of self-flagellation. The late Rick Jarow, in one of his books, poses the question: “ Does your day feel like you are nourishing your soul? Your soul and the soul of the world?….If an accomplishment does not yield insight or penetrate into the inner levels of our being, it is wasted time”.
So how do we begin to step away from the emotional disengagement, depletion, drudgery and the unconscious deeply seething anger that is always simmering when we do not love what we do, while supposedly providing a service? We begin to tease out what we love, no matter how small or how seemingly insignificant or impractical it may appear. Labelling something you love as impractical, by the way, is a judgement. To create space in your life for something you love is perhaps one of the most practical things you can do. When you do something you love, even if it’s just taking a 15 minute walk every day, it nourishes and sustains you. It provides the fertile soil from which you can grow. In addition, setting aside time daily for quiet contemplation allows you to connect with who it is you really are and what it is you really need. Very often for me, that means rising at 4/4:30 in the morning, so I can have an hour to myself of complete peace, complete quiet, and time to write and meditate.
We are socially conditioned to look outside of ourselves for answers, bypassing that still, small voice within that calls for recognition. For me, that has meant chasing down endless accomplishments only to find myself where I left myself: confused, angry, empty. The understanding is beginning to dawn that your dharma isn’t something you create “out there”, through endless hard work and struggle and self-deprivation, with “should” being the most motivating word in your vocabulary. Your dharma is a reflection of your true self, something that you can only access from deep within yourself. It demands that you honor and nurture it from within, turning away from externals for validation and benchmarks. It is therefore something unique only to you, with no competition and no comparison. There is a famous Zen saying that speaks about “the face you had before you were born”. This is how I interpret dharma. To use the author, Richard Rohr’s words, I think of it as your “immortal diamond”.
If you are struggling with your work in the world and feeling very little joy in the service you are providing, here are a few resources I recommend:
The Ultimate Anti-Career Guide by Rick Jarow
Creating the Work You Love by Rick Jarow
https://www.amazon.com/Creating-Work-You-Love-Commitment
The Calling by Rah Goddess
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=the+calling+rha+goddess
Wishcraft by Barbara Sher
https://www.amazon.com/s?k=wishcraft+barbara+sher
Of course, there are many others. But these are a good start.
The 13th century poet, Rumi, once wrote:
“ Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray.”