QUICK TO CATCH THAT SPIRIT

 
For the aspirant who is eager to serve without any desire for recognition and credit, everything that thwarts or perverts the release of a full life is worthy of attention, irrespective of whether it is great or small in the opinion of the world.

Just as the building up or the collapse of empires has a place in the flow of universal life, the fleeting moments of sadness also have their own place in it. The importance of the one should not be measured in terms of the other, and the claims of the one should not be ignored for the claims of the other.

The aspirant looks at life as an integral whole, without allowing any part to monopolize his attention at the cost of others.

Even when the aspirant is rendering service that is selfless, he keeps constant guard upon his mind. The aspirant must be humble, honest, and sincere. The service he renders must not be for the sake of mere show; it should be an outcome of true love.

If the aspirant is inspired by love, his love will enable him to be in complete harmony with other aspirants without being jealous.

If there is not complete harmony among fellow workers, the service that is rendered falls short of the spiritual ideal. Further, if the aspirant renders the outward service without a spirit of love, he is acting from a sense of duty, as in worldly institutions where there are paid workers.

In the institutions of the world people work for pay. At best it is a cold sense of duty that prompts them to be efficient. Their work cannot have the inward beauty of work spontaneously done out of love.

The aspirant can best assimilate the lessons of true service if he has the good fortune to be in contact with a Perfect Master. The Master teaches not through preaching but through example.

When the Master is seen in his capacity of rendering service to humanity, the aspirant is quick to catch that spirit because of his love for the Master.

Contact with the Master is also helpful in imbibing the spirit of cooperation, which the aspirants can cultivate easily because of their common love for the Master. They serve because the Master wants it.

They do the Master's work, not their own; and they do it not of their own accord but because they have been entrusted with that work by the Master. Therefore they are all free from any ideas of individualistic claims, rights, or privileges.

They are keen only about the Master's work, ready to serve his cause to the best of their ability when they are called upon to do so, and equally ready to hand over that work to another aspirant if he can do it better.