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Here are my notes (part 4) from Life’s Amazing Secrets: How to Find Balance and Purpose in Your Life by Gaur Gopal Das.
WHEEL 4: SOCIAL CONTRIBUTION
You can be completely selfish, completely selfless or any of the combinations in between. Life is a journey from being selfish to becoming selfless. ‘Act without expectation.’
There is no dessert as delicious as ice cream, especially in the tropics. However, the ideology behind the ice cream is: enjoy your life before it melts. It symbolizes hedonism; to savour every moment of your life through personal enjoyment. On the other hand, the candle is symbolic of another ideology: to give light to others before it melts. Both ice creams and candles melt, but their reason for doing so are completely different.
Just because we cannot be candles fully, it does not mean we should simply remain selfish at the ice- cream end. The journey of life is moving from being an ice cream to being a candle. That is the purpose of everyone’s life at the core: to share, give and contribute to others.
We can only share wealth with others if we possess wealth. Similarly, we can love others only if we know what it feels like to be loved. We can only bring hope to others if we feel hope for ourselves. In conclusion, we can only give to others what we possess.
The first step in selflessness is to practise it with our family. ‘You don’t choose your family. They are God’s gift to you, as you are to them.’
In Sanskrit, service is called seva. Adding a spiritual element to our seva can make it more fulfilling. ‘The service you do for others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.’
When we live superficial lives, dedicated to serving ourselves, we are like surfers: riding the waves, but not seeing what is beneath them. We may satisfy our own needs and concerns by doing so, but we will never be truly fulfilled. However, when we practise spirituality, we become like divers: we submerge ourselves underneath the turbulent waves to find a pleasure much deeper, beyond hedonistic ideals. That profound joy is only possible when one feels love to serve others. And how is that love maintained? Through being connected to God through spirituality.