One game that people may not see clearly is the game of serving others. If you are in a situation where you can be of service, but you start feeling as though you are in a “prison” of some kind, you may be moving your consciousness into the negative aspect of selfishness. Then you move into negative perception and perceive all things in a down consciousness. So, what was your opportunity to serve has become your burden to carry.

This idea of service causes a lot of people to get caught up in misunderstandings as they attempt to relate it to the spiritual moving of the consciousness. If you are going to be of service, it would be wise to serve with the attitude that allows you to reach the goal. The negative attitude says, “Why are people always coming to me and loading me down with their troubles? Why do I attract them to me?” That attitude perceives life as a burden, and that is certainly one point of view. But other people say, “Thank God I can be of service. I am here to serve these people on whatever level and in whatever capacity I can.”

People have a lot of ideas about what service represents. When I look at the word “service,” I look at the word, not at my idea about that word, because often the frequency of a word conveys its inner meaning. Being of service is freely doing without any other thought in mind except that of freely doing. Those who are participating in INSIGHT are finding that “freely doing” means putting aside all the things you want and doing what needs to be done without expecting anything back. It’s not, “I’ll be of service so I can gain.” It’s more like, “I’ll just do to do, to do, to do, to do.” And that’s it! If anything comes back, it comes back; and if it doesn’t, that’s really quite all right.

Sometimes people come to us and say, “I want to be of service,” and we say, “Okay, clean out the toilet.” They say, “Oh no, I don’t want to do that.” So we ask, “What do you want then? Do you want to manage the place? What is your idea of being of service?” They say, “I want to come in and keep your books.” We say, “We have an accountant. Do you want to be of service, or are you looking for a job?” Do you see the difference? In a job you are getting paid for what you do. It may be money or adulation of the masses; it may be either an intrinsic or an extrinsic return. Service is not that.

What it boils down to is, service is when you serve under any conditions regardless of yourself and your own feelings and your own thoughts. Somebody says, “Well, I want to lead the next exodus to Venus.” It’s like, “Yes, but will you do anything to do that?” “Well, yes, if it’s a nice day, and if I feel okay, and if the pay is right, and if the people love me enough.” Well, what if everything in the world went crazy and screwy? Would you still be of service? If the answer is, “No,” you aren’t leading the next exodus. You won’t even be on the plane, because you must bring yourself to the point where you say, “I will do it regardless of my resistance.”

It is always true that “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” Your inner perceptions of where you are going and what you want to do to be of service is, in part, determined by where you stand in the evolutionary scale of beingness. It is interesting that many of the great Masters and teachers have come to serve mankind. They really are the servants. Their job is to serve. If you can keep your consciousness directed into the idea of serving, even though you may not know what it is you are to accomplish in being of service, then your end result will be the ability to serve and master any obstacle to being of service. You can know it and work it and be on top of it. Then you bring your consciousness into line with true service by serving with love and joy.

The opportunity to be of service may come on any level. It may come in areas you don’t expect. Be open to the opportunities to serve, wherever and however they may appear. Let me use a case history to illustrate. A man who is married and the father of six children came to me and presented to me his desire to be of service. At that time, he was perceiving his children as a burden; he felt that, because of them, he couldn’t do what he wanted to do. He even felt his wife was a burden. He resented his family terribly. He came to me and said, “John- Roger, how can I be of service? I want to be of service.” I answered, “Then we must find people that you can serve, people who will allow you to serve them, people who you can assist without interfering in their life patterns.” He said, “It would be really nice to find people like that.” I didn’t want to lay it on him right away, so I said, “I’ll look in on it; I’ll think about it.”

A week or so later he came to me again and said, “Did you find some way I can serve?” I said, “Yes, but I figured you couldn’t possibly move to Australia.” He said, “Australia sounds good.” I said, “I’ll have to think a little more about it.” In the meantime he decided he should think a little bit about it, too. He came back later and said, “I don’t think I could ever move my family to Australia.” I said, “How’s that?” He said, “You don’t know what it’s like, living at home with all those people. It’s really a burden.” At this point, I was thinking the message should start coming through to him soon. I wasn’t telling him straightforwardly because people don’t like to be told what to do. Then he said, “I have to make a spiritual choice. It’s a choice involving my spiritual life.” I said, “You must remember that spiritual life means fulfilling your responsibilities.” He said, “I knew you were going to get back to the idea of serving my family.” I said, “You knew?” He said, “I knew from the first night we talked. When you looked at me, it flashed on me—serve the family. I could serve anyone else in the world more easily than I could serve my family.” I said, “What would you have done if the first night you asked about being of service, I said that your family is where you must serve?” He said, “I probably would have walked out on you.” I said, “You still can.” He said, “It isn’t necessary. You know, sometimes I haven’t had the best thoughts about my kids because I come home at night, and they’re running through the house, and the television is too loud. I’m tired and I don’t appreciate their expression too much. So the other night I talked to the kids and told them that when I come home at night, I would really appreciate it if they would keep things quiet for about an hour so I could get rested, ‘wind down’ from my job. I told them how the job high-pressures me and how I need time to relax and let go. And you know what they said? They said they didn’t know the noise bothered me. And now they’re really quiet when I come home; they’re able to be of service, and they’re happy to do it. They’re really nice kids.” I said, “Well, what seemed to be the problem before?” He said, “I guess I really wasn’t serving them the right way.” You see, it always is a game; it is always game time.

When you are in service, you know it; what you are doing, you are just doing. It’s not necessary to tell your neighbors, “Oh, I’m of selfless service.” If you say that, suddenly it’s no longer selfless, it’s egotistical. Sometimes it’s difficult to find ways to be of service, because people are already in there doing the work, and they’re not talking to you about it because they’re too busy doing. Being of service is not a state of wishful thinking, like, “Oh, I wish I could be of service” If you do that, you are looking for ego gratification. Being of service is moving and doing. However, it’s important to be very careful that you don’t try to be of service by doing brain surgery when you’re not licensed and trained to do that. You can serve in a way that is in balance with your abilities. Often when we are dealing in abilities to be of service, people say, “I’d like to be of service—what can I do? And we say, “Well, what can you do?” They say, “Well, I don’t know; I thought you could tell me.” We say, “Clean out the toilet,” They say, “I don’t like to do that.” Or other people may come in and say, “I have the ability to do this and this and this. Maybe I could sharpen up my talents.” That’s not service—that’s on-the-job training. And there are highly skilled people who use their skills to serve without expecting gain for themselves. Such people just give in the pure sense of that word. Those people are rare and beautiful individuals.

It is not enough to merely acknowledge that you are messing up and not being of service; and it is not enough to simply acknowledge that you want to do something—there must be a step by step progression. It is very easy for people to be of service who have already been of service at a 20 or 30 or 40% level. When you start going from 1% to 80% or when you go just from 8o to 81%, it may almost break your back, because you really have to stretch it out like you can’t believe. And going from 81 to 82% is much more difficult than going from 8o to 81%. But it also encompasses a greater area of love inside of you, a greater area of freedom. A greater area is present for you. That area that is present for you is spiritual energy. At that point where you haven’t had the energy to do what you wanted to do, it’s because you didn’t have that space open to get it. Now, we do processes to allow that space to come open, and it’s going to feel hollow until you get inside and put your loving self in there. The way you do that is by moving through the processes. We’ve all done the wishful thinking, haven’t we? It didn’t do too much. We’ve all done daydreaming. It didn’t do too much. When we say, “It didn’t do too much,” there’s the key: do it. The do it process. Inside of you is the key; outside we will look at the barometer.

And there are a couple ways to play the service game. One way is, “I’m really participating, and I’m really being of service verbally.” And inside that person we’ll see it’s dark and cold and rainy. Other people will be really participating inwardly, and, inside them it will be sunshiny and bright and glowing, and they may not look like they’re doing too much because they do it so easily. You can see the difference yourself if you’re not standing in the rain. That means you have to give up the space you have isolated as “you being of service” and move into the space of being of service.

The first aspect of being of service is to be there for yourself. Make a commitment to yourself to find out if you can really be of service. The key always is your willingness to participate in your own life. Just tell yourself, “Boy, today I’m going to breathe in and out in my own love and my own beingness, and I’m going to be present here like you can’t believe.”

When we truly do something in service, it’s okay if somebody tells us, “That’s good,” or “That’s bad.” Why? Because true service is given freely without expectation of others’ approval. The essence of true service is self-fulfillment. In that inner fulfillment, there are no regrets and no apologies. You will always be able to look back and see where you could have done better, and you’ll always be able to look ahead and worry about doing better. But in true service, you just handle here and now with what you have. And you continue on with whatever presents itself to you next.

Love is your ultimate key. When love is really present and flowing in your service, all other things tend to fall in line, You find that your inner intent of goodness and graciousness starts writing itself on your eyes and face. Then you start transforming everyone and everything around you. You don’t have to say a word. No one even has to know what’s going on, but everyone starts feeling better. And your loving service is the key.

Baruch Bashan.