Finding Oneness Through Selfless Service

The Union Path Podcast

"Finding Oneness Through Selfless Service"

Episode Transcript:

00:20
I heard a really good piece of marriage advice a long time ago and it's really stuck with me. One of those pieces of advice that sounds really simple but seemed to expand over time. I seemed to find myself coming back to thinking about it over and over and over again, thinking I understood it, but then realizing that there's actually more to be known. So many good lessons appear this way. These ideas that appear to us have the ring of truth resonate in some way, but as we hold on to them, as we really build a relationship with these ideas, find ourselves expressing variations of these ideas. We can find the meaning getting deeper and deeper over time. And so this marriage advice is pretty simple. It's the realization that, let's say, your spouse, your partner, your significant other, whoever you're sharing relationship with, has this horrible habit of always leaving their socks on the floor, that every time you walk across the bedroom, every time you walk across the bathroom, there are those socks again. This person, who's lovely in so many other ways, why can't they just pick up their socks? Don't they see how annoying this is? Don't they see how a complete dereliction of duty or failure of character or will these socks are and yet every day, walk into the room, there they are, those socks that it really seems that in a marriage or relationship sort of situation, we have two choices. One, the default get mad, get resentful, have umbrage, have imaginary arguments in our head, do all the things to castigate and kind of internally reprimand and or punish this horrible, horrible person who cannot pick up their socks. Or two, just pick up the socks, that's it. And it's one of those things where it's pretty obvious which path leads to the happier life, and it's the path of just picking up the socks, the path of realizing that this isn't really that important. This isn't that big of a deal and this is only bothering me. This is only a big deal to me. This is only something I'm using to ruin this moment, to affect this moment, perhaps to change the opinion I have of this other person, perhaps to use this and expand it as more of a broader commentary on imbalances in this relationship or how I don't feel respected. I don't feel appreciated, because I'm always walking into this room and there are those stupid socks. I've said it a thousand times just pick up your socks. And yet they can't do it. It's beyond basic. If I had a free afternoon, I could probably teach a dog how to pick up these socks. But here we are, day after day socks.

03:20
I think one of the interesting things embedded in this lesson, where this idea of just pick up the socks is a broader lesson, a broader idea of learning to be of selfless service, learning to be of service for no reason, for no reward, for no acclaim, for no attention, for no payoff other than to be of service. And that it's kind of a funny thing of this lesson about these socks is actually a pretty high teaching, because it's actually pretty challenging, at least for some of us, to get to a point where we can just pick up the socks and leave it at that. There's no judgment, there's no umbridge, there's no internal argument, there are no feelings of any kind. There's just socks that are moving from the floor to wherever we think they're supposed to be and that's it. And we also aren't doing it to get credit, we aren't doing it to be the one that picks up the socks, to be seen picking up the socks to be the more conscious one, the more aware one, the more responsible one, the more diligent one, perhaps even the better one, because we pick up the socks, we pick up the slack, we cover the shortcomings of others and it's very easy to twist this into ideas of our own superiority, our own self-righteousness. When it's a better lesson, it's a better practice to just pick up the socks, don't attach any greater meaning to it, don't attach any greater significance to it, they're just socks, in fact.

04:57
Taking that one step further, being glad that we are allowed and afforded the opportunity to be of service, to pick up these socks right here, because even if we're the only ones who appreciate it, things are actually better when the socks are picked up. And we can find this lesson, we can find these ideas applicable to so many areas of our life. It is so valuable, it is so good, it is so rewarding and enriching to learn to be of selfless service, to learn to do things for no other reason than to be of service, than to be helpful, than to be kind, than to do something, simply because we've identified this should be done. And we don't need anyone else to validate us. We don't actually need anyone else to even notice.

05:45
Ensure in a relationship, if there's a big imbalance of effort, these socks are just the straw that breaks the camel's back. Well, obviously that's a bigger problem. But the socks in and of themselves are not really a problem, unless we want to make them a problem. That imbalance already existed, whether or not the socks are there or not. But regardless, there's so many opportunities in our life where we can learn to give, where we can learn to give selflessly.

06:12
We can learn to give out of selfless service, just for the sheer reason that it feels good, just for the sheer reason that it feels right, just for the sheer reason that it makes us feel whole. Because as long as we're doing things to get something, as long as we're giving to get, we're not really whole, we're not really fully within ourselves. Our attention, our awareness is spread, amount to others, looking for the rewards, looking for the acclaim, looking for the acknowledgement, looking for the validation, looking, looking, looking, waiting, waiting, waiting. It's like a hunger that can only be satisfied by someone or something else doing something, being something, giving us something, us getting something. That's like we use our activity, we use our service as kind of an indentured emotional servitude for others. We need others to validate us, we need others to celebrate us, we need others to acknowledge us, we need others to elevate us. Just, there's just a simple beauty to eschewing all of that and just picking up the socks, even if it isn't even noticed, because you know what? It probably won't be. That's why they're there in the first place. They weren't noticed that they were on the floor in the first place, so they probably won't be noticed that they're off the floor, but that isn't the point. That's still imbuing our motivations and others instead of staying within ourselves, instead of just being of service. That's it.

07:50
This is also one of the many lessons that Earnedhood can teach us, probably in the best way of learning to be of selfless service, learning to do things simply because it's the right thing to do, simply because someone else that we care about needs it, and we don't need this to reflect back on us. This isn't a debt that we're going to come collecting for. We give it, and we give it freely. And because we give it freely, we give it in wholeness. We aren't fractured, we aren't separate, we aren't living with this void within us that can only be fulfilled by someone else acknowledging someone else, noticing someone else, giving back to us. That, sure, if we do things out of wholeness and are given back to, that's beautiful. But it's not necessary. It's not required, because, ultimately, this idea of selfless service is a really excellent opportunity to acquaint ourselves, to connect ourselves with the idea of non-duality, with the idea that we're all one. There is no me and there is no you, there's only I. And by giving selflessly, by offering selfless service, we can feel this, we can recognize this, we can experience this. We can experience the idea that we give to ourselves by giving to another freely, fully. And if we do this enough times, we're far more gracious when other people give to us as well, because we realize that's what they're doing. We afford them, we allow them the opportunity, the gift to selflessly give, because as they give to us, they give to themselves, and that's a beautiful thing.

09:36
And there's also just aspects of daily life that are just made better through selfless giving. Like anyone who lives in a city, anyone who interacts with a group of any kind or any kind of crowded situation, it's obvious that kindness is like a social lubricant it just makes things go better, it just makes things flow better. But kindness true kindness, not kindness done to be seen as a kind person, to be witnessed and noticed as being kind or doing some kind act, just being kind, that's it, period. Nothing after that not doing it for any particular reason, above and beyond just being kind. And that's really where this sort of lesson, this sort of practice, really gets profound the more we embed, the more we imbue our life with selfless service, the better our life gets.

10:28
But again, this is the kind of idea that's almost paradoxical at first. This is the kind of truth that really takes some working with, really takes some living with, to really fully understand. Because even if we think we're being selfless, often when we first start, there's still an aspect of self in there, there's still something we're trying to get, there's still something we're internally feeding upon, above and beyond whatever we're doing. And this can even exhibit itself in pretty covert ways of where we can just be desperate for connection, desperate to be seen, desperate to just be acknowledged, and so it seems like we're giving selflessly. But there's this ache, there's this hunger within us to get something back, to be seen, to be acknowledged, to be appreciated, to be cared for, to be valued. And if we find ourselves giving with ulterior motives, the important thing is just to bear witness of this, because truly selfless service is an ideal and no matter how advanced a practice we are, we cannot actually do it all the time, every day, because this is our life's work.

11:43
This is our life's work to balance the needs of our self With a service to our oneness. These will be relationships we're always trying to balance, because we are physical, we are material, we are a self, we are an individual. That's true On a deeper level, on a more fundamental level, on a more energetic level, on a more spiritual level, we're all one. How do we balance this? This seems like a paradox. One seems to cancel out the other. How can we be both an individual as well as part of a greater oneness? Well, that's the great mystery of life. That's what we get to spend. We get the opportunity to work with that mystery over our lives, working with that mystery to really allow it to enrich and expand our lives, make our lives better.

12:38
By seizing this opportunity to both be dual and non-dual, to both be this and that and one, to both be physical, material and spiritual, to be both manifested and unmanifested, to be both body and being and that's the beauty of it we get the opportunity to be both, to exist in both, to enjoy both, to take advantage of both. It's the dual nature of being human which gives us endless, infinite opportunities to grow and learn More. Germane to this idea of selfless service gives us endless opportunities to be of service, to find new ways to be of service and to find ways to be more and more selfless, more and more united, with a greater oneness along the way. At the very least, it's a useful thing to ponder, it's a useful thing to practice being of selfless service. Because, even if we've done everything we've done simply for the reward, simply for the outcome, I'd make the argument that, especially over a longer period of time, rewards and outcome equal service.

13:54
Even if we want to just boil it down to something as simple and as common as money and income, especially over the longer time period, money and income are always an indicator of service. At the very least, money and income derived from our direct activity and so, in kind of a funny way, at least over the long term, we don't really have to worry so much about making money if we're dedicated to being of service. But of course we can't be doing that service merely to get money. For that service to really fulfill its true value, it needs to be done selflessly, needs to be given freely, needs to be given out of wholeness, and this is our challenge, this is our opportunity over our life to find better and better and pure and pure ways to do this.

14:50
But even if we strip out outcomes and rewards, we can find that giving selflessly, being of selfless service just feels good, just feels better, it's liberating, it's freeing, because we're not so dependent on outcomes anymore. We're grounded, we're focused, we're committed, we're present in the present moment. We're not doing things based on some arbitrary or imagined future, some set of outcomes of what we're going to get from our doing, which outcomes aren't actually happening right now. But is happening right now is what we're doing. And so, when we let all of our expectations and needs for outcomes go, we can actually inhabit and be present in the present moment. We can be fully present in our own lives because we're living in the now. We're living in the present moment. We've withdrawn and recalled our attention and focus from the future and instead placed it on the now, on what's happening now, because that's really ultimately all there is. These expectations, these ideas of the future are just that only ideas, only expectations. They're not actually real. The only thing that's actually real is what's actually happening right now and the more that we do that can connect us with the present moment, that can bring all of our awareness to what's happening now, to what's happening in this present moment, the better, the more full we are and the more full our life is, because our attention and focus isn't fractured between the present moment and our imagination, and by being fully present we can actually fully experience our life. We can actually fully experience every situation we will ever be in and are such a profound enriching effect to that.

16:55
Here's an exercise Mindfully wash your hands. Go and wash your hands, and do so mindfully, paying attention to every aspect of it. What does the water feel like? What does the soap feel like? What does it feel like to rub your hands together? What does it feel like to have clean hands? What does it feel like to have dry hands? What does it feel like to feel your hands touching one another? This can be a pretty profound experience.

17:28
There can be a lot going on here, and the same can be said for the rest of our life, but it's so easy to miss it. It's so easy to only have a fractional, tiny sliver of our attention focused on the present moment, on what's actually happening, and thus we miss it. We miss those opportunities for depth, we miss those opportunities for richness. We miss those opportunities for fullness because our attention lies elsewhere. And one of the ways we can bring our attention back to what we're doing is to remove our own self-based expectations and needs from what we're doing, to remove the need for any particular reward or outcome, for anything else to happen, and be fully present with what we're doing, seizing every opportunity to be of selfless service, seizing every opportunity to be fully present in the present moment and to give with our full selves, not requiring anything else, not requiring anything back, anything to happen or anything to be different. The giving, the kindness, the service is enough. We can go into our lives knowing this, we can go into our lives doing this and we'll live much fuller, much more rich lives, much more complete lives, because we find ourselves complete through our own selfless service.