There are many levels at which you relieve suffering; you relieve
suffering at one level by giving food. You relieve suffering at another
level by giving the food in such a way that is draws people out of the
pain of their own separateness. This involves the idea of respect for
the people you’re serving, and dignity and really seeing.
You must be driven to work on yourself all of the time, so that your
acts of caring for other human beings are not toxic. If you want to help
other people, I would say, just look around, check out the bulletin
board at your local laundromat. It doesn’t matter where you plug into
the system; the issue is the quality of the behavior when you plug into
the system.
It’s not just doing the act, it’s the combination of doing the act with
the exercise of using the act to see the ways in which you’re ripping
off the act for your own psycho-dynamic needs. Without putting yourself
down for it, just appreciating the humanity of it, but also getting to
the next level of it, where you’re just doing it because you’re a part
of the dance, and you’re on the side of the angels. Gandhi said, “When
you surrender completely into God, you find yourself in the service of
all that exists.”
- Ram Dass -
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