excellent seva story from Matruvani !

[Guest guest]

" Seva Is Devotion " Matruvani, Dec 2008 by Phil Shambhaugh, USA

 

" Selfless service is a spiritual practice that leads to

Self-realization. " ~ Amma

 

As devotees, we are usually thinking about sadhana [spiritual

practices] that will take us to God. But let's look at it from the

other direction. What can we do that will bring God to us? What will

earn us God's grace?

 

I can give an example of a devotee that Amma held very near her heart.

For several months, while Ginger, my late wife, was bed-ridden with a

terminal illness, Amma kept Ginger's picture by her bed. At the moment

of her death, Amma appeared in the room and Ginger merged into Amma.

 

I have often wondered what it was that drew Amma to Ginger. Although

she followed Amma for 10 years, she did not perform many of the

classic acts of devotion. She rarely meditated. It was only in her

last year that she practiced the Integrated Amrita Meditation (IAM).

She neither memorized nor chanted the 108 names, let alone the 1, 000

names. She did not do puja. On reflection, the answer was clear.

Ginger led a life of seva, selfless service.

 

In her 1991 birthday message, Amma said, " The compassion that you show

the suffering - that is your true love for Amma. Cultivate an attitude

of serving others, even sacrificing your own comforts in order to do

so. Then God will come running to you and embrace you. "

More than 20 years prior to becoming ill, Ginger started doing seva.

She began by volunteering at a facility that served meals to the

homeless, and provided some medical assistance. The nuns at that

facility sent her to help an elderly lady on Social Security who fed

homeless people from her own small kitchen on Saturdays, when there

were few facilities that fed the homeless. That started a relationship

in which Ginger helped every week - getting surplus rood from the

Wonder Bread bakery, Amtrak and supermarkets; buying paper plates,

forks and napkins; cooking food; preparing plates of rood and serving

them to the men. The relationship expanded over time, and as the woman

began to feel the effects of Alzheimer's disease, Ginger would help

her manage bills, arrange social services, etc. The woman called her

" my daughter. "

 

Ginger's next area of seva was in the medical field. She earned her

PhD in nutrition, and volunteered once weekly at a medical clinic for

poor Hispanics. She would provide nutritional counseling as well as

medicinal herbs and vitamins. When she saw a magazine or a dress she

wanted to buy, she would think, " Oh, that would buy so much medicine

for the clinic, " and buy the medicines instead of the personal item.

Those two major sevas preceded Ginger's meeting Amma. In the third

year after meeting Amma, we attended our first retreat. As we were

walking from the darshan tent towards the food tent at the end of the

public program, Amma walked up to us and said " Seva! " We were totally

surprised, and looked around to see if she was addressing someone

else. No one else was around, so we knew the remark was meant for us.

Right after that, we volunteered to help with arrangements in our city

for the U.S. tour. Each year thereafter, we did more sevas to support

the tour. So, we thought Amma's remark had been an acknowledgment of

our past seva and an indication that we would be doing seva for the

tour. Ginger also expanded her seva activities.

One of these sevas was related to her profession and also to the

environment. She said that God had given her a strong intellect, and

it was her duty to use it for the good of the world. Initially, she

wrote for newsletters while she did research on organic farming. At

that time, it was taught in schools and the conventional wisdom was

that organic and conventionally grown fruits and vegetables had

comparable nutrients. She did research and published the results in

medical journals that upset that conventional wisdom. We knew she was

successful when we found websites set up that attacked her and her

work. She defended her work, silencing the professional critics, and

now it is generally accepted that organically grown crops have a

higher nutrient density. All this work over several years was done at

her own time and expense.

 

She also had a long-time interest in nature and the environment. We

built our house so that it would co-exist with nature and have a

minimal impact on the environment. It has a green roof, with gardens

on it, and solar panels for heating hot water. This early interest in

the environment expanded over time.

 

In the late 1990s, Ginger came up with a way to teach children about

the environment, by showing all the interactions with the environment

it took to make a candy bar. We made a computer presentation using

that concept as the basis, and presented it to the children when Amma

came to our area. We then re-packaged the presentation and gave it at

our church. We became two of the initial members of the Environmental

Committee at our church. Gin¬ger got the church recycling and using

non-toxic cleaning chemicals as well as energy efficient bulbs, and

would attend the monthly meetings of the Buildings and Grounds

Committee to maintain members' awareness of the environment. That

church, the largest in the parish, now buys all its power from

alternate sources, has energy efficient lights, and has over 200

people on its Environmental Committee mailing list.

 

As a result of her work in the church, she was recommended for the

Local Citizens' Association. She became an officer and spent several

years working tirelessly to get legislation approved that would

protect mature trees from being cut down. This was not her only effort

on the behalf of the trees. She won a forestry award from a suburban

county for her efforts in having many acres of trees planted to

protect waterways.

 

It was not only these visible acts of seva that Ginger performed that

were important. She had a number of attitudes that she expressed in

her daily life. She did not judge people by their social or economic

status, but treated everyone with respect and compassion.

Ginger also loved animals and plants. As an example, she even

requested that we relocate our garage to avoid cutting down a tree.

She had had a hard life with many health problems, and she had turned

this into an ability to express compassion to others who were

suffering. When she worked with patients, in her office or the clinic,

this compassion was evident.

 

In addition to having poor health from birth, Ginger's life from

infancy through her teens was marked by abuse. She had never

experienced a mother's love, which was one reason why Amma was so

important. Rather than harbour resentment towards her own mother,

Ginger recognized that everyone does the best they can under the

circumstances. She said that she could do seva by visiting elderly

people in nursing homes, but if she could not do that for her own

mother, what kind of a sevak [volunteer] was she? So, she visited her

mother every week, thinking of it as a seva in order to keep a

compassionate attitude. She took her to plays and movies that her

mother was interested in (but Ginger was not). She read things that

she would not otherwise have read just so she would have something to

talk about with her mother.

 

We often do not understand the full import of Mother's words when we

first hear them. Over time, we begin to grasp more of their meaning.

In the case of Amma saying " seva " to us, I now think that she meant

the obvious - recognizing past seva, and saying that Ginger's seva

activities would expand - but also that Ginger's seva was what drew

Amma to her and would be her path to God.

 

Amma said in her 1995 birthday speech, " It is meaningless to light a

sacred oil lamp or to make an offering to God without bringing some

light into the lives of the poor. We have to go down to the world of

the poor. We should love them and serve them. Without doing this,

however much we meditate, we won't be able to taste the sweetness of

that meditation. "

 

Everyone has his or her own path to God. It is said that bhakti

[devotion] is the easiest road to God in this age. By her example,

Ginger has shown that seva too is bhakti.

 

~ by Phil Shambhaugh, Ginger's husband

 

" Selfless service is a spiritual practice that leads to

Self-realization. " ~ Amma