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Service to God
Every child after being born begins inevitably to learn… egoism.
This happens because children can do nothing themselves; everything is done for
them by others. This is inevitable…
But then children grow… And on this stage, the correct education
should necessarily include weaning them of the egocentric dominants and teaching
them caring about others…
… One can observe funny examples in behavior of animals, for
example, grown-up baby crows.
Baby crows, their bodies are already of the size of the parents,
demand again and again food from their parents! The tired parents are desperate:
“We have no more food! What can we do?! We flew all over the
neighborhood! We are hungry ourselves! You should seek food yourselves: you have
grown up!”
Finally the parents managed to find some food. They brought it
and put in front of the children. And what do the children do? Eat it? No! They
cry even louder: demand that parents took the food from the ground and put it
into their mouths!
… Another case. People tamed a baby crow. He became large, of
the size of an adult crow. These people cautiously put pieces of bread into his
mouth: he has a large beak and can bite painfully! Sometimes the pieces of food
fall out of his beak… The baby crow, instead of taking them from the ground,
demands in his crow language: “You have put it bad! Do I have to bow to it?!
… But as time goes by, the need will make him to seek food
himself and to bow to it… Then he will have his own children… And these children
will become that school where he will learn care about others, the school of
altruism…
… In case of people, it happens in similar manner. But the
correct or wrong education plays here a more important role.
So often one can observe total egocentrism in adult people! Even
in those who are believers…
Yet the true love that God wants to see in us implies not
wanting something for oneself; love is not one’s passion-wanting! The true love,
which alone is accepted by God, implies making good to others, helping others in
everything good, sacrificing oneself for other’s sakes!
… Totally egocentric people misunderstand it so much that even
in bright altruistic deeds of others they try to see only selfishness, always
seeking a reason for irritated condemnation, hatred…
Such people cannot understand God. And cannot approach Him…
* * *
How do people understand service to God?
Some think that “to serve God” means simply to belong to the
clergy of some religious confession. Others think deeper and seek to serve by
participating in common prayers and meditations. And some even dance and sing in
honor of God.
The two latter cases are good only if they are just one of the
components of the religious life of these people.
But God wants us to do much more.
In particular, Jesus Christ and other Divine Teachers edify us
that one should view the service to God as service to all, to help all in
everything good that they do. And one should help not for the sake of one’s own
profit, but for the sake of those whom one helps; they could be not only people,
animals, or plants but also God.
In order to be able to understand this and understand also how
to discriminate between good deeds and those just seeming to be good, one should
try to look at situations from the point of view of the global strategic Plan of
the Creator. Namely, we should understand the essence of the universal
Evolutionary Process and find our place in it.
And then we will be able not only to try practicing the precepts
of God but also to see their important role in the global strategy of the
Creator. This will bring us to more deep understanding of our own tasks and the
ways of helping others better. Then we will gradually become active participants
of the Evolution of the Universal Consciousness, active assistants to the
Creator.
The active participation in the evolutionary process should be
considered as consisting of two main parts: a) spiritual self-development, b)
help to others.
In this process, as apostle Paul taught (1 Cor 12,14), we should
strive to serve with our highest abilities, as well as to seek to acquire even
higher skills.
The essence of the Creator's Plan of creating material worlds,
including this small “islet” of matter in the universe — our planet — is to
transform less perfect constituents of the Absolute into more perfect. In this
process, the individual Consciousnesses achieved the full Perfection enrich the
Creator with Themselves.
So both personal self-development and help to other evolving
souls in their evolution are good from God's point of view.
In particular, if we develop ourselves through meditative work,
the quality of our service improves: we become closer to the Creator and begin
to see the world better; we gradually approach the level from which He sees the
world.
We also develop through our activity of helping others,
increasing our knowledge of how to help. This knowledge will be useful even
after disembodiment.
* * *
... Let us feel (or at least imagine) that there is only One
Universal Macro-organism — the Absolute. Inside the Absolute, the process of Its
development — the Universal Evolution — goes on. Let us feel unity,
interrelation of everything in It. Let us feel our inseparability from It, from
the Process of Its Development. Let us feel the joy of this awareness. And now —
with this new understanding — let us direct our efforts to assisting the
transformation of all capable “lumps” of consciousness — into the Consciousness
of the Creator.
We all are One in the Organism of the Absolute. This is
the essence of the principle suggested by Jesus Christ: love your neighbor as
yourself, and even more. This principle concerns the aspect of Love called Care.
Its highest manifestation is self-sacrifice for the good of others. Jesus Christ
demonstrated such a sacrifice: He gave us an example of Care by the
exploit of His life and death on the Earth. Let us become like Him in this
respect!
* * *
Quite a few people long for cognition of the Absolute and seek
the Creator. Others, schooled by atheism and perverted religious movements, or
those perverted on their own choice are well satisfied with partaking of the
“forbidden” (by God) fruits from “the tree of knowledge of good and evil”: the
pleasures of possessing objects of the material world. Such people risk going to
hell, because “earthly” attachments easily provoke coarse emotions: anxiety,
fear, sorrow, despair, jealousy, irritation, hatred, anger, and so on. And those
who habituate themselves to such emotional states actually accustom themselves
to living in hell and go there after disembodiment.
The fruits of the Kingdom of Heaven are gained by those who find
the peace of mind and learn selfless Love to such an extent that it enables them
to fall in Love with the Creator and become attracted by that Love to Him. He
meets such people with His Highest Love.
... And the former (of the mentioned kinds of people):
— “love” themselves,
— call their cravings
“love”,
— demand more and more love for themselves from others,
cherishing thus their egocentrism, and hate other people because they poorly
please ME! and, on the whole, do not do what I! want them to do.
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