Sacrifice and Service

I have seen a lot of people who assume that in order to be of service, some sort of sacrifice is necessary or, at the least, personal sacrifice is OK. The puzzling part to me is that sometimes service oriented people place themself in a position of sacrifice without realizing it. They only see the service that they think is needed.

I’m not sure I can relate to service with unintentional or implied sacrifice. In fact, I believe that the most powerful expression of service does not need sacrifice. Sacrifice ultimately creates stress. If stress isn’t handled something happens that hurts. When something hurts the universe is telling us that things are a bit wacky. Service should not create wackiness, it should create balance. Let me explain a bit further...

I’m not saying that service is bad. On the contrary, service is an ultimate aim of the human condition. However, if service is an ultimate aim, how can we do something for another without sacrifice? The answer lies in the expression of power.

My teachers June and Julian, said time after time that power is not domination, it is expression. To me, this implies that personal power is the uninhibited expression of ourself. Now, this does not mean that we can do anything we want to anyone we please. The what goes around comes around part of life keeps us on a path that is not selfish. Through the school of hard knocks we ultimately learn how self expression is accomplished in a way where no one else is taken off their path. Sooner or later we learn that uninhibited expression does not hurt a fly, let alone another person. Does that make us inhibited? Of course not. We don’t, in our constrained inhibition, become inhibited, we learn that powerful expression does not come back to haunt us, it comes back in support of us. That becomes a powerful expression of inhibition.

We can indeed be of service without sacrifice. In fact, all that is necessary is the expression of our personal power. If our expression doesn’t ultimately result in personal pain then we are being supported by the universe. In fact everyone, even if there are complaints, are being supported by the universe.

The bottom line is that sacrifice hurts. So why would we want to hurt ourself? Why do we not want to include ourself in our aim to be of service to humanity? Aren’t we a human being also? Service with pain just doesn’t cut it.

Answers lie in how we view our personal path. It has to do with self worth and in a thinking pattern where others matter more than ourself. The self worth issue is a biggie. It is certainly too big to fit in this blog entry. However, it would be interesting to peck away at it in future blogs. But for now...

What do you think?

Sam