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Personal Service
Every man and woman should spend some of his time and energy
in the service of others. This is a debt that we carry for enjoying
the comforts and privileges that the God has so kindly given
us. It should be cleared by serving those brothers and sisters
who have been deprived of comforts and privileges by individuals,
nature or the society. Donating money alone is not adequate.
You should devote your thoughts, your time and actions for them.
Manual service is a first step towards a virtuous life. It teaches
you how to be magnanimous. Selfless service is the base of a
religion.
Wherever you live perhaps you can find a person who is miserable
and needs your help. Alas! Such persons can be found everywhere.
We have no excuse for not helping them. Personal service is
the duty of everyone and everyone can avail of the opportunities
to carry out this duty.
Faulty customs and laws should not become obstacles while carrying
our personal service. Personal service when carried out sincerely
crosses all artificial demarcations of cast, nationality and
nationality. This communication leads a person straight from
his heart to another awaiting heart. Personal service will develop
peace, prosperity and openness between different casts, races
and nationalities.
Wherever there is sorrow and pain there is an open invitation
for Personal Service. This service has double benefits firstly,
for the service rendered and secondly for the person for whom
the service is being carried out.
Personal service is not required to wait for any laws, institutions
and legislations. It is completely free to fly on the wings
of compassion to reach directly to the needy person. It never
has to follow the devious and conniving paths of the Politics
and Law. It emerges with freshness and vigor from the kind hearts
of the generous and selfless people. It is not the result of
long drawn out discussions, or arrives in a stale and decayed
form after traveling the uninspired, narrow minded, gloomy and
lazy paths.
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Seva is not deterred by the personal secrets and differences
of the individuals. It comes dashing in the help of the tormented
souls of old or young men, women and children. It does not discriminate
between countries, religions or castes; its only concern is
the human being. It follows only one relationship of humanity,
only one aim, that is of Love, Listens to only one sound, that
of pain and suffering.
As the pain and suffering is spread wide
over and the Personal services are extremely limited. Their
results are also constrained in a small area. This problem can
be solved only on forming progressive Political and Economic
Institutions. I cannot dare say that even such an arrangement
of personal service would alleviate the pain and misery from
this world. Although the scope of Political and economic organizations
is quite wide, it has its own limitations.
Personal Service concentrates on the present; in fact it presents
solutions to the problems that surface at the present hour and
the minute. Whereas the political and Economic policies aim
at the coming years, centuries and the ages. Personal service
is immediate and every one can do it on the other hand Political
and economic organizations have the long term plans where you
got to wait till the time you get fed up and start asking how
much time more!
When you pass by a destitute cripple you can help him by giving
him some money for his food. But by the time your progressive
party will set up a home and a hospital for the cripples, this
destitute perhaps won't be alive. The only answer to political
excuses is Personal service.
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If there is any story of my service worth
telling it is that of the old man with the heavily infected
leg. His leg was infested with maggots. The hole where the maggots
form is extremely small and cannot be easily seen. This hole
needs to be covered with a mixture of Turpentine oil and Chloroform.
I took the old man to the Dispensary of Shambu Nath's factory.
Dr Dwarka Nath gave the mixture in a small bottle. The maggots
come out from the smell of that mixture. When I applied the
mixture to old man's leg, the maggots started coming out very
fast. But after some time their coming out became very slow.
I took out all the maggots with a twezzer. As the hole is very
small the maggot takes a lot of time to come out. On the first
day I took about three hours to take out the maggots.
I have done all these tasks as that of a
mother for her son. My mother had stilled in my heart the fact
that God is the creator of this world. Everything moves under
his control. If anyone can visualise God in every creature and
serve him with full devotion, tries to minimise their miseries
and makes them comfortable to the best of his ability, God provides
him with all the gifts of life. He can achieve the highest standards
in life.
God deliberately has not given me any relative
so that I should consider the whole world as my relatives and
achieve greatest happiness by giving them my love. A man living
away from the pain and miseries of the world dies a sad death
because God resides in the man. Today at the age of eighty years
I cannot find greater happiness than what I have already achieved.
I cannot contain myself with happiness. I receive donations
through cheques from 21 countries. I have completed all my studies
sitting on the road side which have surprised many college professors.
I think that God provides His devotees with the keys to his
door. Some lady from England would come and tell me that she
keeps waiting anxiously for my monthly magazine 'Jeevan Lehar'.
She cannot find peace without reading this magazine and she
considers my readings as the spiritual guidance of her life.
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Initially when I went to Guru
Nanak Mohalla asking for food, the ladies there complained that
I was making it a habit to come and ask for food everyday. But
slowly everyone came to know that I was looking after the abandoned
and the cripples. Thereafter I used to get food regularly from
some of the houses which were about half a mile away. When I
used to go for procuring food I used to leave my beloved Cripple
either with a shopkeeper or with a Sikh couple who were managing
a hearth for scorching corn. This hearth is still running in
1984, the man has died but the old woman is still alive. The
cripple used to sit on his knees. The bare knees can be injured
by any pebble from the earth. In case of any sudden noise, the
Cripple used to get scared and fall forward on his face. God
was very kind he always provided help in the form of the shopkeeper
or the Sikh couple who would willingly look after the Cripple
for a couple of hours.
The Cripple has been the greatest asset
of my life. If I had not met him I would not have done anything
in the shape of Pingalwara and earned the love and respect of
this world. I have spent 80 years of my life with the tenderness
and purity of a child's heart. Four months I had spent on the
road side passed with the blessings of the Go, without much
problem because I was young and my body was strong.

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