'I cannot do all the good that the world needs, but the world needs all the good I can do...'
The Seva path to improve the 10 paramis is to be of loving service to others, and to treat others as if they are apart of the divine whole, it's a wonderful path! I can tell you right now that I have fallen well short of this ideal, although I have tried to be of service to others with love.
I began to think of service to others as a spiritual path when I became a volunteer at a homeless shelter in Darlinghurst Sydney, when I was 21. I got my Hepatitis shots and signed up to be apart of compassionate action, (not just mediating on a cushion or doing advanced yoga practice) but living compassionately with other humans and noticing and taking some responsibility for the suffering that is happening around me.
It has been quite the journey and I'm so glad that I had yoga and meditation as my good friends while I was volunteering then eventually working as a professional counsellor and Team Leader in the community service sector. As a professional over a 10yr period I worked in a few different services such as; with victims families in a Homicide Support Service, then families who have a loved one with a mental illness. I worked with victims of trauma & torture who had come to Australia as refugees, or ran a Community House in Tasmania. I wouldn't swap my experiences of those wonderful unique and incredibly resilient people. But I can tell you that the Seva path is incredibly challenging, sometimes heartbreakingly so...
A path of service is the opposite of the path of the ego, Seva is the path with heart. The path of the ego is all about defining and demonstrating this 'I'. Now I have done plenty of demonstrating my ego, and I've definitely thought I was a big shot yogi, or meditator, counsellor or a Team Leader. The path of service though rubs away at the harsh edges of our ego/identity, until there is complete surrender of the need to be respected as a certain kind of person. The desire to prove oneself fades gently away.
Make no mistake the process of surrendering the ego/identity is filled with circumstances where the ego is challenged and found to be a total failure, over and over again. This can be the heartbreaking part. This seems to happen until one stops relying on this ego/identity to prove anything to others. You become quite comfortable with people misunderstanding or misinterpreting you and you find peace.
I often find that when my mental health is poor that focussing on the 10 paramis and being of service to others while being loving to myself is a path that leads me out of the darkness. While working in the mental health sector I often forgot to be loving to myself while being of service and this was a big mistake.
Being of service while not loving oneself may not be helpful at all. While you are busy helping people with their suffering you are increasing your own, by not balancing your needs with the needs of others, and I think we all find this particularly tricky. My mantra use to be, ' I want to be of service to others,' but now I say, 'I want to be of service to myself and others.' I have to include myself in my service. Maybe it's because I have a mental health issue that I can forget about myself and leave myself aside, or treat myself badly because I have PTSD. However after experiencing burnout and a nervous breakdown in 2017 I can tell you that self-love is vital for mental wellbeing, at least for me.
Our online classes started because of Covid lockdown in 2020 and I couldn't see my students anymore. I was teaching in the community with people experiencing homelessness. So I went online and now here we are with over 350 students. I can't believe it and I am so grateful to be able to share with you what is working for me. And I am so excited to see what 2021 brings. Our classes are free or by donation and so the Seva path is still supporting our work.
I would love to know more about your experiences of Mindful Yoga so far, so please send me through your answers to these below questions so I can better plan Term 2 from 20th March - 15th May 2021.
1) Why did you first come to Mindful Yoga? What were you hoping to experience?
2) Did you experience any change through doing Mindful Yoga in Term 1?
3) Is there any suggestions you would have to help improve the experience of Mindful Yoga for you?
4) What's the one thing you would really like to experience in Term 2?
This is a pic taken in Myanmar/Burma in 2014. I was staying at a monastery where an Arahant (Enlightened Person) Webu Sayadaw lived and meditated. This is his mediation hut, where I was allowed to meditate. The hut had the most beautiful vibrations, and I had a very lovely time meditating here with my friends....
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