Neither Service nor Life Purpose may be what you believe they are!
Due to how entrenched into consciousness Materialism and Separatism are nowadays, it is highly likely these qualities have distorted or are filtering your perceptions, such that what you consider as Service is not. It is also likely, as a result, that you have fallen victim to the idea that we each have a unique and significant “Life Purpose” – this is simply not true.
Let us unpack the layers of Service and Life Purpose…
What is Service?
What You Believe is Service May Not Be!
Many folk have become inspired by and aligned to the concept or idea of “Service”. To serve is indeed a beautiful thing and is an expression of the Heart. However, what a lot of people consider as Service is not, for they have forgotten, or not realised, the two other qualifiers of Service – Sacrifice and Selflessness. As a result, what many believe to be Service is nothing more than an ego-stroking, glorified business transaction.
Business is Not Service
There is nothing inherently wrong with business, in the exchange of money or other resources for a service or product. And indeed, we should strive for our businesses to be Heart Based – that is, to run business in alignment with the qualities and principles of the Heart, of Love. Those being Aspiration, Benevolence, Harmlessness and Wisdom.
But a Heart Based Business is Not Service!
The activities you are doing may indeed help many people or the ecosystem, however, if you are paid for what you are giving, it changes to business – is business. This is just like when we turn our hobby into a business – it is no longer a hobby, and in fact, it changes so completely that our relationship to the activity also changes, very often losing its joy.
For Service to be Service it must be “Selfless”. We should not expect nor receive reward for our giving. If we do, it is a business transaction – not Service! Which is why its more accurate title is “Selfless Service”.
To Give We Must Also Receive
If all folk were giving selflessly, were aware and Heart Based enough to not seek reward for their giving – to whom would we give? The fact is, we must be simultaneously open to receiving – but this is a completely different focus to seeking payment for our kindness or generosity.
Service is On Top of Daily Life Requirements
We must do what needs doing in daily life, and this first, before we have the right consciousness to Serve.
If we ignore the needs of daily life, we are not demonstrating Mastery of the Physical, and nor are we operating from the Heart, because the Heart expresses through Balance and Wisdom!
We cannot presume to have “value to offer”, if we ignore the needs that require our loving attention. Service should not be an escape from life. And most importantly, we must always remember that Formal Service is on top of, not instead of our daily responsibilities.
However, we can also bring an attitude of service into our daily lives. This means, we always consider others and their needs (even if we cannot do anything to assist in that moment), but never without wisdom, such that we neglect our own needs. To ensure we have done all we should in our own life…
We daily ask internally:
- What genuine needs do I have personally?
- What needs are present in the space I dwell?
- What can I do to bring more beauty, flow, and efficiency into this space?
- What needed task can I take responsibility for, and make happen?
Then once these are answered, we can open to a greater focus:
- What genuine needs do my friends and family have, which I may be able to assist with?
- What needs are there in the world, which I can contribute to fulfilling?
And as a final check-in to ensure we are not running avoidance:
- Is there anything I genuinely need, which I must attend to first?
Thus, the attitude of Wise Service becomes the bedrock of our life. And this is most sensible indeed, for you Cannot build higher consciousness on shonky, unmaintained foundations!
Before Enlightenment, chopping wood, carrying water.
After Enlightenment, chopping wood, carrying water.
Or in this context…
Before Enlightenment, living and service.
After Enlightenment, living and service.
The Two Arenas of Service
There are two distinct arenas where we can focus our Service efforts – objectively and subjectively. The commonly known Field of Service is the objective world. Here we can observe a multitude of individuals and organisations striving to make the world a better place – people genuinely motivated by Selfless Goodwill.
What we cannot so readily observe are the subjective Fields of Service. This arena includes all levels of mastery of our Personalities – body, emotions, and mind; as well as some prayers and mantras, personal energetic hygiene, collective or globally-focused healing, and of course the realm of service of the Spiritual Alchemist – consciously transmuting Darkness to Light.
All this unseen work creates the fertile bed, of the best possible conditioning environment for all the outer service intentions to grow within! Without this inner work nearly all inspiring Heart Based Changes would fail to take hold in the world – finding societies all too dark and toxic.
While we must work on ourselves to clear our inner darkness and limiting patterns and thus embody and radiate greater Love and Light – the most powerful energetic changes are wrought when those of us striving upwards-within, come together and combine our Hearts in singular focus. A group can ground and wield far greater power than can an individual!
A Life of Service is A Calling
A Calling is a Path chosen by the Soul when planning its incarnation. One can be Called to Serve, but not all Service is A Calling.
Giving Benevolently is definitely something we should all do. It is a way of being that is an expression of the Heart – and certainly we want our lives and collective culture to be Heart Based. However, to be or live Heart Based is not the same thing as living a Life of Service – though one must be seated in and live from their Heart, to Serve.
When a Soul has chosen a particular lifetime to be fully and deeply dedicated to a Purpose that is larger than its own simple lessons, and all other doors of possibility are closed, the resultant pull towards this one thing we might label as “A Calling”. It is a life when the Personality is asked to Sacrifice much, and genuinely dedicate its days to the Greater Good. It is when the desire to serve is so powerful within, there is no possible way to avoid answering the call!
A Calling Equals a Humble Life
Another feature of A Calling is it comes with the Soul’s expectation that the Personality will willingly embrace a simple life – a life of simple living.
A true Calling is all-consuming, in that it is driven by the impetus of the Soul, and one that has relinquished all desire for personal gain. Therefore, the incarnate Personality, in realising they are being Called, would further recognise the pull to genuine humility and a Humble Life.
One caveat to this principle of simple, humble living is when the specific Calling and Service is to create a Space of Beauty that many will get to use. Collective abundance, not personal empires, can be another focus of the Called Server. Humility then appears in the form of Group Living – rather than being the ruler of your personal domain!
Humility also appears in terms of recognition. Genuine Heart Based Folk never want accolades or unnecessary attention – this is yet another indicator of an Awakened Heart – life is about the work, not the one doing it. Hence, the keynote of A Calling to Serve is Sacrificial Selflessness – willingly and joyously embraced.
True Sacrifice indicates Spiritual Maturity
A “Life of Service” is only chosen by Older Souls when they have evolved to a point where they have experienced almost everything incarnate life has to offer and are now ready to renounce sensory gratification and material acquisition. This is where True Sacrifice comes in.
To be Called to Serve means sacrificing all, or many, of the usual things an incarnate Personality might readily or regularly avail themselves of, for example, enjoyment. Instead of the many things a person might do for enjoyment or pleasure, the evolved Soul sacrifices them in favour of engendering joy through giving, without expecting anything in return.
It should also be noted that true Sacrifice is free of suffering, because when it is the right time to let something go, we have already done all the inner work in preparation. This is true at all levels of “letting go”.
When the Sacrifice called for, is for the Personality to fully surrender to the Soul, we will have already mastered our cravings and desires and a great degree of our minds. This does not mean the Sacrifice will be entirely painless, we may still experience some grief and discomfort – but it will be minimal in the grand scheme of things.
Callings and Purpose
It should be clear at this stage that Service is not about acquiring monetary gain, therefore, Service is on top of what must be done to sustain our daily life. If we are Called to Serve, that is, if in our lifetime our Heart Centre Awakens, Service may well become the Keynote of our Life Purpose.
However, it is important to remember: A Calling is a Life Purpose, but a Life Purpose is not necessarily A Calling!
What is Life Purpose?
Purpose is a Collective Principle
Life Purpose literally means the Purpose of our Life – the reason why we were incarnated.
Despite all the glamourising and glorifying people place on this nowadays, the reason we exist here, in the broadest of terms, is to progress the evolution of the Planetary Logos – the Being whose body is the earth, and that we are the cells or molecules of.
As incarnate beings, we are the mechanism of the “redemption of substance”. The consciousness aspect that, through the process of cycles of incarnations and mastering the Life Principle within lifeforms of greater and greater degrees of complexity, en-lightens the darkened energy we call Matter.
As we grow through lifetimes, clear the Karma we create through learning, heal our inner wounds, and eventually awaken to and embody the vastness of our Being, we literally transmute the substance of our bodies and surroundings. We facilitate the return of Matter to Spirit and thus progress the evolution of the Planetary Being. This work or journey is our broad Life Purpose.
The Drops within the Ocean
Within this great evolutionary arc, we can consider the way in which we as an individual human, or a group of humans, are carrying this forward, or working to create Heart Based Culture. This is the level commonly called Life Purpose or Soul Purpose.
In the simplest terms, Life Purpose is all of the specific reasons a Soul has for reincarnating. Some will be unique to the Soul, but most will be directly related to the Soul Group, Family or Ashram that the Soul is a part of. As a result, All True Purposes are collective and interconnected, they are the active embodiments of The Great Plan of Love and Light – therefore, they are never truly “individual”.
Purpose, therefore, is not so much about “What can I give to the world?” As it is about “What world need or problem am I drawn (and skilled) to help fulfil, heal, or solve?” “Are there any groups of people already working on this, and can I join and support their efforts?” If it is not being addressed or adequately addressed, “What do I need to do to attract the right people to form a living group to work on this issue?”
True Purpose is the product of a world-centric or universal focus, not self-focus! Despite the separative, individualistic concepts that proliferate within the modern world.
Ordinary Lives – learning, and cleansing Karma
As previously mentioned, when we peel away all the glorified stories of bloated self-importance and projected exaggerations that are an attempt to compensate for low self-worth; the truth of one’s Life Purpose is far less glamorous than the New Age Sales Pitch would have us believe. Sometimes we may have a life of outer significance or prominence, but more often than not, the reason or purpose of our life is simply to learn a few lessons, and hence take one small step forward.
A part of that journey will be to cleanse Karma from the lesson-learning of our previous lives. As we learn through trial and error, the results or effects of our errors must be righted, and this is a most important part of how we learn.
So yes, some lifetimes end up being primarily about receiving back the suffering we caused others – and hopefully in the process, learning compassion and humility. This constitutes an essential life from the Soul’s perspective, but certainly not an inspiring one for the Personality, and likely insignificant in the world at large.
It is my hope this truth will lift off your shoulders some of the enormous stressful weight taken on by believing your life will be meaningless unless you achieve some huge world-changing Purpose!
In Benevolent Service
Azure Seer