The process is personal; do doubt. The path to inner harmony and well-being is an internal journey. To claim full responsibility for one’s behaviors and attitudes and feelings requires reflection inward. The call to learn and evolve and align within a Greater Design is often an inner communion.
To commune is to join in a harmonious blending. And isn’t it interesting that the art of engaging outward and joining with other individuals comes from the word commune. Community.
Ram Dass said, “The cure for every psychological ailment is to get involved with a greater cause.” Ram Dass was a psychologist in his life as Richard Alpert, and I found this thought compelling as I listened to clients who came to me through the years as I assisted (as best I could) their personal process of evolution. I wondered what would be the result of turning from reflection to service for these people? Would the outcome be the same?
In the years between then and now, I’ve continued to explore this idea as I wended my way through my Life’s journey. I discovered an inherent truth in the statement: It’s impossible for the mind to dwell upon past hurts when in the midst of a compelling activity that fully engages focus. I found, for example, that I could not think about an unresolved personal dilemma while in the middle of fully listening to one of my clients. Nor could I lose myself in any kind of artistic expression and nurse old emotional wounds. Simply put: it was either/or.
At the same time, the concept of service – especially in the midst of current law of attraction teachings to focus on self-fulfillment – stretched my thinking process to entertain new ways of perceiving what service can be. Service, I decided, can be as broad in scope as there are individual perceptions of what promotes a “will to good”. For some, service involves charity; for some, activism; for others, a focus on solutions in any situation. The one constant characteristic of service is the intention to influence outward into community – to bring the inner communion into an expression for the benefit of world around us.
In other words, I determined that making one’s self happy – while an inherently valuable concept – does not qualify as service. In this realization, my mind and heart opened to a powerful understanding: No matter how developed we become in our personal process, or how effective we are manifesting personal fulfillment and realizing personal goals… until we evolve inner communion into a connection with community that serves the will to good of the community, we are falling short of a result that lifts us beyond the emotional dynamics that repeat again and again. There comes a point when a personal process must extend outward to enhance the well-being of the community to prevent a pattern of stagnation.
The paradigm shift that Ram Dass describes encourages us to take the energy created through the personal process of reflection, let it flow through us as it lifts us to new levels of insight/awareness, and bless the world around us with the good we can offer in its current. Energy is power. Whether it is money or creativity or laughter or compassion, the focus of the mind towards our personal evolution attracts and creates a resevoir of opportunity to make a difference in our communities.
It does not matter where we are on our personal path of awakening; there is always some aspect of community that can benefit. Be more awake through your day. Notice the opportunities to extend yourself through kindness. Kindness is the ability to be authentic and harmless simultaneously; it is a pathway for the ‘will to good’ to express. The smallest act of kindness is still service. Feel the inspired nudge towards a thought or an action that supports a solution in your community. Pay attention to the world around you and let it evoke the flow of All You Are into it.
Thank you. I love you.
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I agree…it’s important for me to focus on the well being of others so I can get out of my own head…at least part of the time 🙂
Out of the drama in our heads has to be a good thing! Here’s to focusing on well being for all:D
This is an interesting direction, I must say that it is new for me to hear the concepts of “Service” and “Law of Attraction” being discussed at the same time. For myself, being creative is my means to a larger focus that does not permit me to dwell on past hurts — perhaps that is my service…
Happy day, Alan
For all the years I was involved in the Abraham-Hicks teachings of the law of attraction, I noted the absence of service as a component of well-being. I’ve always been a believer of ‘community’ and so I found my way independent of those teachings in this regard. Recently, though, I started to look for ways to blend these beliefs and I think I’ve come upon it by equating service with solution. It’s working for me, anyway; >) And, yes, I believe creativity is a type of service:D
A great article. It makes me wonder though:
You reached this conclusion through a lifetime of manifesting your dreams through personal happiness. It was like you had to prove it to yourself that you could manifest and THEN you learned how to extend that happiness by serving others.
What of those who spend a lifetime serving others, and who experience the happiness that comes from helping others, but they can’t seem to manifest their own dreams in their own personal life? (Example: social workers, religious leaders, community outreach people, etc)
Is there a magic “tipping point” that occurs that clicks in the secret to manifestation? And would this “tipping point” normally occur regardless of whether one served others or not? Hmmm…things to ponder and chew on.
Happy day, Andrea
I came from both directions, actually… working with street kids as a social worker, for example, and then as a director of a social service agency for families with incest. You could say I wove service and the process of evolution towards personal happiness for many years. The ‘tipping point’ for me was in the realization that I couldn’t help anyone by focusing on the problem, and then my evolution shifted as I began exploration into how to become part of the solution, both personally and as how I viewed service. Make sense?
Ahnalira
I have always felt that when I serve others, I in turn serve myself, and when I serve myself, I serve others. It is a marvelous circle of wellbeing, really. Being nice, practicing kind acts, it is good to be reminded to do that.
I was waiting in a waiting room once, and an elderly woman came in. She moved very slowly, using a walker, I smiled at her, and she smiled back. We began a conversation. One thing she said to me was that the best way to have a good life was to practiceve being nice every day. “You don’t have to be perfect, but you just have to practice.”
What a wonderful encounter! She sounds like a true teacher… and faerygodmother; >)