Selfishness and selflessness
Through the spiritual understanding of OIDA-therapy we can comprehend in a scientific way that we are spirit souls; that we are individual conscious beings and that there is a world designed by a higher intelligence.
The world has been designed with great forces behind it, in it and around it, and we are all interrelated with those forces and with each other. We are all part and parcels of God, experiencing and participating actively in the transformation of His various energies. Even though the creation is too big and complicated to understand, we can in brief explain the active principle of life as selfishness versus selflessness. Life means activity and every activity must be characterized by one of those two attitudes. Selfishness means placing ourselves and our interest as the prime focus of everything. We tend to oblige others, either voluntarily or involuntarily, and to manipulate and exploit each and everyone, to fulfill our interests. It is exactly this selfishness which ties us to the mundane sphere.
If we are selfish, we will destroy our own body for our pleasure. We will destroy the planet for our pleasure. We will destroy the dignity of others for our pleasure. We will abuse others for our pleasure. We will lie for our pleasure. We will steal for our pleasure. We will remain within the materialistic concept, because that promises pleasure to our senses. And we will reject any kind of teachings which tells us that we should give up selfishness and that we should be giving and loving.
We feel that if we give up selfishness, our own quantity of material enjoyment is going to diminish. Therefore we are very much disinclined to listen to anything what accuses our selfishness of being the cause of all our problems as well as the problems of others and of the whole world. Here we may ask ourselves, how our selfishness can be the cause of the problems of the world. Even though we have the tendency to consider ourselves important, when we are confronted with such an accusation, i.e. that we are causing the problems of the world, then immediately we start thinking that we are too small and insignificant. So how can we be the cause of the problems of the world? Well, if we are selfish, we belong to the group of living entities who are acting in a destructive way in this world. Using others and their behavior as excuse we act in a way that is self-centered. We may think: “If I do not take advantage of others, of the natural resources and of the different situations of life, others may take advantage of me or I may suffer a lost.” So we start struggling for our interest. At the same time our behavior is an excuse for others to act in a selfish way. So this is a chain reaction and we are part of it. We are part of the problem and in this way we are responsible for the situation of this world.
We are generally focused on I, Me and Mine. We are trying to use everyone. Sometimes however we are ready to include others in our considerations. We are ready to sacrifice something for them. But how does this happen? Take an example of the child. We may say: “These are my children”; “These children are coming from me, therefore they must be something special.” In other words, even if we are ready to commit to someone or something and act in a seemingly selfless way, still there is somewhere the hidden desire to get pleasure. In the mentioned example, we hope that our children will make us happy. We hope that they will become respected individuals. Or at least we hope that they will take care of us, when we become old. This hope is very prominent in poor countries, where there is no social security, insurance or any of this type of facilities.
Selfishness also sometimes extends towards one’s religion. Be careful! Dogmatic selfish religion is not religion at all. It is not the way back home to God. It is not the way to become purified or full of goodness. Selfish religion means: “My Lord, my savior, my master - He is the all in all and now, because I’m His servant or I’m His this or that, give me what I need, if you want to please Him. Or even worse, give me an army and the military force and I will save the whole world and submit to my religion and to my savior. Whoever doesn’t do I say, they will have the choice of either losing their head or bowing down to my feet.
European countries have been proceeding in this way for the last five hundred years or more - in the name of God, for God’s sake. This is really the opposite of healing and health and that is what people are confused about today. This is the reason why the majority of people have become atheists. Therefore they are ready to easily accept theories such as Darwin’s, who said: “Well, don’t worry about it. We are just the descendents of a monkey and we are just a bit speculative and we make so many mistakes, but don’t worry. We are getting better.”
In this way, it was a relief for the atheists to hear or to think that there is no higher control above us. When they were thinking about a higher control, they were also thinking about higher controllers, which were the ecclesiastical structures, which had been killing and abusing on a large scale. Of course they rejected this.
Every sane person rejects these ecclesiastical structures, which are simply the instruments of power hungry people for oppressing, killing and doing whatever they wish to others.
There is no love and there is no light in this aggression. They are the agents of darkness. They are the absolute representatives of ignorance, aggression, destruction, blood shed, and violence.
This is the upmost level of selfishness. “I will kill you because you don’t want to submit to me. I am just trying to save you by telling you to submit to my savior.” So, due to this situation, we have to immediately and with full attention focus upon the only medicine for this great disease of selfishness.
The medicine is of course the opposite. It is selflessness. It is the path of dedication, which the messengers of truth and love have reveled and shown by their own examples throughout the history of humanity. Not only now in our present time.
Divine messengers are always contradicting the exploiters and the selfish people of this world. The message of love is not new, because it is the eternal message of the Lord, which He always instills and inspires within our hearts. In OIDA therapy we are strongly stressing the need to use common sense and intuition, as per guidance of the sacred scriptures. Even though common sense and intuition seem to stand for themselves, still the conclusion must be backed by the Holy Scriptures. Otherwise common sense could merely be speculation and intuition could easily become sentimentalism.
Selflessness means that we also love and help those who do not follow your particular belief or faith.
In India many temples give prasadam (in the form of spiritually blessed vegetarian food) to everyone. The Vedas teach us to give our helping hand to everybody; to be kind to everyone; to give people a chance to know about the wonderful values there are to be discovered in the world of selflessness. Selflessness is translated in yoga understanding as spontaneous loving devotional service to the controller and enjoyer of everyone. Service for the spiritual wellbeing of all the other living entities is included in the service to the Supreme Lord. That is the topmost degree of selflessness.
There are of course different grades of selflessness. It is also selfless i.e. to give a donation to someone who is hungry instead of buying a new watch, but this selflessness is on the material platform. It is not yet on the level of transmitting the transcendental message of love. All the mystical traditions have their explanations about the different grades and importance of selflessness. But one thing is clear and in common. Our service has to be without a tinge of selfishness.
The crucial question in this regard is how to learn this service attitude.
How to do it? How to become selfless? How to become lovingly devotionally dedicated to the sweet will of God? How can we benefit all others, independentally of who comes in contact with us? They can be Sikh, Jain, Christian, Muslim, Jew, Aztec or whatever. If they are trying to help others to become happy, and they please the Lord, then they will also get increased grace. God loves everyone and inspires everyone according to their wish and according to their surrender.
That is what we accept and what we can get confirmed, when we compare recommendations with each other.
Therefore we would like to gather and present solutions, as they are given by different mystical traditions. As we have already mentioned in the introduction, at this time, we can only present our Vedic point of view, as we are most familiar with it, and we really hope that in future times other practitioners will join and offer their respective processes according to their faith and belief.
When we see what the traditions of Christian mystics have been, what the traditions of the real spiritual deep thinkers, charitable workers or the servants of humanity have been, we will discover to our great satisfaction, that to a large degree, all of them came to the same conclusion.
What is this conclusion? Give people food. Give people what they need. Give them information about their spiritual identity and teach them to be responsible for their actions. If people don’t understand that every action has a reaction and that they will get entangled in this world, according to the way they act, then they are not conscious. They are not responsible. Therefore it is one of the foremost things to get spiritual guidance. As human beings we have to accept, that we have full responsibility for what we are doing.
We pray that all of you may become the topmost selfless people in this lifetime - dedicated to the highest ideals, as you may conceive them.
According to our understanding it is the message of the Holy Name, which will free everybody and will give them purification, discrimination and all the other ingredients necessary for raising their soul with the mercy of God towards the level of purity and love.
There is not much more to be said about it. It is just to be done - day by day. Don’t waste your valuable time. Dedicate yourself to the truth and the message of love.