My Experience With Seva

      The notion that we are all connected seems to be a recurring theme in my life of late. This morning as I sat with my friend Mina quietly catching up, I spoke to her of my neighbor Gabe (pronounced Gay-bee...she's German). Gabe has become very dear to me and, in her own way, is helping to fill a hole that has been left by my strained relationship with my mother. She is eighty-five years old and is losing her sight to macular degenerative disease. We spend time together each week doing different activities, depending upon what she needs. I have picked up her cleaning, taken her to the mall when she is running out of facial products, fixed an alarm clock, deliver dinners, or sometimes we just sit and I listen to her stories as we sip tea and she holds my little dachshund Gobi. Gobi is how this connection began. Our daughter wanted a little dog, something Pete and I had never contemplated; we considered ourselves “big dog” people. German Shepards, Labs, Rhodesian Ridgebacks, that we know, but a fifteen pounder? Jayne found Gobi at a pet rescue where he immediately stole her heart, and we set up a one on one visit with him. One look at that adorable, long haired weenie dog and we were all in agreement, he needed to come home with us. What we didn't know is that weenie dogs are infamous for barking, and boy did he live up to the reputation.

     One day, shortly after Gobi arrived, a woman was at our back gate trying to rouse my attention over the cacophony of dog barking. I went to the gate and let her in, she said she heard we had a Dachshund. I thought she meant word was getting around about my yippie dog, then I realized she could not see and literally meant she heard him. It seems her mother had raised doxies in Germany and she owned one until recently when her eye sight became too poor. When she found herself tripping over her own dachshund (they love to hide under your feet), she decided she had to give him up. The love that shone in her face as she held Gobi for the first time was wondrous and I immediately felt that the universe put this dog in our path for her. I asked if Gobi and I could come for an occassional visit and a freindship was born. She is a fascinating woman who survived Hitler's Germany, met and married an American Airforce pilot, and then left everything she knew behind to come to America. Mina pointed out that I am practicing seva, or selfless service, each time I sit with Gabe. I pondered this idea; it doesn't feel like a “service” when I'm with her, it warms my heart to be in a relationship with this beautiful woman, which is exactly what seva should do. There is a reverence that accompanies practicing seva. A highly spiritual motivation lies behind one's actions and it is palpable to both the giver and the receiver. Truly seva is an experience of our interconnectedness.

     The Dalai Lama says that “given the scale of life in the cosmos, one human life is no more than a tiny blip. Each one of us is a just visitor to this planet, a guest, who will only stay for a limited time. What greater folly could there be than to spend this short time alone, unhappy or in conflict with our companions? Far better, surely, to use our short time here in living a meaningful life, enriched by our sense of connection with others and being of service to them”. I believe that an abundance of gifts have come my way thanks to seva, and I'm not talking material abundance. I feel loved and appreciated in ways now that I had only read about in self-help books before. I have started to truly love and appreciate myself, somethng that was elusive to me in my youth, and feel content on most days with exactly where I am. Through each experience of seva that I undertake I find I am able to open my heart more and more to the people that are in front of me. I guess I now know why the Beatles lyrics “the love you take is equal to the love you make” has been my mantra for so may years; I was destined to practice seva, just as the Dalai Lama says we all should do.