Reflections On Service

You will all awaken some day to the realisation that the Science of Service is of greater importance than the Science of Meditation, because it is the effort and the strenuous activity of the serving disciple which evokes the soul powers, makes meditation an essential requirement and is the mode which brings about the intensification of the spiritual life.

^{Alice Bailey (adapted)}

Everybody can be great... because anybody can serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to serve. You don’t have to make your subject and verb agree to serve. You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.

^{Martin Luther King Jr.}

There is no higher religion than human service. To work for the common good is the greatest creed.

^{Woodrow Wilson}

We have expressed our belief that one of the major sciences of the coming age will be built up around the active rendering of service. We have used the word “Science” because service, as a spiritual quality, will rapidly be recognised as the phenomenal expression of an inner reality, and along the line of a right understanding of service will come much revelation as to the nature of the soul. Service is a method of producing phenomenal outer and tangible results upon the physical plane; I call your attention to this as an evidence of its creative quality. By right of this creative quality, service will eventually be regarded as a world science. It is a creative urge, a creative impulse, a creative momentous energy. This creativity of service has already been vaguely recognized in the world of human affairs under varying names, such as the science of vocational training. Recognition of the impetus coming from a right understanding of social relations and their study is not lacking. Much is also being studied along this same line in connection with criminology and the right handling of the youth of any nation and national group.

Service is, par excellence, the technique of correct group relations, whether it be the right guidance of an anti-social child in a family, the wise assimilation of a trouble-maker in a group, the handling of anti-social groups in our big cities, the correct technique to be employed in child guidance in our educational centres or the relation between the religious and political parties, or between nation and nation. All of this is part of the new and growing Science of Service. The imposition of this soul law will eventually bring light into a distracted world, and release human energies in right directions. It is not here possible to do more than indicate this briefly. The theme is too large, for it includes the awakening of the spiritual consciousness with its responsibilities, and the welding of the individual into an awakened group; it involves the imposition also of a newer and a higher rhythm upon world affairs. This constitutes, therefore, a definitely scientific endeavor and warrants the attention of the best minds. It should also eventually call forth the consecrated effort of the world disciples.

^{Alice Bailey}

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.

^{Mahatma Gandhi}

I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.

^{Rabindranath Tagore}

I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.

^{Albert Schweitzer}