Episode Transcript
Have you ever wished that you could improve the quality of your relationships or maybe even help other people, but maybe you haven't had a chance to, or the circumstances did not allow it? Today we're gonna talk about serving from the heart. Here on the Spiritual American. We Americans enjoy a wonderful and powerful way of life, but internally and in relationships we may wish for better. Join me as we look beneath the surface and gain insights to transform every aspect of your life. My name is Dr. Anne O'Hare, and this is the Spiritual American. Welcome back everyone. Today we're gonna talk about serving from the heart, but actually it's also serving with the mind, serving through the mind. Nowadays, maybe we would like to be able to help with circumstances that are going on in the world, or maybe even in our families, or maybe in our relationships with our body and so forth, and we feel like we have limited ability to make an impact. So today I'm going to talk about how to use the mind and the heart to have an impact on my life and on the world. So there's a word we use for this. There's two words that I'm going to talk about today. One of them is Mansa seva. Mansa, M-A-N-S-A-S-E-V-A. Seva, I'll put it up here. Mansa Seva. That means service through the mind. And the other word is bhavna. B-H-A-V-N-A. Put the word up here. Bhavna. Bhavna means your deep feelings, your deep innermost feelings. So let's say I am volunteering at a shelter, let's say, and I have a real passion for helping homeless people or helping people, maybe in a disaster or something. And I'm going and volunteering. So my bhavna would be that I really want to help. I feel great compassion for these people and I want to assist them. The other bhavna might be where you. Want to heal a relationship. Let's say you have a sibling that you haven't been close to or something like that, and that maybe you don't really have a physical way to kind of connect so much, but in your heart you really love them and you wish that you could be close, let's say. So I could have the bhavna that our relationship is good and that I love, you know, my sibling and that everything is gonna be okay. That could also be bhavna. So how do we use this here? So I wrote down here, there's ways to serve using the mind and using this, these feelings, these deep feelings. How do I use the mind? Well, I need to be in some kind of a meditation or a reflective state because we want the mind to be quiet and we don't wanna be thinking about anything else. So imagine that the mind has a certain amount of energy. And if I'm thinking about something, I'm using up the energy for the thoughts, or if I have emotions about something, I'm definitely using up the energy. Actually, thoughts are one level, but emotions are very high cost in terms of mental energy. So we wanna get into a calm state. So when I'm in a calm state, so let's give an example. Let's say I have a situation at work and I'm not sure how to handle it, and I don't feel good about it, but I wish for a resolution. And I've been finding myself maybe blaming somebody or, 'cause I'm a little confused and I'm blaming someone and I feel uncomfortable, I don't know what to say and so forth. So I'm sitting in meditation and I would like to have a resolution in that area one way or the other. And I want myself to feel good about the resolution. And my bhavna is that everybody's okay, that everyone's taken care of. I'm really in my heart, not against anyone, so I'm sitting in meditation and I'm gonna bring up the situation. First I need to be calm, right? Calm and focused and relaxed. And then I'm gonna calmly bring up the situation and I'm going to serve. What does that mean? I'm gonna watch. Because I know the situation, obviously I've been running it through my mind, so I know it clearly, so I'm bringing it up. But I'm also aware that I don't have a resolution, right? So I'm bringing it up just as it is, and maybe you can imagine that, you know, God is looking at it too, or maybe it's in a big, vast loving environment, the situation. So there's a huge amount of love and a huge amount of support when you're bringing up this situation in your mind. And in that moment, I'm bringing it up and I'm saying, okay, looking at it and then just giving good wishes to that situation to each person. And as you're doing that, one thing you may notice is that you begin to understand or have compassion or empathy for everybody's position. I'll give an example. When we, I recently, had to go back to the office when, government made us go back to the office. I worked for the government and I remember when I went back and the people at work, some of them were very angry and they were blaming the government, they were like, well, I want to work from home. There's no reason I have to be here. I can do this from home and so forth. And so this is just an example, but I remember two things. One thing is I just said, I'm not gonna complain. I'm just happy I still have a job, right? Because you never know what's gonna happen. So I said to myself, okay, just I'm happy that I have a job. But one thing that I noticed. Was that I started to, because I was trying to stay calm and because of the situation, I knew I couldn't change it, but I wanted to have a good, a positive attitude in the situation. I remember thinking, wow, I'm really glad I don't have to make those decisions. So for some reason I felt like I could put myself in the place of the leadership maybe. And anyway, for those of you out here who have been touched by this, I'm not trying to bring it up as a trigger. I'm just giving it as an example. If you sit with something a little bit when you're, when you're calm and you're looking at it in meditation, you may get insights that you didn't think of before. You may be able to put yourself in somebody else's place. You may be able to forgive something. You may be able to have compassion. You may be able to have patience or understand that where this person's coming from, and maybe they have some work to do in that area or something. But you are detached, but you're also very loving. So this bhavna can start to generate itself. I have bhavna for this situation. It's going to be fine, and I'm sending good wishes to this situation. So I wrote down here a couple of areas so we can serve the self in this way. We can serve the body. Very important by the way, service to the body when we have something going on with the body. I would say I, I'm sure I'm not alone, but we have negative thoughts about that. Maybe we're impatient, maybe we're upset because something happened. Maybe I made a mistake. Maybe I've been injured and I am very impatient and maybe negative about what's going on with the body. That negativity is not helping, obviously. It's not changing it. So what if I were to change that attitude, okay, this is happening. I'm remaining calm and I'm sending good wishes. Knowing that the situation will change. One thing that we know, nothing stays the same, right? Nothing in the physical world stays the same, so it's going to change at some point. So in the meantime, while I'm waiting for it to change, am I gonna be negative or I'm gonna give good wish? This is a spiritual secret, by the way. So the title of this episode is Serving from the Heart. The heart would be the bhavna. But how do you give that? You have to give it through the mind. Service to others. So again, you can bring up family members, you can bring up situations. Service to all souls. So this is where we get into that angelic consciousness where I am just a soul and I have good wishes for everyone. I love everyone. I wish that everyone feels peace. I wish that everyone feels love and feels belonging, and then there's service to nature so you can serve nature, have good wishes for nature and appreciation and love for nature, and then service to the world, like it's me and the world. I'm serving the world. All the situations you, maybe you can bring them up if you are not gonna get triggered, if you're completely calm. And you can bring up any situation and just serve it. I wish that it would be resolved. I wish that everybody's okay. I have love for everyone. I have compassion for the suffering of others, but I'm maintaining a detached and loving state. So you could say that serving from the heart means that I'm detached and loving. I am relaxed. I'm in meditation, and I'm bringing up the situation, and then I'm letting my heart give. What does this do? It does two things. It saves you from being negative. That's one. Actually, it does three things. It saves you from being negative. It gives you a sense that you're doing something. There's so much in life that we don't have a chance to do anything, isn't it? We're sitting watching it happen, but we don't have a chance to make a difference. Maybe not to our satisfaction. So that's the second thing. And the third thing is we get to practice being benevolent. Very, very important in spiritual effort that I'm practicing giving good wishes and pure feelings and love to everyone. And it doesn't have to be phony. 'cause some of you might be thinking, well, what if I don't feel love? Well, that's why you have to get in meditation first. You have to become calm first, then bring the situation up, and then you say to yourself, okay, we, regardless of whatever I thought, at that other level, at this level, at this pure heart level, I do love everyone. I do wish everyone well. So think about it. We'll try a little quick meditation right now on this. We'll practice. Let's practice service to all souls. So sitting quietly, I realize that I'm sitting in a chair and I'm also the spiritual being here. I exist. I'm here. I bring my attention to the center of my forehead and imagine a sparkling point of light. This represents I the soul. Let the body relax. I am the living consciousness, the peaceful, gentle being, and I feel myself. With the feeling of peace and love, generosity, I am the living consciousness. I am an embodiment of peace. And an embodiment of love. And now in my heart, I wish that all souls feel peace, that all souls feel loved and cherished. And have a deep sense of self-respect and belonging. I sincerely wish this for all souls, for myself, and for all souls. If you're able to feel this feeling, bring your family in now. I wish that all the souls in my family feel peace and self-respect and a deep sense of belonging. Now I'm giving to nature, I'm giving to other souls. Just continually let the vibrations of peace and love continue. To radiate as I use the mind to direct the energy, bring my body in. Take a moment to serve my body, good wishes for my body, gratitude for the body. Lots and lots of love. Now preparing to come back to a deep breath and exhale, bring your awareness, more waking awareness up into your face. And move your fingers and toes a little bit and now we're back. So that was just a tiny little taste. The idea is to allow yourself to get kind of immersed into the feeling. You're just one with the feeling. The mind is still operating. 'cause you're directing, you're creating a thought, and all your love and all your energy is going towards with that thought. So I will leave it there. That is the process of Mensa Seva serving from the heart and getting in touch with our Bhavna, our deep, powerful feelings. And so our slogan is Heal, power, and Serve. And until next time, take care.
