Hey everybody. It’s nice to be here and to start looking into Sikhism.
A true, short story follows of what has got this Gora interested in delving into Sikhism (hint: it’s Seva!):
“How do you feel about that?” sounds like an innocuous question and you’d never guess that so few words could shake the foundations of a person’s world but that’s precisely what happened to me a little while back. The context was simple enough; my partner’s fifteen year-old niece, Kiran, had been excluded from school and had been placed in a referral unit owing to her anti-social behaviour and it was obvious that her cultural milieu wasn’t going to improve any time soon. We decided to bring her out from the British inner-city to live with us here in our beautiful sierra in southern Spain.
The above question (“How do you feel about that?”) came instinctively from a friend upon being informed of the situation. In that very moment I saw that instead of viewing the opportunity to help a fellow human being as a positive occurrence, my friend’s perspective was all about how such a course of action would impact negatively upon her own life. She wasn’t the only person amongst my friends who had difficulty understanding how we could possibly contemplate interrupting our paradisiacal existence here in the foothills of the majestic Sierra de Grazalema by introducing a troubled teenager into our lives.
I found it hard to believe that anybody could even ask that question. Surely when a family member, especially a fifteen-year-old child, is going off the rails it’s one’s responsibility as an adult to intervene and help in whatever way necessary; however, in these self-obsessed times that’s no longer the default response for a lot of people. It is obviously, and tragically, more important to concentrate purely on oneself and turn away from those in need.
I began ruminating on whether this disinclination to seva is a timeless phenomenon and something merely exacerbated by the recent emergence of the social media, face-in-phone existence we all inhabit. Were we formerly more given to offering selfless service or has it always been a relatively rare offering?
What was particularly interesting about this dialogue was that the person in question was far from the stereotype of a "heartless capitalist"(or however you'd like to cast an obvious bad guy). Her group of friends are very central in the local yoga world and she constantly speaks of meditation, Ayahuasca and other “spiritual” practices…but, crucially, she seems to have missed the most significant side of spiritual life: dedication to others less fortunate than oneself.
The million-dollar question is how do we make seva as popular in the west as yoga and meditation? Is it possible to create a society (or perhaps enclaves of selfless compassion) where seva becomes central to more people’s lives? Or has the self-absorption of our narcissistic, neo-liberal ways destroyed any possibility of this occurring?
Anyway, nice light question to get myself acquainted with y'all!
