What Is Seva?

[Guest patanikuch]

WJKK WJKF

WHen we seva plz could somebody tell me what is seva? Is it just doing physical seva like at the gurdwara, washing up etc, or are other things also classed as seva. would be grateful if sombody could tell me of different sorts of seva if there are.

[Gurooo]

http:// http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVfBkNq-l-g

these giys explain it very nicely :waheguru:

[Guest Sarabjeet Singh]

Seva Tan Man Dhan- All three

[Guest John Smith]

I think we really need to define Sewa,and we should really prioritise.

For example, Lavish Langurs, I will never speak against the principle of Langur, it is beautiful in every-way.

But when I see restaurant style, high cholesterol, high fat servings, in the UK, where we all have fridge full of food at home, and we made a 5min drive to the Gurdwara. Is this necessary?

does this serve any spiritual importance?, when low fat, high protein dhaal, Dehee, and roti will do?

Also when we have multi-million pound Gurdwaras within 5 mins of each other, is that sewa? or are we being mislead by our leaders?

We should support REAL causes. Feed the hungry, support shaheed parwaars, help combat drink and drugs in our society.

Imagine your an alcoholic, you lost all your money, you go gurdwara everyday for free langur, because you have no choice.

Or what if the Gurdwara invested more money into combating your illness? We would have 10000's more loyal Sikhs, because they will see the Gurdwaras as their saviors.

Serve humanity where humanity is suffering. in india, feed the hungry, in west, help broken families, protect children from paki peados, help combat obesity, drink, drug abuse. That is true Sewa.

[harsharan000]

Sewa is first of all, a way to be humble, to remove haume in us, the egotism. It is said, humility is the only thing which the Lord likes, because He is the highest...

Sewa is also a means to be more human being, by being helpful and kind in anyway to all creatures, as all have in them, that Light of Him. But not fake humility, but the real one, from the bottom of our hearts, having the sense of gratitude, and taking pleasure in doing it, for being allowed by the Lord, to serve our brother souls; sabna jeea ka iko Daata! having said that, sewas can be of 4 types: tan(body) man(mind), dhan(wealth) and the last one of surat(soul).

The first three, are means to the fourth one. We can do sewa phisically, mentally or with the wealth, in numerous ways. But these sewas should be done in a spirit of detachment, without expecting anything from it, we do it, because we see that holy and divine flame in all beings, without any distinctions, like class, caste, color or creed. In this way our chit or mind, gets cleansed up to an extent, it gets dyed in the colour of a very noble quality: humility.

But the real purpose of our life, is that sewa which we do, with our surat or soul, of Wahiguru or Nam or Shabad, because with that sewa,we are doing good to ourselves, as it is said, we can help others, if only, we first help ourselves. So with Nam bhakti or Nam abhyass we clean the dirt accumulated on our souls, since inmemorial times, since we left Sach Khand and got stuck in this creation, alien land, for which we fight and cut the throats of others, in name of land and religion mainly, which are means of the negative Power to keep entangled our souls in his mayavee planes, or dimensions; and so by doing this sewa, we free it, from the clutches of mind, kal and maya... thus being free ourselves, we will then be in a position, to help in a real spiritual manner, to our fellow brothers and sisters.

Following is a shabad where, we can see the real importance, of this sewa, as it is done by the soul, our real self, to the real objective: "Wahiguru", all other sewas howsoever inspiring and desired may be, but after all are bindings to this creation, but by this Surat Shabad sewa, which is a game of love also, played by the lover soul to its beloved Lord, Akal Purukh, Satnam, we get freed of the biggest curse that one can have, and that is, chaurasee ka chakar, the unending cycle of births and deaths, and freed also, from the five evils: kam krodh lobh moh ahankar, and its masters: mind, maya and kal...

Such is the beauty, and utmost importance of this sewa with all that it implies, as we can see it by ourselves in the beautifull shabad of our panchvi Parshahee Guru arjun Dev :

mil mayray gobind apnaa naam dayh.

Meet me, O my Lord of the Universe. Please bless me with Your Name.

naam binaa Dharig Dharig asnayhu.

Without the Naam, the Name of the Lord, cursed, cursed is love and intimacy.

naam binaa jo pahirai khaa-ay.

Without the Naam, one who dresses and eats well

ji-o kookar joothan meh paa-ay.

is like a dog, who falls in and eats impure foods.

naam binaa jaytaa bi-uhaar. ji-o mirtak mithi-aa seegaar.

Without the Naam, all occupations are useless, like decorations on a dead body.

naam bisaar karay ras bhog.

One who forgets the Naam and indulges in pleasures,

sukh supnai nahee tan meh rog.

shall find no peace, even in dreams; his body shall become diseased.

naam ti-aag karay an kaaj.

One who renounces the Naam and engages in other occupations,

binas jaa-ay jhoothay sabh paaj.

shall see all of his false pretenses fall away.

naam sang man pareet na laavai.

One whose mind does not embrace love for the Naam

kot karam karto narak jaavai.

shall go to hell, even though he may perform millions of ceremonial rituals

har kaa naam jin man na aaraaDhaa.

One whose mind does not contemplate the Name of the Lord

chor kee ni-aa-ee jam pur baaDhaa.

is bound like a thief, in the City of Death.

laakh adambar bahut bisthaaraa.

Hundreds of thousands of ostentatious shows and great expanses

naam binaa jhoothay paasaaraa.

- without the Naam, all these displays are false.

har kaa naam so-ee jan lay-ay.

That humble being repeats the Name of the Lord,

kar kirpaa naanak jis day-ay.

O Nanak, whom the Lord blesses with His Mercy.

And this sewa, of surat shabad , as seen in this simple and lovely shabad, which summarries the essence of real spirituality, we can only have it in the Sadh Sangat, as prasad, not otherwise, as seen in the last two lines of the shabad above.

[Guest Pride on vaisak]

Seva of Waheguru is doin naàm abiyaas best time is AMRIT vela . Then you will automatically c waheguru everywher and wont to serve creation as Waheguru like bhai kanhaya ji. All love and blessin

[harsharan000]

The magic, the wonder, of doing the seva with our surat or soul of Paree Puran Parmatma, Satnam, is that we become one with Wahiguru, the soul , the drop merges and becomes one with the ocean, so there is no such thing like such and such bhagat, we see Lord everywhere and so we serve in that attitude. The thing is that we become one with Waheguru, in all manners, from any point of view.

Here in this phisycall world we have dawn, mornings, afternoons, evenings and nights and so on situations, this world is running on the force of duality, so according to our human level of consciousness, we say such and such time is amrit vela, but the fact is, in the spiritual realms, there is no such thing like mornings or evenings or nights...for example...... so any time given to the devotion of Nam bhakti is ambrosial time, as vela means time or hour and Nam by itself is the true amrit....so any time devoted to Nam bhakti is amrit vela, otherwise we humans are so weak, that , if we do not do Abhyaas, we start giving excuses that, the physicall amrit vela has gone, so tomorrow time shall be given to His devotion; but the thing is tomorrow nobody has seen, so let us not fool ourselves and do our primal duty , that is Nam Bhakti, at any available and suitable time for us daily, as that is what counts, because during that time we are trying to merge our consciousness in that higher consciousness of Waheguru, by doing so, we are doing the highest and real seva for our own self, and the time given for that purpose, is called Amrit Vela.

[Guest AMRIT vela]

No you are confusing the sangat the AMRIT vela is clearly in the early hours of the morning. If that weren't true then y r we told it is . It is because this is the best time to focus on naàm . Clearly you do not do AMRIT vela that is y you cannot comprehend its amazement

[Wicked Warrior]

"Early hours of the morning"

What about in those realms where there is no such thing as morning/evening?

If you go to the north or south poles, it will either be daylight for twenty four hours, or night for twenty four hours. When is "amrit vela" then?

Much in Sikhi seems to have a "superficial" aspect and a "deeper" aspect. Example: naam could just be Name/God's Name, but there is much more to it than that. Similarly, amrit vela, superficially, refers to a period in the early hours of the morning of a day-night cycle, but it goes beyond that, which is what harsharan is talking about.

Similarly, seva can be seen as "helping others", but it goes beyond that. To the OP, start off with things like helping out in the Gurdwara and then going beyond that. One could argue that when the Guru, in his ninth form, gave his head, he was doing seva to the Kashmiri pandits.

[Guest Time to wake up]

Sun or no sun you stil rest and wake up. What you have said make no sense. As we kno winter is darker early. U hav been blessed with lights and alarm clock use them