By Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar| Posted: October 30, 2018

Do you know how to ride a bicycle? How do you balance? Exactly like that.

If you are doing service for the society, and you are getting drowned in it, and you are neglecting your family, something will pinch you – listen to that pinch.

Similarly, if you’re so drowned in your family, only my wife, my kid, my husband, my children, my parents, then also something pinches. "Oh, I didn’t even think about the world, I didn’t think about others. I’m only thinking about myself! 100 percent of the money I earned I’ve used on myself – I haven’t contributed to anybody!" Then it’ll pinch you.

People are ready to buy expensive clothes for themselves, people are ready to spend a huge amount on their holidays, but they’re not ready to give one dollar to others for a service project. At least 3 percent of what we earn, we should keep aside and donate it for charity work; to do good work for the society. This converts 97 percent of your earnings into good money.

If you want to use 100 percent on yourself – no good! If the money needs to be pure and good, it can only be 97 percent or less (laughs). You’re free to use the 97 percent on yourself, but the 3–5 percent, whatever, keep aside and donate. This is because whatever you earn is never enough for yourself! You ask anyone, they feel, "Oh! There's shortage.” Everyone finds lack.

When we first started our Ashram, there were so many people coming, we had too few rooms, and we had a shortage of toilets and halls, but I said, "No, we have to do service projects outside the Ashram. We have to build toilets for all poor villagers outside."

Our people said, "We’re short for ourselves."

But I said, "It’ll never be enough for us. You build now, but again our need will keep increasing because people will keep coming."

You cannot say, "First I’ll do everything for us and then I’ll do seva for others." We have to do both. Every pillar we build here, we should build one for poor people as well, and that was what we did.

Now, everybody in all the villages around the Ashram have homes and toilets. Earlier they lived in mud huts with thatched roofs – now you’ll not find a single mud hut; people are all prosperous.

So it’s collective growth, and that’s what we must aim for. We must listen to our hearts! If we listen to our hearts, we’ll find success in every action of ours. Every action will be beneficial and benevolent for us and for everybody else as well.

The results of belongingness

Belongingness can bring about a host of negative emotions like demand, jealousy, unawareness and lack of gratitude. Just look into your own life, you feel more grateful to strangers than the people who “belong” to you.

Belongingness reduces gratefulness, awareness, and gives rise to demands which destroy love.

This is the biggest problem in relationships. We’re nice to strangers and give more attention to them. With a sense of belongingness comes lack of care and attention.

Belongingness can make you insensitive, dull, and take away the charm in life! Anyway, who belongs to whom in this world? Here you’re a stranger and everyone is a stranger to you.

Blessings of strangers and obligations

Blessed are those who feel they are strangers. You feel more obligation to a stranger than the person who belongs to you. An obligation is very good to keep a check on your ego. It makes you humble. There’s no greater antidote to ego than humility. Being humble is the beginning of all virtues.

People have such resistance to obligation. They don’t realize that they’re always under obligation, whether giving or taking! Dull people think that one is obliged only when one takes. The wise know that even when giving, one is under obligation, as the person has accepted what one gives. So whether you give or take, you’re under obligation. And if someone doesn’t give or take, you still are! For they’re freeing you from visible obligation!

That’s to say, you’re obliged to all those who don’t make you obliged! Got it?

Life renews itself every time by making you a stranger in this old and familiar world. You’re simply loaded with obligations and you’re a total stranger in this world every moment!