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| One Legitimate Use of Power
by Keshavan Nair
Gandhi never held any official position in government, he had no wealth, the commanded no armies -- but he could mobilize millions. People were willing to serve with him and for him because his life was devoted to serving them.
Many of us have come to believe that leadership is the attainment of power. But as long as power dominates our thinking about leadership, we cannot move toward a higher standard of leadership. We must place service at the core; for even though power will always be associated with leadership, it has only one legitimate use: service.
The importance of service to leadership has a long history. Ancient monarchs acknowledged that they were in the service of their country and their people -- even if their actions were not consistent with this. Modern coronation ceremonies and inaugurations of heads of state all involve the acknowledgement of service to God, country, and the people. Politicians define their role in terms of public service. And service has always been at the core of leadership in the spiritual arena, symbolized at the highest level by Christ washing the feet of His disciples.
Service exists in the context of a relationship. In politics, it is between elected officials and their constituents, in academia between teachers and their students, in religion between priests and their congregations, and in interpersonal relationships between loved ones. In business it is between companies and their customers, shareholders, management and their employees.
The ideal of selfless service -- you see everybody as yourself and expect no reward. But if you wait until you can serve without any selfish motive, you may wait forever. Gandhi insisted that the best way to attain the ideal was to start on the journey: "If we all refuse to serve, until we attain perfection, there will be no service. The fact is that perfection is attained through service."
--Keshavan Nair, in A Higher Standard of Leadership
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| What You Have Given Your Mind to Do
by Michael Singer
If you mistreat an animal, it becomes afraid. This is what has happened to your psyche. You have mistreated it by giving it a responsibility that is incomprehensible. Just stop for a moment and see what you have given your mind to do. You said to your mind, “I want everyone to like me. I don’t want anyone to speak badly of me. I want everything I say and do to be pleasing and acceptable to everyone. I don’t want anyone to hurt me. I don’t want anything to happen that I don’t like. And I want everything to happen that I do like.” Then you said, “Now mind, go figure out how to make everyone of these things a reality, even if you have to think about it day and night." And of course your mind says, “I’m on the job. I will work on i constantly." [...]
By watching your mind, you will notice that it is engaged in the process of trying to make everything okay. Consciously remember that this is not what you want to do, and then gently disengage it. Do not fight it. Do not ever fight your mind. You will never win. It will either beat you now, or you will suppress it and it will come back and beat you later. Instead of fighting the mind, just don’t participate in it. When you see the mind telling you how to fix the world and everyone in it in order to suit yourself, just don’t listen.
The key is to be quiet. It’s not that your mind has to be quiet. You be quiet. You, the one inside watching the neurotic mind, just relax. You will then naturally fall behind the mind because you have always been there. You are not the thinking mind; you are aware of the thinking mind. [...]
Just keep doing this with all those little things that come up each day. It is a very private thing you do inside yourself. You will soon see that your mind is driving you crazy over nothing. If you don’t want to be like that, then stop putting energy into your psyche. That is all there is to it. If you follow this path, the only action you ever take is to relax and release. When you start to see this stuff going on inside, you just relax your shoulders, relax your heart and fall back behind it. Do not touch it. Do not get involved in it. And do not try to stop it. Simply be aware that you are seeing it. That’s how you get out. You just let it go.
- Michael Singer, from "The Untethered Soul"
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| There Is Just One Thing To Do
by Byron Katie
When you become a lover of what is, there are not more decisions to make. In my life, I just wait and watch. I know that the decision will be made in its own time, so I let go of when, where, and how. I like to say I'm a woman with no future. When there are no decisions to make, there's no planned future. All my decisions are made for me, just as they are all made for you. When you mentally tell yourself the story that you have something to do with it, you're attaching to an underlying belief. […]
I would often return from a long trip to find the house hull of dirty laundry, piles of mail on my desk, the dog dish crusted, the bathrooms a mess, and the sink piled high with dishes. The first time this happened, I heard a voice that said, "Do the dishes". It was like coming upon the burning bush, and the voice from the bush said, "Do the dishes." It didn't sound very spiritual to me, but just followed its directions. I would stand at the sink and just wash the next dish, or sit with the piles of bills and pay the one on top. Just one at a time. Nothing else was required. At the end of the day, everything would be done, and I didn't need to understand who or what did it.
When a thought appears, such as "Do the dishes" and you don't do them, notice how an internal war breaks out. It sounds like this, "I'll do them later. I should have done them by now. My roommate should have done them. It's not my turn. It's not fair. People will think less of me if I don't do them now." The stress and weariness you feel are really mental combat fatigue.
What I call "doing the dishes" is the practice of loving the task in front of you. Your inner voice guides you all day long to do simple things such as brush your teeth, drive to work, call you friend, or do the dishes. Even though it's just another story, it's a very short story, and when you follow the direction of the voice, that story ends. We are really alive when we live as simply as that -- open, waiting, trusting, and loving to do what appears in front of us now.
What we need to do unfolds before us, always -- doing the dishes, paying the bills, picking up the children's socks, brushing our teeth. We never receive more than we can handle, and there is always just one thing to do. Life never gets more difficult than that.
- Byron Katie, from 'Loving What Is' | | |
| Recognizing the Real Fear
by Erich From
In the sphere of human relations, faith is an indispensable quality of any significant friendship or love. “Having faith” in another person means to be certain of the reliability and unchangeability of his fundamental attitudes, of the core of his personality, of his love. By this I do not mean that a person may not change his opinions, but that his basic motivations remain the same; that, for instance, his respect for life and human dignity is part of himself, not subject to change. […]
To have faith requires courage, the ability to take a risk, the readiness even to accept pain and disappointment. Whoever insists on safety and security as primary conditions of life cannot have faith; whoever shuts himself off in a system of defense, where distance and possession are his means of security, makes himself a prisoner. To be loved, and to love, need courage, the courage to judge certain values as of ultimate concern – and to take the jump and to stake everything on these values. […]
Is there anything to be practiced about faith and courage? Indeed, faith can be practiced at every moment. It takes faith to bring up a child; it takes faith to fall asleep; it takes faith to begin any work. […]
The practice of faith and courage begins with the small details of daily life. The first step is to notice where and when one loses faith, to look through the rationalizations which are used to cover up this loss of faith, to recognize where one acts in a cowardly way, and again how one rationalizes it. To recognize how every betrayal of faith weakens one, and how increased weakness leads to new betrayal, and so on, in a vicious circle. Then one will also recognize that while one is consciously afraid of not being loved, the real, though usually unconscious fear is that of loving. To love means to commit oneself without guarantee, to give oneself completely. Love is an act of faith, and whoever is of little faith is also of little love.
- By Erich Fromm, From "The Art of Loving" | | |
| ... for alternative breaks! every time you search the internet using www.goodsearch.com, you raise 1 cent for alternative breaks!
1) visit www.goodsearch.com
2) enter "alternative breaks" as your charity of choice
3) select the ucsd program in the drop down menu
4) download it as your search engine in your toolbar
it will take about five seconds for the whole process and you can help us raise money to celebrate international and national volunteer trips over spring and summer breaks for ucsd students. it's so easy!
thanks!
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