In this article, we are approaching the dimension of service. Service means aligning our decisions, behaviours and actions to benefit humanity. It is basically to make ourselves available to serve others, in alignment with our highest intention. At this level, we become aware of our interdependence, which is a key component to be truly at service. When two things or beings are interdependent, it simply means that they are dependent on one another, just like any of us is dependent on other people to survive, strive, live and evolve.
To illustrate that, think about one material thing that you really like or are very attached to. It can be your house, your car, a toy, a souvenir, a book or even food, like chocolate or a fruit. Now trace back all the process that produced and took it to you. You’ll find that a numerous quantity of people, technologies and equipments is necessary to satisfy your own needs. And you will feel and understand what interdependence is. Interdependence requires us to put our deepest humanity into practice, expanding our feeling of interconnectedness, cultivating our ability for altruism and opening ourselves to the essence of happiness. All this we can access when we allow ourselves to be in a place of service to the evolution of ourselves, of others and of nature.
Another essential component of service is to be able to receive. Even better, we all need to master the openness to the golden virtue of giving and receiving. The more we give, share and serve, the more we receive from other people, from the planet and from the universe. It can be love, care, peace, help, guidance, money, among many others. And there is nothing more natural than that, because this is how nature works. Every plant, every animal, every being gives and receives from and to the whole. So when we are serving, we prepare the soil, we give it the necessary conditions, we guarantee that the whole is fertile, and we create the conditions for the seeds we gently give away born, grow, flourish and offer its fruits not only for ourselves, but to whoever is ready to harvest them. If we are ready to give, and allow others to receive, we become then ready to receive. We can only recognize something that we know, and we can only know what we experience. And this kind of experience requires us to be there whole, entirely present with our mind, our heart and our will.
In this sense, by incorporating the awareness of interdependence and the virtue of giving and receiving, we give ourselves the opportunity to bring our presence to the moment we are living. And being present amplifies our power of listening, both from our own hearts and the other’s, and allows our mind to perceive the deep connection that exists between all beings, opening our perceptiveness, inventiveness and creativity. And this opens up the way for us to recognize opportunities to generate positive impact in the world. The love and all virtues that exist in us expand as our conscience expands. Without being present, cooperating and experiencing interdependence, we cannot acknowledge how serving strongly affects our lives, whether we are giving or receiving. And the more we recognize serving in the other, in the whole, as an extension of ourselves, the more it becomes natural, going beyond the limits of our blood ties and human forms. We recognize ourselves in others, in nature, in life, in the whole. We experience equanimity.
The evolutionist Martin Nowakand said that:
“Cooperation is the architect of creativity throughout evolution. Without cooperation there is neither construction, nor complexity, nor evolution. Cooperation, not [only] competition, supports innovation”.
Therefore, what is observed is that serving others foster the benefits of our mutual interdependence, giving back to us more and more the ability to perceive, create and act generating positive impact in the world. A holistic beneficial virtuous cycle, which is completely available for any of us at any time.
And whenever conditions become more complex and threatening, we cooperate to form entities capable of dealing with this complexity and threat. We humans, for example, form tribes, towns, cities, states, countries, and global institutions when our opportunities and challenges can no longer be explored or solved by the way they have been currently addressed, for example. Cooperation stands therefore as a fundamental condition for life to thrive. Our existence, development, happiness and wellbeing then depends on meeting our needs and exhibiting virtues such as empathy, compassion, generosity and altruism. Altruism, apropos, is a virtue worth of our attention and energy as a gateway to foster our journey of serving.
Altruism has been corroborated in recent years by extensive research in psychology and neuroscience. There is a plethora of data that shows that when individuals engage in generous and altruistic behaviors, they activate circuits in the brain that are critical to promoting lasting well-being. The documentary “The revolution of altruism” is a deep reflection about how cooperation and altruism are an essential part of our human nature, and it is more dominant than self-interest. It may feel counterintuitive since the great majority of people are immersed in an economy strongly based on competitiveness and individualism, but many studies have found that people’s first impulse is to cooperate rather than compete.
In sum, when we allow ourselves to be present in the moment to serve in a cooperative and altruístic manner, we experience the equanimity of interdependence and the universal law of giving and receiving, generating positive impact, wellness and happiness not only for ourselves, but for all beings in our planet and above. The greek word Eudaimonia, commonly translated as ‘wellness’ or ‘happiness’, etymologically means “I who have divine power”. It basically means that we all have in ourselves everything we need to be happy, we all have this power, this divine and collectively-shared inherent potential to live an everlasting bliss. Therefore, to be happy we just need to… be happy. As Mahatma Gandhi once said:
“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”
To bring such blessing to our own lives we can simply start placing ourselves in a place of serving our true self, others and the planet. All the rest emerge naturally as we walk our journey. Realizing, being aware and consciously taking this journey every day completely changed our lives. And the lives of so many incredible people that we had the honor to help, mentor, experience, work and co-create with. If this message touched your heart, we invite you to set the intention to know more about everything we do together at We.Flow, and join us on this journey of evolving and positively contributing to the world.
Together, we will understand and find out how you can serve more in your current life, experiencing with all participants how we can activate interdependence and benefit it, at the same time that we are generating positive impact in our reality. When we place ourselves in a place of serving, we naturally connect to our higher intention, and reframe our relationships, lifestyle and careers. We also invite you to read our other 4 articles related to this breathtaking journey of self-evolution and positive impact.
Flow with us, together, for a better world !!!
