Question: Is the one who does the most selfless service the best disciple?

Sri Chinmoy: As I said before, one may do twenty, forty or fifty hours of selfless service a week, but the consciousness may be very, very low. If the consciousness is in the gutter during selfless service, then that selfless service is of no avail. The best disciple is the one who does not only selfless service, but unconditional service. Unconditional service does not mean only to work on the physical plane. Service can be on the physical plane, the vital plane, the mental plane and the psychic plane. The person who does unconditional service on all the planes is the best disciple.

Unfortunately, many of you do not know what the vital plane is, what the mental plane is, what the psychic plane is. You pay attention only to selfless service on the physical plane. But I wish to say that selfless service can be on all the planes. If you are washing dishes or guarding me, then you are executing the Will of the Supreme on the physical plane. And if you offer your good will or if you have a very high, sublime meditation, then on the inner plane you are executing the Will of the Supreme. Undoubtedly, that is also selfless service. Anything that you do to become soulfully one, devotedly one, unreservedly one, unconditionally one with the Will of the Supreme is selfless service.

If you can do the highest form of meditation on the psychic plane, mental plane and vital plane, then you are doing the best form of selfless service. Again, if you do unconditional selfless service on the physical plane, then you are getting the result of the highest meditation. There is no difference between the highest form of selfless service and the highest form of meditation. If you can soulfully, spontaneously and unconditionally do either meditation or selfless service, you will gain the same.

You have to know your own capacity, your highest in selfless service and your highest in meditation. If you do selfless service most soulfully and devotedly according to your capacity, then that is your highest. You have to compare your meditation and your selfless service with your own standard, not with somebody else's. Then you will make the best progress. But if you all the time look around to see who is doing the best service or who is doing the best meditation, then you are depriving yourself of the benefit of the selfless service or meditation. Comparison has to be with your own capacity, with your own inner hunger.

From:Sri Chinmoy,Service-heroes, Agni Press, 1978
Sourced from https://srichinmoylibrary.com/sh