How Can I Help?: Stories and Reflections on Service

by Ram Dass

Yet if we stop to consider why it all felt so good, we sense that some deeper process was at work. Expressing our innate generosity, we experienced our “kin”-ship, our “kind”-ness. It was “Us.” In service, we taste unity.

How much are we willing to give, and what are we holding on to? How do we really feel about the place of helping in our lives? We needn’t go deep beneath the surface before we encounter our ambivalence. We note the interplay of generosity and resistance, self-sacrifice and self-protectiveness. What do we hear as we imagine the mind wrestling with the impulses of the heart?

Sometimes I help, and sometimes I don’t. I hold the door open for one behind me, or I rush through preoccupied in thought. I vote, but not always. When solicitations come through the mail, some catch my eye or heart and I send at least something. Others I basket as junk mail. A friend is having a hard time. I think I should phone to see how she is, but I just don’t feel like doing it tonight. I’d do anything to help the family. But how much is enough? When to stretch a little further? Whose needs come first? Those close to me get an immediate hearing. The suffering of people more remote gets sporadic attention. I’m only vaguely aware of it. It’s out there somewhere. Whom should I help anyway? Senior citizens, battered children, human-rights victims, whales? Well, if we don’t defuse the nuclear threat, there’ll be no tomorrow. But if we don’t support education and the arts, what kind of tomorrow will it be? If I stop to think about it, I help out for all kinds of reasons. Maybe it’s because I should; it’s a matter of responsibility. But there’s usually a maze of other motives: a need for self-esteem, approval, status, power; the desire to feel useful, find intimacy, pay back some debt. Sometimes I’ll help through organizations. But the purpose of helping and the people who really need it often seem to fall through the cracks. Maybe I’d rather do it one-to-one, keep my options open, help out here and there. I expect my government to relieve suffering. Sometimes it does. But ...

We’re genuinely eager to aid the physically or mentally ill. But, frankly, we like the status, even the power, of being a “health professional.” Some part of us takes pride at being the apparent source of another’s well-being.

Bhagavad Gita, that “no step is lost on this path … and even a little progress is freedom from fear.” The reward, the real grace, of conscious service, then, is the opportunity not only to help relieve suffering but to grow in wisdom, experience greater unity, and have a good time while we’re doing it.

The most familiar models of who we are—father and daughter, doctor and patient, “helper” and “helped”—often turn out to be major obstacles to the expression of our caring instincts; they limit the full measure of what we have to offer one another. But when we break through and meet in spirit behind our separateness, we experience profound moments of companionship. These, in turn, give us access to deeper and deeper levels of generosity and loving kindness. True compassion arises out of unity.

A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

Hundreds of times a day, we shift costumes to fit appropriate roles. This is the life of the separate self, moving through the world of “other.”

As we acquire a certain degree of equanimity in self-image, we are that much more likely to feel empathy for those around us.

Because we often identify ourselves, consciously or not, with our shortcomings, we may feel that we don’t have enough, that we just aren’t enough, to help meet the needs of others. We give very little because we feel very small.

So often we deny ourselves and others the full resources of our being simply because we’re in the habit of defining ourselves narrowly and defensively to begin with. Less flexible, less versatile, we inevitably end up being less helpful.

If we’re only seeing one part of the picture about ourselves, positive or negative, that’s all we’ll be able to make real to anybody else. Caught in the models of the separate self, then, we end up diminishing one another. The more you think of yourself as a “therapist,” the more pressure there is on someone to be a “patient.”

When our models of who we are fall away, we are free simply to meet and be together. And when this sense of being encompasses all—one another, the park, the rain, everything—separateness dissolves and we are united in compassion. Helpful Being, then, is the goal. What we have to offer others will come from our sense of unity. So we look for and cherish those experiences in which we feel ourselves connected to all things in the universe.

So what really happens if you’re going to explore whether or not this vision of our nature really has power? Maybe people will say you’re taking chances. But you’re taking chances without any vision; your vision is your protection. Maybe they’ll say you’re sentimentalizing people. But it’s not about people. It’s about principle and truth. It’s about how the universe is. Maybe they’ll think it’s idealistic; things could never be this way. Well, for me, things are this way already; it’s just up to us to know that more clearly.

Our work to move beyond separateness may also strengthen our sense of abundance. We feel like we need less because we’re coming to see just how much we’ll always have access to. We don’t have to ration our helping acts quite so carefully. We needn’t constantly measure just how much we’ll be able to offer before we get depleted. We don’t have to feel as if we are sacrificing by giving. Beyond separateness, service replenishes. “To forget the Self is to be enlightened by all things.”

Fear is the mind’s reaction against the inherent generosity of the heart.

Because the heart knows no bounds to its giving, the mind feels called upon to define limits. Under such tension, little wonder our choices of how to respond to the pain of others seem so difficult.

Compassion and pity are very different. Whereas compassion reflects the yearning of the heart to merge and take on some of the suffering, pity is a controlled set of thoughts designed to assure separateness. Compassion is the spontaneous response of love; pity, the involuntary reflex of fear.

Since many professionals even believe that it’s appropriate “not to get involved,” they demonstrate a cool efficiency and impersonal friendliness, at best a façade, at worst plain hypocrisy. They become like their machines: cool green, giving off a competent hum. It’s a way of plasticizing human relationships to keep them sterile, free of contact germs.

Denial, abstraction, pity, professional warmth, compulsive hyperactivity: these are a few of the ways in which the mind reacts to suffering and attempts to restrict or direct the natural compassion of the heart. This tension between head and heart leaves us tentative and confused. As we reach out, then pull back, love and fear are pitted against one another. As hard as this is for us, what must it be like for those who need our help?

Our tendency when we acknowledge qualities in ourselves like fear of suffering or loss of control may be to judge ourselves. Found selfish, uncaring, impatient, unworthy … we’re embarrassed and uncomfortable at the recognition of our “weakness.” We have not taken to heart the example of the biblical Paul, who said, “My strength is made perfect through weakness.

When two people are at one in their inmost hearts, They shatter even the strength of iron or of bronze. And when two people understand each other in their inmost hearts, Their words are sweet and strong, like the fragrance of orchids. I Ching

Obviously training is valuable. We want our lawyers, counselors, and teachers to know what they’re doing. Yet to identify them only with their know-how is to shortchange all and turn our relationship into a transaction between one who knows and one who doesn’t. Patterns of behavior get frozen. The aura of know-how in the helper can undermine our confidence as the helped in defining issues for ourselves.

The condition of helplessness is one that we tend to push away, deny, or stigmatize as a society and as individuals. Our cultural myths neither encourage us to accept a common helplessness nor teach us how to act upon it. When it’s suddenly thrust upon us, we’re unprepared. For example, many of us feel resigned to helplessness as citizens. In a society that so inordinately emphasizes power, many of us feel we have little influence over conditions beyond our most immediate circumstances. We may see injustice and neglect or sense the sterility of mass culture. The quality of education, the organization of work, the anonymity of community life, all may distress us. But we frequently feel impotent to change these conditions. The choices we’re given often seem empty and hollow. Half of us don’t vote for president; even fewer elect local officials. We’re offered thirty brands of blue jeans; everyone knows they’re really the same. The program on television is a bore; we switch channels—some choice. Frustrations accumulate, resignation reigns. “What are we going to do?” we sigh. What’s the point in dwelling upon it? It only makes us feel worse.

The philosopher Gurdjieff pointed out that if we wish to escape from prison, the first thing we must acknowledge is that we are in prison. Without that acknowledgment, no escape is possible. That is, as long as we feel that these roles are inevitable, functional, or the best we can do, it’s unlikely that we’ll be alert to alternatives.

When we see that service is not a one-way street, we find that those we are helping give us a continuous stream of clues to help us escape the prison of our self-image. More than simply letting us know what might be working or not, they help us when they question our very models of ourselves. They snap us to; they may even see right through us. And if we can take it, it’s a blessing. We may feel a little foolish, but ultimately, we’re grateful.

When we’re free of self-righteousness, grounded in a kind of inner clarity and quiet self-assurance, we’re less likely to rush in simply to prove our point—only to contribute to a chain of reactiveness in which the issue gets lost and the polarization makes it harder even to start over again. We just don’t get sucked in.

We may have to wait and let those we’re confronting run through all their reactions. We are putting them up against themselves and their habits, after all. It is a little unexpected; sure, they feel they’re on the spot. But the point is not to force any change of heart; hearts usually don’t change under external pressure. What we’re doing, at least at this stage, is giving people a chance to hear for themselves. We’re looking to win a little space for our message to work on its own. So their reactiveness needn’t throw us. In fact, it gives us a chance to demonstrate that we ourselves are ready to listen. Conflict isn’t an obstacle. It’s an opportunity to move forward. You don’t push against it; you move to work with it.

“Aikido,” my teacher had said again and again, “is the art of reconciliation. Whoever has the mind to fight has broken his connection with the universe. If you try to dominate people, you are already defeated. We study how to resolve conflict, not how to start it.”

He who has gained the secret of Aikido has the universe in himself and can say, “I am the universe.” When an enemy tries to fight with me, the universe itself, he has to break the harmony of the universe. Hence, at the moment he has the mind to fight with me, he is already defeated.

Another turn in an endless cycle of victors and vanquished; power to this one, then to the other; different players, same game?

Do we just want to be right, or do we all want to be free?

We’re here to awaken from the illusion of separateness.

commitment to truth. This may reveal insights that are either unsettling or reassuring. But these are simply our reactions, there to be noted and let go of.

By dispassionately acknowledging our personal needs, we lessen their grip on our actions. More and more we simply observe rather than identify with our motives. It’s not so much that we’re trying to push them away; denial buys us no peace.

there can be peace where there was once agitation, confidence where there was doubt, trust where there was defensiveness and guilt, and abundant energy where there was burnout.