Who’s helping? — ARJUNA ISHAYA

Sumati’s just gotten out of a long stay in hospital with pneumonia and a weird bacteria thing and goodness knows what else. What a really bad time to be sick!

Being in this situation I’ve needed to ask for help.

Now I’ve always been fascinated by service as an act for my own happiness and fulfillment. I noted early on how good it felt to lend a hand and help someone else out.

My spiritual studies too, no matter what part of the world or time period they came from, said not only did helping feel good, but it was good. As in karma good, be free, get out of the ego good. And I’ve seen they’re right.

Maharishi, my Bright Path Ishaya teacher, also added that if you’re going through a tough time personally, find a way to help someone else. It really works – it gets you out of your own head, out of your problems, out of your own funk.

When you have an active interest in being useful to someone else, it’s very difficult to get stuck in your own muck.

Science, I see, agrees. It says people that make helping part of their day are not only happier, but healthier too.

But being with a sick wife and two young kids, I really see how great it is to be the recipient of giving. It’s never easy asking for help, is it? But when you need it, boy are you grateful for it. It makes a difference, just knowing you’re not alone, that someone cares, that someone's helping.

And it’s been astounding how many people have been prepared to drop their lives in order to look after May, our three year old, not to mention all those little jobs that build up when you’re not at home. Just having someone do some washing and empty the dishwasher has been a blessing.

Helpers are heroic – in my little time of trouble and chaos, but in any. In any time of trouble you will see people running away, and then there’s those that run towards. They want to help, they’re looking to help, they are called to help.

There’s a vast difference between someone who agrees to help when asked, and someone who is looking for places TO give. Like a breath of fresh air, it’s such a boost. Being on the receiving end of one of these helpers is like getting an injection of life itself.

It is Life, I guess; it’s love in action, love made practical, love solidified.

A life lived only for yourself is an empty life indeed – your purpose in life becomes so obvious when you find a way of making life about being something bigger than yourself.

That devotion and service to anything: an ideal, a cause, your family, your community, anything, makes all the difference in terms of fulfillment. As Viktor Frankl noted in the concentration camps, putting something above you gives meaning, and resilience too, even in the most hellish of conditions.

So try it, especially when you’re self-absorbed. Give, look for place to be of service. Devote your life to something bigger than yourself. You’ll find the more you give, the more you get – and often in the most unexpected of ways.

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Don’t forget my interview with Maharani online (no nasty bugs!) about her new book Whole-ass, as well as her life and spiritual path.

Maharani is an Ishaya monk originally from Mexico who now travels the world as the translator for Maharishi Krishnananda, the teacher of the Ishayas internationally.