Do you call it unselfishness? Is this missionary unselfish? He is saving this man, not for this man’s sake; he is saving this man for his own sake. Deep down it is still selfishness, but now it is covered with beautiful words: unselfishness, service.
But why is there any need for service? Why should there be any need? Can’t we destroy these opportunities for service? We can, but the religions will be very angry. Their whole ground will be lost – this is their whole business – if there is nobody poor, nobody hungry, nobody suffering, nobody sick. And science can make it possible. It is absolutely in our hands today. It would have been long ago, if these religions had not stopped every person who was going to contribute to knowledge, which can destroy all the opportunities for service. But these religions have been against all scientific progress and they will talk of service. They need these people. Their need is not unselfish; it is utterly selfish. It is motivated. There is a goal to be achieved.
Hence I say to my sannyasins, service is a dirty, four letter word. Never use it. Yes, you can share, but never humiliate anybody by serving him. It is humiliation.
When you serve somebody and you feel great, you have reduced the other into a worm, subhuman. And you are so superior that you have sacrificed your own interests and you are serving the poor: you are simply humiliating them.
If you have something, something that gives you joy, peace, ecstasy, share it. And remember that when you share there is no motive. I am not saying that by sharing it you will reach to heaven. I am not giving you any goal. I am saying to you, just by sharing it you will be tremendously fulfilled. In the very sharing is the fulfillment, there is no goal beyond it. It is not end-oriented, it is an end unto itself.
And you will feel obliged to the person who was ready to share with you. You will not feel that he is obliged to you – because you have not served. And only these people who believe in sharing instead of service can destroy all those opportunities, those ugly opportunities which surround the whole earth. And all the religions have been exploiting those opportunities. But they give good names…they have become very proficient, in thousands of years, in giving good names to ugly things. And when you start giving a beautiful name to an ugly thing, there is a possibility you yourself may forget that it was just a cover. Inside, the reality is just the same.
I am reminded: I was staying in Calcutta in a very rich woman’s house. She was a widow, still young. She had a kid; her husband had died just a few years back, and she was immensely interested in my way of thinking. We were taking breakfast and there I saw a picture hanging on the wall. I recognized the man. I asked the woman, “Is this a picture of Swami Divyanand Saraswati?”
She said, “Yes.”