I was living up in L.A. Rama was living in La Jolla, and I was driving down south once or twice a week to attend his talks. Rama was speaking a lot at that time about selfless giving, and he had made an audio tape, "The Yoga of Selfless Giving," that you can click to follow the link or download here. When I heard that tape, I thought to myself, OMG, I am soo selfish and soo eager to gain higher states of consciousness as QUICKLY as possible, that I had better jump-start my selflessness. I was ready to move out of my abode in L.A., and it turned out that a friend of mind had an aunt who ran a medical clinic in Mexico, about one hour south of San Diego. The aunt was looking for volunteers to help at the clinic. I thought, PERFECT. If I go help at the clinic, I will become selfless very, very quickly.
At the next meeting, without describing the details, I mentioned to Rama that I was thinking of moving south, and he smiled really sweetly and said he thought it would be a good idea. A few days later, I packed up my old Volkswagen bug and drove to San Diego, crossed the border into Tijuana and followed a narrow highway into Baja. The town was called Rosarito. You don't realize how many tires there are that are unaffiliated with vehicles until you visit undeveloped areas. The drive was rife with potholes, pottery stores and tires. The medical clinic was perched on a hillside. It was built out of stucco with small windows that retained dampness and cold, and it was winter -- not cold by arctic standards but still chilly. I could hardly wait to get to work.
I set to work doing the tasks at hand. There were towels to be folded, supplies to be stored, bandages to be wrapped. After several days, it was time to return to the U.S. to attend a meeting with Rama. I was grateful to be back in the car and driving north again.
The talk that night was at the University of San Diego California campus. About 150 people were present. At one point, Rama asked for questions. I raised my hand and he looked at me and nodded. "Rama," I said, "I moved to Rosarito in Mexico to help a friend's aunt with her medical clinic. I'm trying to learn about selfless giving, but all I'm doing is wrapping bandages. I don't think it's working."
When Rama answered, it was with a roar accompanied by a sweeping wall of energy that pummeled my awareness out of my body and swept it up to the ceiling, where it hovered for the duration of his response.
"Selfless giving?" he roared. "You know NOTHING about selfless giving. Selfless giving has NOTHING to do with running away to work at a medical clinic. This is NOT selfless giving. You're running away. You have no idea what selfless giving is."
You can see how hovering around the ceiling was attractive at this point.
"You are a writer," he continued, roaring. "You have a talent for writing. THAT is how you can help people. Selfless giving has nothing to do with WRAPPING BANDAGES. You have a gift for writing. Make that your selfless giving."
Rama turned to the next person but I did not notice. My ego was smashed in smithereens and falling gently from its height on the ceiling without wanting to get back into my body, which belonged to the person who knew nothing about selfless giving. While true that Rama had complimented me on my writing skills, it was the roadside bomb blowing up my stuck awareness that dominated my sensations. And in front of 150 other people too.
About twenty minutes later, there was a break. My awareness was still cowering on the white ceiling of the auditorium, but I did manage to move my body to the ladies room. There a fellow student complimented me. "Isn't it great," she said. "He said you are a writer!"
Over the next 17 years that I studied with Rama, there were several times when he would walk past me during a break, not stop, just say three little words -- "You're wrapping bandages." And my awareness would fly out of my body with consternation and wham around the ceiling until I figured out that Rama was telling me that I was off -- running away in some manner -- and it was up to me to figure out how to get back on track.
"We have two choices in life. These are the north and south poles of our existence. One choice in life is to fulfill ourselves, the limited self, to do things that make us feel better, to do things that give us pleasure and not pain, to fulfill our desires, to get the things that we want each day, each year, to make ourselves happy. The other alternative is to make others happy, to forget ourselves, to ignore our wants, to not be concerned with whether we're happy or not, but rather to take the time and energy that we would utilize in fulfilling ourselves and use it to make others happy. These are our two choices.
From a logical point of view, it would certainly seem that the former rather than the latter is the best course to follow if one seeks happiness. It would seem that hours and hours spent in service to others would be drudgery, that we would become the slave of another person, that there would be very little fulfillment in always working for others. Whereas when we take the time to do the things that we like to do - to go to places we want to go, to be with whom we would like to be, to succeed at the things that we feel we should succeed at, to avoid the things that we consider painful - it would seem that this would be the proper way to become happy.
Strangely enough, it's not. It's just the opposite."
-- Rama
