Service without ideal of self…trains you to transcend all the artificial distinctions imposed by history and geography, and to realise that the human community is one and indivisible.
Any caterpillar who tried to “know himself” would never become a butterfly.
Manners are a sensitive awareness of the feelings of others. If you have that awareness, you have good manners, no matter which fork you use.
When your sense of self is no longer tied to thought, is no longer conceptual, there is a depth of feeling, of sensing, of compassion, of loving, that was not there when you were trapped in mental concepts. You are that depth.
That the birds of worry and care fly over your head, this you cannot change, but that they build nests in your hair, this you can prevent.
To understand oneself profoundly, one needs balance. Neither renunciation nor acquiescence.
Internally I am a hermit, and externally I am a prince. Arms mean protection to the poor and destruction of the tyrant. Baba Nanak had not renounced the world but had renounced maya, that is, self and ego.
