6 January 2015 - QA 8

Dear Gurudev, I find it difficult to get the right balance of focus on earning income to support my family and doing seva. Is there a formula to this that you recommend?

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

Do you know how to ride a bicycle? How do you balance? Exactly like that.

If you are doing service for the society, and you are getting drowned in it, and you are neglecting your family, something will pinch you – listen to that pinch. Similarly, if you are so drowned in your family, only my wife, my kid, my husband, my children, my parents, then also something pinches. "Oh, I didn’t even think about the world, I didn’t think about others. I am only thinking about myself! 100 percent of the money I earned I have used on myself – I have not contributed to anybody!" Then it will pinch you.

People are ready to buy expensive clothes for themselves, people are ready to spend a huge amount on their holidays, but they are not ready to give one dollar or one euro to others for a service project. At least 3 percent of what we earn, we should keep aside and donate it for charity work; to do some good work for the society. This converts 97 percent of your earnings into good money.
If you want to use 100 percent on yourself – no good! If the money needs to be pure and good, it can only be 97 percent or less (laughs). You are free to use the 97 percent on yourself, but the 3–5 percent, whatever, you should keep aside and donate. This is because whatever you earn is never enough for yourself! You ask anyone, they feel, "Oh! There's shortage". Everyone finds a shortage.

When we first started our Bangalore Ashram, there were so many people coming, we had shortage of rooms, we had shortage of toilets, we had shortage of halls, but I said, "No, we have to do service projects outside the Ashram. We have to build toilets for all poor villagers outside."
Our people said, "We are short for ourselves", but I said, "It will never be enough for us. You build now, but again our need will keep increasing because people will keep coming".
You cannot say, "First I will do everything for us and then I will do seva for others." We have to do both. Every pillar we build here, we should build one for the poor people as well, and that was what we did.
Now, everybody in all the villages around the Ashram have homes and toilets. Earlier they lived in mud huts with thatched roofs – now you will not find a single mud hut; people are all prosperous.

So it is collective growth, and that is what we must aim for. We must listen to our heart! If we listen to our heart, we will find success in every action of ours. Every action will be beneficial and benevolent for us and for everybody else as well.