One of the basic objects of human birth is to render selfless service to others, to relieve them of their sufferings and to find happiness in others’ happiness. An act of SEWA performed with dedication without expecting anything in return – material or spiritual – is complete in itself. Interestingly, when you render SEWA without a sense of pride but with a sense of sacrifice, with love and compassion, then you establish an unbreakable bond of ‘bhavana’, which is gratifying both to the giver and the recipient. When you perform this kind of Sewa, relinquishing all attachment to it, as if to do so is your ‘swadharma’, then you are freed from the bondage of reciprocation (attachment to the fruit of action) and the act becomes a ‘yajna’, which opens the doors to salvation – an eternal quest of any human being.

Such an act of a ‘karamyogi’ generates ‘satoguna’, and the all pervading infinite is always present where such ‘karmas’ are being performed.

When there is no feeling of ‘karta’ (the doer) in the act of Sewa and likewise there is no desire to reap its fruits, thereby relinquishing all attachment to it, then you are not performing the Sewa, instead, it is effortlessly happening through you and it is happening with HIS Grace. In such a situation, you just become a WITNESS (and not the doer) to such a happening. When there is no attachment, there is no effort, no stress on the body and no tiredness. This is how you liberate yourself from the cause and effect of Sewa – and that assumes the level of SADHNA.

On the other hand, when Sewa is performed with the expectation of getting a reward – material or spiritual – with ostentation or with a sense of pity or with a sense of pride as if one is doing a favour to the recipient, or to earn praise then, let us remember, we are sowing the seeds of reciprocation and detachment is missing. We are tied down with a feeling of expectation and in the event of our not getting the fruits of action, we become victims of unhappiness and discontentment. In such a situation, our act of Sewa which ought to have been sublime with love and compassion, reduces to mere trading. While performing such a Sewa our body tends to feels effort, stress, tiredness due to the intense feeling of non-fulfillment of our desires. That kind of sewa is regarded to be of a lower category and it is influenced by Rajoguna.