In Christianity, we can see the inspiration of service in its full glory

In Christianity, we can see the inspiration of service in its full glory. There is service in Buddhism, there is service in Islam, but there is nothing like the great orders of service that Christianity produced. I had never noticed it but a foreigner from the Far East said to me, “Your hospitals have the names of saints don’t they? St. Bartholowmews, St. Mary’s. Great orders of service, great orders of education. It’s wonderful.” When you read the biography of some brilliant left wing leader such as Mugabe, it often says he was educated at a Jesuit college. One can say that Jesuits have educated half the world.

For instance, there are two great hospitals in Tokyo, Sei Roka (St. Luke’s) and Sei Bo (St. Paul’s). They are both run by Christian nuns. The Japanese law in days past was that there must be Japanese doctors at the head of foreign hospitals but the matrons in St. Luke’s were fully trained Western doctors in their own right.

But what if such an organisation has to close? The Yoga view is not that this is a great tragedy. It will have created a rent in the mass veil of what is technically called cosmic ignorance. That rent in the veil lets light through and that will continue to come through in different forms. It would not be that it is passed now, over and finished. We ourselves can contribute to keeping this aperture open, so as to speak, by our gratitude and memory, remembering those who have gone before us, and by our meditations. This is our service.

© Trevor Leggett