It is said that riches without the spirit of helping the needy is meaningless. Physical power without the spirit to lift up the weak and downtrodden is equally meaningless. The sages have maintained that service to the human kind is service to God. Man is a social creature and civilisation is to take care of every member of the society without any prejudice, injustice or discrimination.
But nothing is perfect in this world and an imperfect man can’t create a perfect order. So, the civilisation also suffers from several follies and shortcomings. Equality of all humans is too difficult to be achieved. Hence there are many inequalities like rich and poor, privileged and unprivileged, lucky and unlucky, favoured and disfavoured, high and low etc.
The inequalities can be compensated by the spirit of social justice. Everyone must look around to see what one can do to help out the less fortunate than him in whatever possible way and extent. It gives one the wonderful feeling of being a useful human being. Infact, being truly religious is in the exercise of rendering social service to the needy and the society.
We must consider it our moral duty to help the downtrodden, less privileged, handicapped, sick and weak. In reality those who seek only themselves to be happy, rich and healthy are no better than animals. The human happiness is making others also happy. This is more true in our case, where there are needy all around us. Sadly our country abounds in misery, poverty, diseases and social injustices of various kinds.
Mother Teresa set an example which is unmatched in human history. She came to India from a foreign land upon hearing the plight of the poor, sick, helpless, abandoned, orphans, old people and socially ostracised. And all the while the native society looked the other way callously. She crossed all barriers of apartheid, nationality, sex, religion or caste. She was embo-diment of mercy, compassion, love and the service to the needy. She took care of lepers and showed the light of sympathy to their gloomy
hearts. Mother Teresa taught us what it means to be a true human being.
It is time we learnt from her example and tried to become a solace for others because the spirit of social service is badly needed in our society that suffers from the gross inequalities in every field. The challenge is so gigantic that it needs helping hand of everyone capable of it physically, financially or morally. Only leaving it to the government and the laws will not serve our purpose. Imagine, half of our population lives below poverty level, more than half suffer from some disease or the other, poverty is endemic and social prejudices abound.
India is one country that needs social service to be made a mass movement and national duty of every citizen because there is someone near everyone who needs some kind of help at individual level. At social or national level several programmes and projects are of such nature that without people lending social services they can not be completed.
We must change our attitudes and inculcate the spirit to work for the welfare of our fellow human beings and also help other creatures at individual level. At social level we must take part in community social service programmes. We should find out around us about who need our help of whatever kind. We must not think that only rich people can help others. There are people who only need a few words of sympathy. There are lonely people only who need your company for a while. Some old people might just need some one to drop a letter in the letter box, or fetch medicines or things from the market for them. Some illiterate person might need your help in reading out a letter he has got for him or wants you to write a letter for him. During the vacations students can help teach poor children.
You can go and celebrate some festival or your birthday with orphanage children without incurring extra expenses. You will only be sharing your happiness with others. There are a lot of things we can do just by sparing some of our time.
One can volunteer to work for some NGO or other social service organisation. During the time of natural calamities one can work for relief efforts. Those who are rich can undertake charity works or offer stipends to poor students of merit. Or they can give straight financial help to the needy.
We must remember that all our great ones did social service works at one time or the other. That proved to be the first step on the ladder of achieving the greatness. The same spirit can also help us become better human beings and the better citizens of our country. Taking part in social service works will give us pride of being socially aware human beings and add value to our character.