Serving Humanity

“True service is the spontaneous outflow of a loving heart and an intelligent mind; it is the result of being in the right place and staying there; it is produced by the inevitable inflow of spiritual force and not by strenuous physical plane activity; it is the effect of a man’s being what he truly is, a divine Son of God, and not by the studied effect of his words or deeds. A true server gathers around him those who it is his duty to serve and aid by the force of his life and his spiritualised personality, and not by his claims or loud speaking. In self-forgetfulness he serves; in self-abnegation he walks the earth, and he gives no thought to the magnitude or the reverse of his accomplishment, and has no preconceived ideas as to his own value or usefulness. He lives, serves, works and influences, asking nothing for the separated self.”

Meditation without service is incomplete; service without soul contact is glamour.

Serving Humanity is a treasury of extracts drawn from Alice Bailey’s 24 books, organised into 118 thematic chapters centred on discipleship and service. Opening with a statement from the Tibetan Master, Djwhal Khul, with whom Bailey produced 19 of her works, the compilation introduces itself with characteristic directness: its purpose is not to be admired but to be tested. The book’s central teaching is that true service is not a moral duty to be strenuously performed but the inevitable outflow of soul contact. From this premise it fans outward through the nature of the Law of Service, the pitfalls of personality-driven effort, and the qualities the true server must cultivate. It widens further into the vision of a Plan held and worked toward by a Hierarchy of advanced beings, and the New Group of World Servers – scattered across every nation and field of human endeavour – who are its conscious instruments on earth. The voice throughout is direct, unsparing, and at times almost fierce in its refusal to accept our alibis: “I care not where or to whom you give, only that you give—little if you have but little of time or money, much if you have much. Work and give, love and think.” In contrast to a distant authority issuing commands, it is the voice of one who has travelled further along the same path, who understands the weight of what is asked, and who also meets you along the way: “I give you of my time and of my love, of my interest and my understanding. Let us together serve.” 

Many of us who feel drawn to a spiritual life sense there is more we could give, more we could be – yet somehow the hours pass and the alibis accumulate: the tired body, the busy household, the fear of being thought peculiar, the comfortable sense that we are already doing our best. Serving Humanity begins in the gap between aspiration and action. In the chapter on inertia, the call is to stop hiding behind the alibis, for the situation is clear: “It is essential that all spiritual people recognise that in the place where they now are, among the people who are their associates and with the psychological and physical equipment with which they are endowed, they can and must work.”

Following on from this, it is explained that “Service is a soul urge, and is as much an evolutionary impetus of the soul as the urge to self-preservation.” This means it cannot be manufactured through effort or sustained by good intentions alone. The path to true service first runs inward through the science of meditation, an essential requirement of discipleship. The Tibetan cautions that while meditation without service is incomplete, service without meditation becomes strenuous, ego-driven, and ultimately self-defeating – the server imposing their vision, burning out, or mistaking personal ambition for spiritual calling. There is “much running after service, and much philanthropic effort. All of it is, however, deeply covered by personality, and it often produces much harm, for people seek to impose their ideas of service and their personal techniques upon other aspirants.” The urgent work then is to clear the channel: to bring the personality into alignment with the soul.

What this looks like in daily life is spelled out in ‘Characteristics of the Server,’ where we learn there are three distinguishing qualities of working under the Law of Service:

1. Harmlessness – “an active refraining from those acts and that speech which might hurt or cause any misunderstanding”;
2. A “willingness to let others serve as seems best to them, knowing that the life flowing through the individual server must find its own channels and outlets”; and
3. Joyfulness – which “takes the place of criticism (that dire creator of misery) and is the silence that sounds.”

These three qualities are not disciplines to be imposed on oneself but signs that the channel is clearing. As soul contact deepens, true service begins to flow outward of its own accord: “It will be a living flow, and a spontaneous giving forth … Nothing can stop or arrest the potency of this life of natural, loving service, except in those cases wherein the personality gets in the way.”

Serving Humanity is presented within a vast cosmic frame. It teaches that there is a Plan – a divine purpose being worked out through all of human history – whose aim is not material comfort but the raising and expansion of human consciousness. It is held and carried forward by a Hierarchy of advanced beings, those who have themselves travelled further along the path of evolution and who work, largely unseen, to guide humanity toward its next stage of development. The New Group of World Servers, scattered across every nation, religion, and field of human endeavour, are those in whom soul contact is beginning to establish itself; who work not for their own group or tradition but for the good of the whole. “The searchlight of the Hierarchy is sweeping the planet at this time singling out men and women here and there … [who] indicate esoteric possibility, and in their lives love of humanity and love of the Christ is a basic and fundamental factor.”

For those who wish to learn more, the Lucis Trust was founded by Alice and Foster Bailey to preserve and promote the teachings of Bailey and the Tibetan Master, Djwhal Khul. Of her 24 books, 19 were written with the Tibetan, forming a continuation of the Ageless Wisdom – a body of esoteric teaching passed down since ancient times and renewed for each age. All 24 works are available to read online for free here. The Arcane School also offers a distance-learning training in the science of the soul based on Bailey's work. With the permission of the Lucis Trust, LightEn is able to make freely available to our community the ebook version of the compilation Serving Humanity.