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Generosity awakens affection in the heart of a person and this affection results in enabling him to see everyone else as himself. To a generous person everyone else appears as dear as he considers himself. He just does not consider anyone as foreign, alien, strange or the other'. He has affection for everyone. The affection destroys the feeling of distance, strangeness or alienation and the distinction of greatness and smallness also disappears. As affection is an eternal sentiment, therefore it arises only for the eternal element or the soul. When the distance, distinction and alienation are destroyed then arises the feeling of unity and oneness. The fullness, success and meaning of human life lie in the achievement of this unity and oneness only. Where there is generosity, there is humanity. A person without humanity is a devil.
One of the results of service is that the sentiment of service and generosity automatically arise in the one who is served. The sentiment of service and generosity present in the servant transfers itself in the served as well. Actually, to give up one's own rights while protecting those of the others is the true service.
One who is generous does not desire anything untoward for anyone. Such a person always becomes happy when he sees othe happy and becomes unhappy when he sees others unhappy or miserable. On becoming happy on seeing others happy, the desire for enjoying those pleasures oneself, becomes weak. Thus, service also results in weakening and eventually giving up the desires for deriving pleasure through worldly enjoyments. Only that person can serve who can feel the pain and misery of the others. Thus, to mitigate the misery of others through service is to mitigate one's own misery only and to make others happy is to make oneself happy.
Our generosity in the form of service also affects those whom we serve and they, too, start feeling that to help others is also a kind of pleasure and that it is good to serve others. This results in awakening the feeling of generosity and service in others as well. This awakening results in weakening of the desire for fulfilment of worldly desires and selfishness in them also. Thus, service results in removing the
Positive Non-Violence
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