Love lies in service; only that which is done not for fame or name, not for the appreciation or thanks of those for whom it is done, is Love’s service.
Hazrat Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Related Material by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan
Compiled by Wahiduddin Richard Shelquist – wahiduddin.net
Love lies in service. Only that which is done, not for fame or name, nor for the appreciation or thanks of those for whom it is done, is Love’s service.
The lovers show kindness and beneficence to the Beloved. They do whatever they can for the Beloved in the way of help, service, sacrifice, kindness, or rescue, and hide it from the world and even from the Beloved. If the Beloved does anything for them they exaggerate it, idealize it, make it into a mountain from a molehill. They take poison from the hands of the Beloved as sugar, and Love’s pain in the wound of their heart is their only joy. By magnifying and idealizing whatever the Beloved does for them and by diminishing and forgetting whatever they themselves do for the Beloved, they first develop their own gratitude, which creates all goodness in their lives.
The Sufi moral is this: Love another and do not depend upon their love; and: Do good to another and do not depend upon receiving good from them; serve another and do not look for service from them. All you do for another out of your love and kindness, you should think that you do, not to that person, but to God. And if the person returns love for love, goodness for goodness, service for service, so much the better. If they do not return it, then pity them for what they lose; for their gain is much less than their loss.
Do not look for thanks or appreciation for all the good you do to others, nor use it as a means to stimulate your vanity. Do all that you consider good for the sake of Goodness, not even for a return of that from God.
( Sangathas, Series I, Saluk [ unpublished ] )
Commentary by Murshid S.A.M. (Sufi Ahmed Murad)
Samuel L. Lewis
The great pity is that so many acts that are done out of real kindness have been interpreted to mean the existence of goodness of personality. Personality, name, and fame are all of mind-nature; they are not of heart-nature. They are of mind-nature, and to ascribe goodness or kindness to mind is contrary to truth and also out of harmony with the teachings of the Holy Ones. Jesus Christ has said that God alone is good, and Mohammed called God the Beneficent, the Merciful.
Love is far more abiding, far more real than name or fame or even personality from a certain view. All things that are discrete things change form, pass away, and are not forever abiding. That which is attached to name and fame can only be self-love. Even if tinged with goodness, kindness, or piety, it lacks vision and contains the seeds of its own destruction. For where there is mind, where there is self and not-self, there is dualism, and where there is dualism there is evil. The self that is kind to another self can be unkind to the other self, but where love has broken the bonds of self, there can never be unkindness, never be cruelty.