Yogi Bhajan Quotes on Giving and Seva

Yogi Bhajan talked and taught about what it means to serve selflessly, to do seva, and to give from the heart in many, many lectures over the years. Enjoy these quotes on his key teachings on seva, service, and giving.

If you do not do seva—selfless service, you have just let your soul go hungry. Selfless service to others is the food of the soul.
9/16/90

Inhale deep and just pray on this breath that it should give you right consciousness, righteousness in living, and selfless service towards all living beings. Exhale.
5/7/74

When you do selfless service, you will be liberated. What is the biggest thing you can give? Ego.
3/2/73

Don’t just talk to a person, don’t just befriend a person, don’t just shake hands with a person. Serve that person. Elevate them.
4/4/1997

The act of kindness is such a powerful weapon that it is endless in its scope. You can never run out of kindness. Kindness is the supreme gift of the elevated person. It is the beauty of the beauty of the beauty.
1/19/76

Everybody can’t serve every part of everybody. I can serve some parts, someone else can serve some parts, and it’s all seva. That is love. Love is a very realistic service we render to each other.

No man can give a man anything other than love. No man can give a man anything other than hope. No man can give a man anything but service. The only thing you can do is act like a forklift—go into the dirt and lift the other person and put him on track, so he can proceed.
6/20/93

Give because God gives to you. Love because that is your purpose in life. Shine because it is important. Share because it is demanded of you.
5/2/00

Seva is selfless service and you are spiritual people. Serve the spirit of others. You will be bountiful, blissful and bright. 
1/17/93

Live like a God. Give like an angel. Be a bright, beautiful, bountiful human being. 
7/4/95

A master takes little and gives a lot. 

Don’t heal yourself. Don’t waste a minute; don’t discuss your problems. See the problems of others and uplift them and solve them. You will be shocked when you come back home—your problems will already be solved. That is the way of the Age of Aquarius. Seva will work it out. 
1/17/93

This path will belong to those who, with all their strengths and weaknesses, will still serve others. 
6/20/93

Seva requires love, intelligence, courage, tolerance, and giving; and that is what love is all about, and that is seva, selfless service. It gives you friendship forever. It extends you.
9/5/81

Forget who you are and help others. Nanak will take care of it in your life, in your family life, in your surroundings, in anything.
Success and the Spirit

If we rise for tomorrow, make ourselves valuable, help others, serve others, talk to others, open people’s minds and hearts, share their dreams, and serve them in one way or the other as we can—that will be very pleasant to everybody’s soul.
12/29/02

You have to be universal. You have to give people hope!
Teacher’s Course, Santa Cruz, CA 1974

Cross the boundaries which have never been crossed, walk into hearts which have never been open, shake hands which hate to be shaken, go and bring people out of their holes so they can be holy,
6/20/93

Descend, because like a forklift, you may descend, go into the dirt and move up. This descent is in the highest state of mind and spirit.
7/13/00

For spiritual cleansing you have to help somebody to be elevated—seva. That is spiritual food. Your spirit will die without it.
9/9/90

Provide people comfort, go into the society, live for people. If God, out of His mercy, has pulled you out of that insanity, then is it not fair for you to serve those who are still suffering?
Teacher’s Course, Santa Cruz, CA 1974

If you do seva in the name of your own God—that is a seva. If you do seva in the name of your own spirit, your own soul—that is seva. If you do something expecting something tomorrow, you better not do it. It is not worth it; it is not seva. 
9/9/90

Seva means selfless service. It’s the character of Santa Claus, giving gifts without asking for anything.
12/25/92

Serve everybody who comes your way; touch everybody who comes your way; inspire everybody who comes your way; heal everybody who comes your way. Be nice, kind and compassionate to everybody who comes your way.
Success and the Spirit, p. 130

That person who comes to ask your counseling or advice or looks to you in anger and abuse or in grace or in sweetness—once he has come to you, the truth is, God has come to you. Serve that person not as a human but as a God.
9/9/90

There’s only one thing which will bring happiness to you. When you humble yourself and serve others, then God will fill in the gap and shall serve you.

All relations are nurtured by selfless service. All selfless service comes from wisdom.
10/27/96 

Simran gives the power of seva. People who do not do Simran cannot do seva, selfless service. Selfless service is a constant giving that makes you a giver, and God’s real form is a giver. 
4/26/76

Make your heart flow like a river—all your difficulties will wash away. The ambrosial hour is the time to get ready to go to the Universe; it is the hour of your life. Realize that this time is given to you to be pure and to live in piety, with a burning fire of compassion, touching every heart.
5/2/00

The best love is to serve all equally. 

Seva gives you radiance.
9/9/90

Serve people. Don’t expect results. Don’t put your harpoon into another person. Just serve. It will be an everlasting friendship.

How much sweetness is in you and how much of that sweetness are you willing to share? How much? How many times have you become one with each other in the name of God? How much closeness have you produced? How relaxed are you when somebody makes a mistake? Where is your kindness and compassion?
9/4/01

We are on this planet to love each other, to serve each other, and to uplift each other. We have come to this Earth to give, not to take. Don’t take pride in taking. Give. Give, and there will be virtue in what you will be given. And that will give you God.

Seva is infinite giving. Seva is not finite giving. If you do some service and say, ‘I served,’ then you have totally missed the point. Service is when you feel honored by doing something. You don’t feel honor in the company of many. You feel it within your own self. That is service – seva. Seva is when your inside is honored, when you honor yourself. When I am honored in my consciousness for doing something, it is seva. When I stand before my consciousness and feel good and say, ‘I am so blessed that I could do it.’ That’s seva.
7/22/78

Seva is a conscious and deliberate service to benefit another person even at your own cost. 
9/9/90

Your normal process of life is to not give; not giving yourself a chance, not giving to others. You do not believe in creating a vacuum. When there is a vacuum, God must fill it.
6/21/96

If you can learn to raise your Kundalini by yourself, as I did, then your presence will work. Your psyche will change. Then you can help the world to change. You can help friends, relatives, unhappy people to change because you have some extra strength to share. This is the Age of Aquarius. Everybody will find happiness within themselves. Then we can share ourselves with others. We won’t have to speak. You are sharing me, I am sharing you.
Aquarian Times, Nov 2008

Any person who shall not develop the physical, mental, spiritual capacity to serve flawlessly and serve through the greatest storm of insults and who cannot still walk through the personal tragedies, shall not find himself very fit.
9/9/90

How many people have you broken bread with out of joy? How many times have you had the guts to sit down with someone and share from one plate? We talk about God, divinity, yoga and all the yak, yak, yak… What have you learned? How many people have you hugged, how many children have you played with? 
9/4/01

There’s no other way on the planet to free your soul unto the destiny and unto God but by serving those who need a hand—smiling at them, wiping away their tears, forgiving them.
12/12/88

Touch a person, hold a person and then carry a person. You can’t drag anybody. You can’t lean on anybody. Carry them, simply and truthfully. And what are the words that dignify the carrying? Can you repeat after me? “I am with you.” That’s all. One line, “I am with you.”
12/20/97

If you choose that you should be totally balanced and you will only adopt the policy of God, which is to give, give, give, you will never get tired of giving. That carefree Lord moves like the wind, like a breeze in the morning, touching and kissing everybody, hugging, laughing and smiling through the angelic nature. If you become that kind of giver, you will become God.
10/22/94

Seva, a service of giving without thinking of result, is a very simple thing. It makes you a leader whether you are or not—whether you deserve to be or not. And it brings you opportunities, prosperity, and all the goods, God, and goodies of the Universe.
4/20/89

Seva and simran are the two legs on which God walks. If you have come here, do seva. Do the Karma Yoga. Do it with your hands, and your mind, and your soul, and your money. Do it with your Self and your Self will be exalted.
I Am a Woman p. 132

The most veteran, courageous, and pious act of a human is to be with another human, because we are like stars in the sky, born at one time and space, to be ourselves. Everybody is our coherent neighbor. All we have to do is say, “I am with you.” When you start being one with everybody, then you are actually with God, because if you cannot see God in all, you cannot see God at all.
12/20/97

Seva is to earn first and then to share. That is seva. Exploitation and getting exploited are not seva. Seva is very misunderstood. Seva is when you have something to share and you can give. It is not seva when you have nothing to share. I do not know what kind of seva that is. That is called pushing too much.

You should be so conscious and so giving that people get tired of your hospitality. Giving is habit, character, consciousness, and self-projection.
9/4/01

Your power is to uplift others. Those who uplift others, God shall uplift them, because it is God’s Will to uplift everybody. When you live in your Godliness, He will not let you fall.
6/20/93

Take a person from his lower self, from his ditch, and raise the pitch so he can be uplifted. The mantra of the Age of Aquarius is “Keep Up.” Help keep everybody up. When you never let yourself down and never let anybody else down, God shall serve you. He shall never let you down.
6/20/93

There’s only one thing which will bring happiness to the life of a man in abundance—when you put yourself on the side and serve others, then God will fill in the gap and shall serve you.
12/12/88

We have to become reservoirs of energy. Our words, our sight, our presence should be in a position to change the frequency of a person who needs the jump-start. Do it with words, with touch, with sight and with prayer.  It doesn’t matter what condition you are in. But it does matter how precise and clear you are to lift up the other person.
6/22/01

Seva is a win/win, the total source of victory. The moment you serve with heart and head, and without grinding any ax, you win the person forever. You deliver another person facing difficulty to their own strength. You save the person in the face of calamity. You protect him in the face of non-reality and bring home the reality. In any form, shape, or projection, if you can elevate a person’s consciousness, his spirit, his self, his environments, his life, then it is seva.
7/23/91

You are here to serve, here to lift, here to grace, here to give hope and action, to give the very deep love of your soul to all those who are in need.
4/10/98

If you do not make some space and do not empty something, where can you put the other thing? The problem is you all get drowned because you take and take and take and you have no place to go. You don’t have the capacity to take. First create the capacity to take, then take. The law of the capacity to take is to first give, because the law of the vacuum is that there’s no vacuum; when you create a vacuum, things will come in.
6/25/87

You will never find a community leader who doesn’t know how to give—Seva.  Giving is the only way. Don’t give only to those who ask. Give to those who don’t ask. Keep on giving. Become a giver. Your faculty and God’s faculty will become the same. That’s absolute divinity.
9/4/01

If you serve, you shall win the hearts of others. If you humble yourself, you shall not only win their hearts, but you will win their souls. If you serve, God will come through for you. Seva is a very wonderful cause, it is the real thing. Service is not what serves you; it is when you enrich another person.

What difference does it make if you are poor or you are rich if you have not tried to help somebody? If you do not develop the habit of being a forklift, you are worse than any fool on this planet. Be like a forklift. Lift somebody up—anybody—with no obligation. Put somebody on the trail. Let somebody move. Let things move. Feel happy about it. That is your happiness. 
11/10/01

Love is seva. It’s offering yourself and helping to increase the vitality, the surroundings of somebody, giving somebody grace.
7/10/95

Simran will shape your consciousness, it will raise you to be more aware, that is all. It will widen your horizon and you will see better, you will see more. Then what will you do? You’ll serve—Seva. As you go to the top of the mountain, somehow you reach it and you see the beauty around and you want to share. A man cannot be without sharing himself.
“Simran and Seva,” Beads of Truth, Summer 1975

The only power of a human being on the other human being is how much one can serve the other.
“Simran and Seva,” Beads of Truth, Summer 1975

Every day we should socialize and be kind to each other to grow our ultimate aura. If somebody has fallen, we should raise that person up. If somebody is going down, we should lift him. If somebody is hungry, we should feed him. If somebody is unhappy, we should dance with him. There are things to do and those things are part of us. 
9/4/01

Once Brahma gathered demons and invited them to eat. The only rule was they couldn’t bend their elbows. They got food everywhere except their mouths, they could not enjoy it. Then he gave a feast for angels. They knew they could not bend their elbows so they sat down and fed each other and had fun with it. Being for each other is the ecstasy, the divinity.
11/21/00

You cannot give to anybody if you don’t have. You cannot give anybody satisfaction if you don’t have it. Suppose this glass has nothing in it—it can’t give anything. All it can give me is it’s ‘glasshood’; but if this glass has water in it, then this glass can give itself to me with water which I can take. You all want to take everything. Remember this law: you cannot take, until you give. If you do not know how to give, you will never be in a position to take.
6/25/87

You have to project your purity and piety to uplift and raise people’s consciousness. Reach out. Give them the spirit. Show them there’s a better thing than maya. It’s time for you to serve people, humanity. Our main job is to be together and inspire each other to reach for the golden light. Let us be one in the oneness of each other; love and reach out, make life happy. I hope you will live this day with these words deep in your heart.
4/18/02

By giving from the heart, we reconnect to that source, elevating our soul and fulfilling our destiny. The psyche of giving is very simple but difficult to understand. 

Blessed are those who overpower their passion by compassion, their character by grace, their identity with virtues and values and serve those who are in need, as a call of duty. May these beings be blessed forever and their families and their life be blessed with prosperity and virtues. May we all understand there is one God; in His oneness He has given us one strength of breath of life. May we expand it to be pure, powerful and project to serve all human beings and life on this Earth, for the sake of goodness, so we may create an impact of good living, goodwill and good manners. Sat Nam. 
10/7/99

The Teachings of Yogi Bhajan

This page of Yogi Bhajan’s quotes on Service is included in our section on Seva.