In plain words
We gain nothing much from making friendship with people who have money; friendship there must indeed be with everyone, but when you make friendship with a man who has money, at some time or other you will have to ask him for ten rupees. When you ask, your friendship is cut. He will not show you his face. Fearing that if he sees you, you may ask, he keeps himself apart. We must indeed be friends with anyone at all; but if you ask who your true friends are, those who come forward to receive your service are the very ones you must regard as your friends. Your service gives your future a most excellent state. Set about doing service not with the Ahaṅkāra of ‘I am doing service,’ but with the joy, ‘God has granted me such sacred work of service.’ Whatever we do, we must set about service regarding it as done to ourselves. In truth, all the service you do, you are doing for your own sake, not for the sake of others.
A small example. A friend came to your house. The very moment he came: ‘Hello! come on, come on,’ you said, took him into the drawing room and gave him a cup of coffee. But this scene sticks fast in the citta of the friend who came. Later, whenever you go to his house, he too calls out ‘come on’ and gives you that cup of coffee. The coffee you gave that day was not for help. It comes back as a return in the future. But suppose some friend, with no support of any kind and in a state where no one helps him, has gone into hospital; if you then go and do many kinds of service, then, should such a situation ever come upon us, that friend will in turn surely come and offer that service. For the service done that day, we must not in the least hope for anything for our own sake. So, whatever we do, whether we do good or do bad, if one regards it as done to oneself, one will never set about doing bad to oneself. Today, in our Summer Class, we have decided to do this social service every Sunday. This social service, not merely for as long as we are here, but wherever we go and whatever circumstances come: I hope that we will welcome this social service with all our heart, enter into it, and make our body sacred in social service.