In plain words
-- so it is asserted. This principle is the supreme truth. But nobody pays much attention to how it is to be done. The outlook of public service must indeed take root in a person, but once it has arisen there is no further question of how, or where, to begin it -- people are simply seen to follow whatever method occurs to them. If one truly examines it, many cloak sheer self-interest under the guise of public service. In place of the paths of Prema and of true good that strengthen the people's moral conscience for the sake of the common welfare, destructive methods keep emerging instead. Helping others, cooperating with another, showing sympathy in the face of others' hardships and losses -- whatever we do, so long as it gives no room to mere self-interest, is alone to be regarded as an act of public service. This is not some newly-devised method of today. It has come down in practice from time immemorial, from the very beginning of creation, from our ancestors. Now, our ancestors understood the very practice of Dharma to be the one principle of public welfare -- one's own and another's alike. Just as the footprint of an elephant can hold within it the tracks of every other animal's foot, so too every benefit remains contained within the foot of Dharma itself -- this was the conviction of our forefathers. Lofty ideals and reflection on Dharma were what our ancestors learned with their very first milk, and so their practice of Dharma was exceedingly excellent and praiseworthy. In former times, they regarded as acts of public welfare the building of rest-houses, wells, tanks and temples, and the feeding of the poor with fine food, and lived accordingly. They likewise considered the patronage of learning and the arts to be public welfare, and with that thought they gathered close the noble souls who nurtured and protected these pursuits, and gave agrahāras, villages, landed estates and the like as charitable endowments to those who undertook such works. The fame of these welfare-devoted souls shines to this day as clear evidence, standing unmoved and undecayed like the planets and the stars.