Actually in spirituality they say there are 3 levels of human actions :
- 1st level where the person is totally self-centered and only thinks about himself / herself and not even about his/her own family members.
- 2nd level where the person is concerned about his/her family members and relatives along with himself/herself, but not much bothered about society.
- 3rd level where the person is beyond much concern for themselves, and is able to incorporate concern for society as well. It can include social services, charity, being associated with other environmental concerns like global warming, animal injustice, protection of wildlife, etc.
So basically, the 2nd and 3rd level consists of selfless acts. In today's world, most human beings would be in the 1st & 2nd levels, and there might be fewer people in the 3rd level.
Regarding Maslow's theory, oh God I remember learning this answer at almost every juncture, from 11th std to my MBA, and now that answer is byheart for me 😆! Regarding Maslow's needs, every human being has these needs, be it Mother Teresa or Gandhi Ji. Like for example, physiological needs like food, clothing and shelter needs to be fulfilled for every human being. Similar is the case with security, social & self-esteem needs. But the only difference is that, such people cross the bottom 4 levels faster than normal people as these needs of theirs might be very limited due to which they get easily fulfilled. So they are able to reach the ultimate level very quickly. But unfortunately for normal people, the lower levels are more difficult to fulfil bcos their desires and its extent is very high. So normal people spend lot of time at the bottom levels.
As you mentioned about people who start doing social services once they are free from their domestic responsibilties, I think that is the most practical option available as a person's prime responsibility is towards his/her family, even before society, as it is his/her dharma. We have certain responsibilities (dharma) towards our family members. Like if am a wife and a mother, my primary duty is towards my husband and kids. So sometimes one might be so busy with their duties and responsibilities, it might not be possible to even think about anything beyond it. But that doesn't mean they may not want to do something for the society, but due to their busy schedule, they might have time and money constraints. But once they are free from all their responsibilities, they might be able to direct their resources (time, money and efforts) for such causes.
My mother always says, once she gets me and my sister married off, she would want to sponsor 1 or 2 orphaned girl's education. Maybe she would have had this desire inside her since long, but when you have a family, it has its own monetary requirements like education of own children, marriage, etc., due to which such things may not be practical at that time.
I have heard stories of men who left their wives and small kids and went for 'sanyasam', and the poor wife is working as servant in other people's houses to earn money and take care of herself and her kids. My mom says, what is the use of going for 'sanyasam' like this when his services are needed most by his wife and children. If you cant take care of your own family, how will you take care of the society? Without fulfilling your dharma, what spirituality?
Spirituality doesn't mean you forget your dharma. That would also amount to selfishness. Infact I feel some people use spirituality as an excuse for escapism.
And definitely, even if one is not able to be selfless towards society, being selfless towards your family is also very noble, as in todays world I have seen lot of them who just care about themselves, and very less for their family in the name of career and 'enjoying life'. And my mom is also a totally self-less character towards her family and relatives. But when we were small, she dint have the time or opportunity to do anything for society, but nowadays she does small things here and there.
Thus according to me, people who make sure their services at home are complete before expanding their services to the outside world are doing things in the most righteous and practical manner 😊.
Wow, I have written an essay on this. Only if I had such assignment essays to do in school and college 😭! But the funny thing is, when we used to get such good topics at school, we used to somehow finish it off just for the sake of it. But now through experience and exposure, we are able to come up with such long essays without even any library reference 😆.
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