The Tao of Public Service

…Yet, it is my fervent dream and hope that the days of the American Character are not over. My fellow citizens there can be, in our day and in our time, a new birth of freedom, founded on character. However, not a character rooted in the routine of farm life and reflecting a unity of activity. But rather a character rooted in a common striving for the light of insight and the exaltation achieved by a perfection that finds its expression in “perfect service.”

America can again be united. America can again experience its own kind of interconnectedness and solidarity. But it will never again be a solidarity of activity. It will never again be a solidarity of type, place or station. We cannot be again a nation of farmers. But we can be a nation that demands of every one of its citizens that each of us strive to reach our highest character. We can encourage and lift each other to live by our highest understanding. We can experience the solidarity of striving for the highest. We can experience the unity of striving for perfect service. Because on earth God’s work must truly be our own and when we strive for this it will generate such a fire that, in the words of President Kennedy, the glow from that fire can truly light the world.

A new time and a new opportunity are on the horizon. It is a time when those who have the best interests of humanity at heart, can forge a new form of life that can lead to a time when “the present state of fear, and of intense competitive struggle for existence, will be superceded by a real measure of stability and security.”

In order to usher in such a time all we have to do is walk our own path, do our life purpose, and fulfill our own mission to the best of our ability. What this means for the individual is that he or she must strive for perfection. It is not the all-encompassing perfection of the omnipotent or the omniscient, but it is the limited perfection of the form at hand. One has to try and do one’s dharma. One has to strive for the immediate and attainable ideal. One has to try and be the best worker, teacher, doctor, lawyer, soldier, judge, professor, president, governor, mayor, CEO, husband, wife, son, daughter, father and mother one can become. A mayor does not have to perfect being a president. The mayor has to perfect being a mayor. The daughter does not have to perfect being a son. The daughter only must strive to be the best daughter possible.

In so doing, we live life for others and also work towards the attainment of unity, insight and intuition. And in this way, we build a better world.