The aspirant is not in any way attached to the idea of service, however, in the sense of maximum results being secured through himself alone. If any service needs to be rendered, he is willing to render it with any amount of sacrifice; but he is never bound by the false idea “I alone should have the credit for doing this.” If the privilege of rendering the service falls to the lot of someone else, he is not envious. If he were to seek opportunities for himself to render service, it would be a form of selfishness. In service that really counts in spiritual life, there can be no thought of the self at all. There should be no feeling of having something for oneself or of being the one who can give something to others. The self in all its forms has to be left entirely out of the picture. Service should spring out of the spontaneity of freedom, if and when it is necessary; and it has to come in the cooperative spirit in which there is no insistence upon the claims of the limited “I.”
-Discourses 7th Ed. p360