When I say self-sacrifice, I don’t mean that you have to be a victim, or that you have to suffer, or have a hard time. That’s not the idea here. Self-sacrifice means choosing the truth over the false. You sacrifice what is false to the truth.

Self-sacrifice is not only a matter of serving the truth. In some sense, it is the perception of the truth. To truly perceive the truth, there must be some kind of self-sacrifice, because perceiving the truth is realizing that the truth is something bigger than the self, beyond the self, which ultimately abolishes the self. To see the truth is to see that the self does not exist in the way we think that it exists. Then we see also that a true life is not the life we have conceived of. Self-sacrifice is not a matter of suffering. In fact, if we see self-sacrifice as painful, we are still not seeing the truth completely. It is bound to be painful for a long time. It will become less painful. After a while, self-sacrifice is an impulse that arises out of love for reality. When it becomes truly understood, it is a joyful thing to sacrifice yourself to the truth.

There is no self-sacrifice, not a hint of personal renunciation, but he is not selfish, not self-centered and not preoccupied with himself. His service is the expression of love, compassion, and truth. But he does not necessarily feel that is why he serves. He does not even think that he is serving. Love, compassion and truth are the constituents of his personal beingness. He is all of Essence, and so does not need to think of it or of acting according to its values. That is what it means to be a person of Being, the essential person. He is a precious pearl, rare and incomparable.