Embodiment · “Being Precedes Having”
Putting Others First
To loosen the grip of self-centredness by repeatedly putting the welfare of others before one’s own preferences in small, concrete daily acts — cultivating patience, kindness and a felt sense of unity rather than just believing in it.
Putting Others First in 5 lines: Shrink self-centredness by acting, not just believing — countless small, concrete choices to put another’s welfare and convenience before your own preference. Yield the trivial things, give people your full attention, meet provocation with patience, and start with the people you live and work with. Use the mantram when self-will flares. Keep boundaries: this is freedom from self-obsession, never self-erasure.
What it is
Putting Others First is the sixth point of Eknath Easwaran’s Eight-Point Program. Its target is the constant, low-grade self-centredness that organises ordinary life around “what I want, what I like, what suits me.” Easwaran taught that you cannot think your way out of self-preoccupation; you have to act your way out — by repeatedly, in small concrete ways, putting another person’s welfare and convenience ahead of your own preferences.
Each such act, he said, “shrinks” the self a little and enlarges your sense of connection. The practice is not grand philanthropy but the daily, near-invisible choices: yielding, listening, helping, being patient — done deliberately, as training, until kindness becomes the default and the felt boundary between self and others softens.
The Method
Easwaran taught this as a practice of countless small, deliberate acts, not occasional heroics:
- Perform concrete selfless acts, large or small. Look for ordinary, specific opportunities to put another’s good before your own preference — help without being asked, give someone the better seat, carry the load, do the unpleasant task so another doesn’t have to. The smaller and more frequent, the better the training.
- Yield your preferences in low-stakes moments. When it doesn’t truly matter, let the other person’s choice prevail — the restaurant, the route, the plan. Easwaran saw these tiny surrenders of “my way” as the real gym of selflessness.
- Put your full attention on the other person. Drawing on one-pointed attention, give people your complete, undivided presence — listen fully, set the phone down. Attention, for Easwaran, is a form of love.
- Practise patience as service. Meeting others’ slowness, mistakes and demands with patience rather than irritation is itself putting them first. Treat each provocation as a chance to choose kindness over self-assertion.
- Begin where it’s hardest — at home and at work. Easwaran stressed that the practice counts most with the people you live and work with daily, where friction is real, not with strangers you’ll never see again.
- Use the mantram when self-will flares. When the ego pushes back (“but I want…”), repeat the mantram to create a gap, cool the reaction, and choose the others-first response.
- Let it be the day’s expression of meditation. The selflessness cultivated in passage meditation is meant to be spent here — Easwaran’s whole program aims at this carry-over from the cushion into how you treat people. (Sourcing note: “putting others first,” “perform selfless acts, big or small, to shift focus from your own needs to the well-being of others,” and the emphasis on going beyond self-centredness are Easwaran’s own framing of the sixth point, documented at the Blue Mountain Center of Meditation. Faithful paraphrase, not direct quotation.)
Source & Lineage
Eknath Easwaran (1910–1999) made Putting Others First the sixth of his eight points (Meditation / Passage Meditation) and returned to it throughout Your Life Is Your Message, where his recurring example was Gandhi — selfless service as the practical expression of spiritual realisation.
The teaching draws on the Bhagavad Gita‘s ideal of nishkama karma (selfless action) and on the broad religious conviction that love expressed as service is the heart of the spiritual life. → originator file under.
Sources: [BMCM, The Eight-Point Program](https://www.bmcm.org/learn/eight-point/); [Passage Meditation — Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passage_Meditation).
The Traditions' versions
Bhagavad Gita (nishkama karma) — selfless action without attachment to reward; Easwaran’s direct root.
- Christian agape / service — “love your neighbour,” washing of feet; love enacted as service.
- Buddhist metta & the bodhisattva ideal — cultivating goodwill and placing others’ liberation first.
- Karma yoga / seva — service as a spiritual path in itself.
- Acts of kindness interventions (positive psychology) — the modern, tested cousin: deliberate kind acts to raise wellbeing.
Common refinements
Self-erasure instead of selflessness. The single most important refinement: putting others first is not having no needs, no boundaries, or no voice. Done without boundaries it becomes martyrdom, resentment, or fuel for exploitation. Easwaran’s aim is freedom from self-obsession, not abandonment of the self.
- Grand gestures, no daily practice. Occasional charity is easy; the training is in the hourly small yieldings with the people right in front of you.
- Doing it for credit. If it’s bookkeeping (“look how selfless I am”), the self has simply rebranded. The Gita’s point is action without attachment to reward or recognition.
- Skipping the hard relationships. Being lovely to strangers while impatient at home inverts the practice. Start where there’s friction.
- No tool for the flare-ups. Use the mantram to cool self-will in the moment; willpower alone snaps under provocation.