What is the Sikh concept of seva?
Seva — selfless service — is one of those ideas that, once you sit with it, refuses to stay inside any single tradition's borders. What these passages reveal, even from outside Sikhism's own texts, is a convergent human intuition: that labor offered without self-interest is not merely virtuous but sacred, a mode of contact with something larger than the self. The Bahá'í teaching that work performed in a spirit of service becomes worship echoes the Sikh conviction that to serve is to pray — with your hands, your time, your body.
What obligations govern serving the whole of humanity?
Bahá'í teaching insists that love and service must extend to all human beings without distinction — an ethic that resonates with Sikh seva's rejection of every boundary of caste, class, or creed.
Service to all humanity, with full devotion, is a binding spiritual obligation.
What sacred economy underlies voluntary labor and stewardship?
Bahá'u'lláh elevates engagement in a trade or profession to an act of worship, giving voluntary productive work a spiritual weight that echoes the Sikh practice of kar seva — bodily labor as offering.
Labor offered in service constitutes genuine worship, not mere utility.
Engaging in a profession is formally elevated to the rank of divine worship.