Which service is better?

Goswāmī Mahārāj: Any questions from anyone?

Question: I have a question about sevā. When I am doing sevā, is it important if I am doing it only externally or attentively thinking? What is the difference between external sevā and determinate service? Can you tell something about this topic?

Goswāmī Mahārāj: Well, what if someone is the mother of the child? They have some motherly responsibilities toward the child. If they are not in a very loving motherly mood should they not do the duties to the child? Say, “I’ll take care of the child, when I’ve got the right attitude”. No, sometimes they’ll be in a very loving affectionate mood and other times out of obligation, other times absent-mindedly, there may be many possibilities. So, we could say, yes, ultimately we want love, rāga-bhakti, rāga-mārg, spontaneous automatic, the heart can’t be constrained, they can’t be stopped, the flow of the heart, there is nothing that can stop it. That’s the goal.”

We’re referred to as devotees, refer to one another as devotees and it’s proper to see the others our co-disciple and as devotees. But really devotees of the higher order they don’t think of themselves as possessing devotion, as having devotion. And there’s a reason for that, it’s on account of the depth of their appreciation, that they feel what’s coming from them on the reciprocal level is not substantial. It’s personified in Mahāprabhu’s statement, na prema-gandho ’sti darāpi me harau (Chaitanya-charitāmṛta, Madhya, 2.45), I don’t have a scent of the fragrance of Kṛṣṇa-prem, what to speak of the drop of that divine substance. In Śikṣāṣṭaka, is nāmnām akāri bahudhā nija-sarva-śaktis (Chaitanya-charitāmṛta, Antya, 20.16). Praising Kṛṣṇa and all of His Names, tatrārpitā niyamitaḥ smaraṇe na kālaḥ. And there’s no hard-and-fast rules about when you can, when you cannot chant, etādṛśī tava kṛpā bhagavan mamāpi, saying, “Kṛṣṇa, you’re so merciful to be fully present within your innumerable Holy Names," durdaivam īdṛśam ihājani nānurāgaḥ, but my misfortune is that I don’t have any attraction, na, nānurāgaḥ, I don’t have any attraction for this. So, that is spoken by nonetheless by Śrī Chaitanya Mahāprabhu Himself. So, then should be the position of others?

So, Śrīla Rūpa Goswāmī has written the book on devotion, the book on devotion, Bhakti-rasāmṛta-sindhu, talks about vaidhī-bhakti and rāga-bhakti. So, using archan as an example, Guru Mahārāj has told what is archan, and vaidhī-bhakti should not be thought of the archan for the rāga-bhaktas, in this case Rūpa Goswāmī and Sanātan Goswāmī, etc. what they’re doing is direct sevā, bhajan, that’s when “bhajan” is used in a proper way. But Rūpa Goswāmī describing vaidhī-bhakti, Guru Mahārāj compared this archan to a mock fight, which means military, they have exercises by the soldiers are being trained. And sometimes they do it in a different ways, sometimes they do it with live ammunition, but still it’s a mock fight. It’s not the real thing, in one sense. So, you have to think about this carefully. Śrīla Guru Mahārāj is saying, “Yes, the Deity is real, the Deity is there, but what is our capacity to appreciate that, that’s another thing. That is essentially what Mahāprabhu is saying, in that second verse of Śikṣāṣṭaka, “All of this is true, all of this is real, it’s extraordinary, it’s inconceivable, it’s amazing, but my position is that I don’t have any proper appreciation for it," but that is an indirect way of gaging, that there is some type of appreciation.  

For example, once someone, devotee, said to Guru Mahārāj that, “I have no attraction for hearing the Śrīmad Bhāgavatam or this book, and I’ve been in a connection of Krishna Consciousness for so many years," and Guru Mahārāj said, “Then stop reading the Bhāgavatam”. He said, “No, I don’t wanna do that” And Guru Mahārāj said, “Oh, then you do have some appreciation”. But more rightly you say, this exalted level, high level, depth appreciation, love and affection, yes, that we can understand there is something lacking there.

So, our good fortune is to be called upon to do some sevā. And what is our internal condition, there is another subject. Our main concern will be do what is been asked of us, if one can do that in a very devotional mentality with love and affection, then it can be qualified as devotion proper. But even if done out of routine or obligation, or any other reason, it also has its value, it has its merit. As opposed to other things, it’s mentioned in the Bhāgavatam, it’s mentioned in the Gītā, “Even if mundane things are done perfectly, what do they yield? Just more entanglement”. There is this,

nehābhikrama-nāśo ’sti
pratyavāyo na vidyate
sv-alpam apy asya dharmasya
trāyate mahato bhayāt
(Bhagavad-gītā, 2.40)

Even a little connection with this has a lasting permanent value. So, to do something really truly in a mood of devotion, pure devotion, that is an exalted stage of Krishna Consciousness. One shouldn’t think, because they don’t live up to perfection, that there’s no point from their present position of trying to make progress.

Guru Mahārāj once gave an example of Einstein saying that, “It’s not that we…, by becoming educated you become Einstein, but that’s not an argument against becoming educated”. Like, “Oh, I didn’t become Einstein. I kept going, took another class, and I’m still not Einstein”. But you are not likely to be. But still as far as one educates himself, there is value in that. So, there’s accumulative effect also, of participation in Krishna Consciousness,

naṣṭa-prāyeṣv abhadreṣu
nityaṁ bhāgavata-sevayā
bhagavaty uttama-śloke
bhaktir bhavati naiṣṭhikī
(Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, 1.2.18)

It’s mentioned in the Bhāgavatam, naṣṭa-prāyeṣv abhadreṣu, that even when there, the unwanted things, the impurities, and they’re almost eliminated, it can still, Krishna Consciousness can manifest full effects. So, but still, we will look to the higher devotees to see what is their mood, what is there approach. Sometimes Guru Mahārāj would talk of the very high example, it goes, we hear from the Gītā Govinda, Jayadev, dehi padapallavamudāram (Gītā Govinda, 10.1.7), that in some point in the pastimes of Rādhā and Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa thinks that He is been treated by Śrīmati Rādhārāṇī unfairly, and He considers Himself an offender and He is going to touch Her lotus feet and beg forgiveness.

So, this is so extraordinary that when Jayadev Goswāmī wrote this, he thought, “Maybe I am losing my mind and getting carried away, I don’t know if I can write that. Better I stop, I’ll go bathe, refresh myself and come back to this, it’s one thing when some inspiration is coming, but this, maybe I am going too far. So, I don’t think I’ll express that, and just take a break for some time”. And we hear while he is bathing, Kṛṣṇa takes on the form of Jayadev Goswāmī and comes, and he writes those words personally. And Jayadev Goswāmī’s wife, Kṛṣṇa is perfectly impersonating him, she offers him lunch, so, Kṛṣṇa’s there eating as Jayadev Goswāmī, and then leaves. Then the wife, she is taking. Then Jayadev Goswāmī actual comes back from bathing and he sees his wife is taking prasādam. And their tradition and system is after he takes, then she’ll take, so, he can’t understand, why his wife is there eating and she says, “Prabhu, you’ve finished and remember you went in, you finished what you’re writing, then you took prasādam and…, – she said,  – Are you losing your mind?” He said, “What? What writing?” ”Remember, you went in and you finished” And he goes in and he looks, and he sees written by Kṛṣṇa in his hand, what he hesitated to express, Kṛṣṇa wrote, dehi padapallavamudāram.  

So, then he could understand many things. One is, he wanted to get some of that prasādam [laughs], but he also understood, that this was something that Kṛṣṇa wanted to express, He wanted to reveal this to the world, what he was hesitating, and see this was the proper mood of the devotee, he is not thinking, “Oh, I am a great poet Jayadev, I am writing the Gītā Govinda, whatever I write, of course, it’s perfect”. That’s not how he’s thinking, he’s thinking, “Even having some idea of his qualifications are, the inspirations that’s descending in him, there is some healthy skepticism on his part, “What audacity do I have to express this?”. You won’t easily think that.

And that’s always the position of the devotees. If something comes to them, that appears to be some appreciation, they are little skeptical of that, thinking, “Who am I? A man from the gutter, from the street, and now suddenly I am imbued by Kṛṣṇa Consciousness sentiments, suddenly I am imbued with spontaneous devotional attraction”. One meaning of, ahaitukī apratihatā, irresistible, is, according to Guru Mahārāj, their first line of defense is to try and resist, because thinking if Kṛṣṇa consciousness proper is irresistible, then if I’m trying resist it, if it can be resisted, it must not be that thing, that’s way of looking at that. Like Jayadev Goswāmī, he is resisting writing that, thinking it’s too much to express. Yes, but it’s not too much for the God to express. So, he is resisting that, but it was irresistible, that Kṛṣṇa descended Himself and wrote it. That’s the way substantial Kṛṣṇa Consciousness manifests.

So, that’s there. But Rūpa Goswāmī, he has his collection of ślokas, there is a śloka there begins, “kiṁ pādānte luṭhasi vimanāḥ svāmino hi svatantrāḥ…” (Padyāvalī, 385). But here what he has written in this śloka is that when Kṛṣṇa presents himself as an offender, an aparādhī, before Śrīmati Rādhārāṇī, and he is going to touch her Feet, begging forgiveness, that She shrinks away, and She is thinking, “What are you doing? You are perfect of the perfect, it is I who am the offender”. And why? As voiced in, na prema-gandho ’sti darāpi me harau śloka, the same thing is expressed here, where She says, that if I had any…, you know, I am famous in the world for my relationships with You, famous really, infamous to those who don’t understand what is the highest devotion proper. So, I am famous for having given myself to You, my heart and soul to You, “anayārādhito nūnaṁ, bhagavān harir īśvaraḥ” (Śrīmad Bhāgavatam 10.30.28), She can steal away Kṛṣṇa. She is saying, but really my fault is that I couldn’t give myself to You fully.

This is being expressed the Supreme devotee of devotees, Śrīmati Rādhārāṇī Herself is saying, “I couldn’t give myself to You fully," and the positive proof is that, “If I had any real love and affection for You, separation would be an impossibility, to become separated from you would mean death, but I’ve been separated from You and I go on living in this world. So, that’s the proof that no real love and devotion for You”.

So, She is expressing that, Mahāprabhu, rādhā-bhāva-dyuti-suvalita (Chaitanya-charitāmṛta, Adi, 1.5), Kṛṣṇa enriched the heart and halo of Śrīmati Rādhārāṇī is expressing similar things, so this is very high and very deep, and very extraordinary, but the principal is to be understood.

So, on the path of devotion the devotees will not think that they have the right attitude, the right mood, all of this things, they’ll be exhibit some healthy skepticism about such things, and rather consider that their good fortune that by the grace of the Guru and Vaiṣṇava they’ve got some service opportunity, they haven’t been told to go away.

Any other question?

Question: Mahārāj, there is a question form Bhuvana Sundarī. I’ll try to express properly.  She is asking, sometimes we have some instruction from senior devotees to do something, like they express very directly what they want you to do. And we have a choice to follow purely to this instruction and to do by that way what they expecting from us. Also, we have our own understanding of process, because we got some order and we can see while we carrying this, we can see how it is better to do. So, her question is, where is the measure between personality, who should be, like Avadhūt Mahārāj very often says, we need to be liquid, so be a flexible, and also to not become too much, like amorphous, no form, and apathetic. So, where is the measure between the personality and following the flow?

Goswāmī Mahārāj: We are interested in looking for the infinite characteristic of things. So, one year in Purī the devotees go every year for Ratha-yātrā and staying there for some time very happily there with Mahāprabhu. They built their whole year around that, and then one year they, maybe Śivānanda Sena, anyway I forget, no Nakul Brahmachārī, Mahāprabhu told him, “Tell all the devotees to don’t come this year”. That is devastating right there, I just can’t, it’s very hard. He says, “I will come and see you," and he gives a particular time, but still they must have been, I mean it says, they are all happy to hear that he is going to come. So, they were waiting, because it’s mentioned that sometimes, there different types of, cause Mahāprabhu himself is sometimes appearing as a devotee, there is āveś, when He appears before someone, so sometimes appears within devotees, sometime before them, different places are mentioned, when Nityānanda Prabhu dances He appears there, He appears in the house of mother Śacī, she is offering prasādam to Him, and Śrīvāsaṅgam, the kīrtan of Śrīvās Ṭhākur and devotees there, and Rāghava-bhavan, the home of Rāghava Paṇḍit, he and Damayantī, they are making wonderful things. But on the āveś, sometimes He appears in the hearts of His devotees, Nṛsiṁhānanda and Nakul Brahmachārī.

So, when Mahāprabhu doesn’t come, like a month past the time when He should’ve come, then the devotees started to get really sad, then who is it, who was that, Nṛsiṁhānanda Brahmachārī, anyway, he finds out, he says, “I’ll bring him within three days, three-four days," or it’s Nakul, I may have confused them, no, I believe, it’s Nṛsiṁhānanda, anyway, so, Mahāprabhu comes in this mystical way, and he [Nṛsiṁhānanda] prepares prasādam for Jagannāth, Mahāprabhu and Nṛsiṁhadev, his iṣṭa-devata. So, Mahāprabhu comes, mystically appears there and he eats all of the prasādam. So, [laughs] Nrsimghānanda, he is thinking, “I can understand you’re identical with Jagannāth, so, you’re taking your prasād, you’re eating Jagannāth’s, I understand that. But why are you eating the Nṛsiṁhadev’s?!” [laughs].

And then he says that, “ṭhākura upabāsī..” (Chaitanya-charitāmṛta, Antya 2.65), if the Lord fast, then the servant, how will he maintain his life? At the time, when Śrīla Gurudev was going to have a heavy operation in Soquel, he had to fast before his operation, so, Vaiṣṇav Mahārāj, who was Śrutaśravā Prabhu at that time, how could he eat? So, he also fasted.

So, here Nṛsiṁhānanda is saying, “So, you took your prasādam, what was for you, what was for Jagannāth, but why for Nṛsiṁhadev? That I don’t understand”. So, we can’t always understand those things. But Mahāprabhu wanted to show him something. Like, the song we sometimes sing, avatāra sāra gorā avatāra, He is also Nṛsiṁhadev, this is Svayam Bhagavān Kṛṣṇa, they’re all appear within Kṛṣṇa, when Kṛṣṇa comes in the chatur-viṁśa, the twenty seventh millennium etc., once in the day of Brahma, so, when Mahāprabhu appears he wanted to show him something also about Nṛsiṁhadev.

But Bhakti Vinod Ṭhākur showed something about Nṛsṁhadev also, that when he was living in Swarūp Gañj, Śivānanda Sukuda Kuñj, that as we’ve heard, one of the disciples of Saraswatī Ṭhākur would hear, he lived, house was separated by a boundary wall, and he’d hear three o’clock in the morning Bhakti Vinod Ṭhākur would be already up and chanting loudly the name of Kṛṣṇa. Said, as if he was calling to his beloved in a distance, crying out the Name. And then sometimes, you know, we’ve seen there’s a stone, a cement bench, he would seat on the cement bench and also be taken Kṛṣṇa-nām, lost in divine though. He noticed every day around four thirty this breeze coming from the West and going in the East towards the Māyāpur. And he realized by his divine thinking, that breeze was from Nṛsiṁhadev, that Nṛsiṁhadev, we know the place nearby, called Devapali, Nṛsiṁhapali, you can still see the ancient Deity of Nṛsṁhadev there. Because we’re told, after killing Hiraṇyakaśipu, going back to his own abode, he realized, “Oh, Mahāprabhu will appear here and so he stopped there, that’s one reason they call it “Devapali," and devas on all the surrounding hills were offering prayers to him, so it’s Devapali, but Nṛsiṁhapali the same thing. And then, Deity is mystically appeared in the kuṇḍa nearby, then worshipped since forever. So, Bhakti Vinod Ṭhākur could feel the breeze of Nṛsiṁhadev going every morning at the time of the maṅgala-ārati from Nṛsiṁhapali to Māyāpur to the Yoga-pīṭh for the maṅgala-ārati.

So, we are always in a position of trying to find traces of the infinite, Bhakti Vinod Ṭhākur can trace a breeze back to the central conception of the Infinite. So, when we’re dealing in any particular situation our modus operandi will be to follow as far as possible. Service is descending from this plane, so, we try as best we can to comply. But we have to use our intelligence also.

Two examples we can think of, it’s almost the same examples, but with two different interpretations. One, Śrīla Prabhupad Swāmī Mahārāj would say, the example of being overly intelligent. In that the Guru asked for water, and you’re thinking, “That’s good, but milk is better than water, and hot milk is very nice, put a little sugar, some  cardamom, masala milk, that will really be nice, some nice hot masala milk, that’s good [laughs]. So, he said, that’s being too intelligent, overly intelligent. He asked for water, he wants water, but we’ve taking it in another direction. So, how is that service? Now, we’re imposing our idea upon the higher from the lower plane we’re imposing something on the higher.

Once, Śrīla Prabhupad said about one of his own entourage, who was serving him, his servant, he said, “Why he was such a good servant? Because he has no imagination” [laughs]. That’s why he is good, no imagination. – Can do this…?  – That’s what he gonna do.

But this same example Guru Mahārāj took in another way. The Guru asks for a glass of water, he says. It’s like Indian example, wherever he is across the way is some pond somewhere he can get some water. Saying, when you go there and you see, oh, this water is not fit for drinking, but you see, that someone selling good drinking water. So, apparently you’re violating that order, which was to go there and get the water, but you saw that wasn’t feet in terms of fully understanding what was wanted, so, you cross over that and get the supply of the other thing. Because understanding this is really what was wanted.

So, but these are examples. Life circumstances are in, or something then again. So, it’s like understanding a theorem, Guru Mahārāj says for example, there is addition, subtraction, multiplication, division. To arrive at the proper answer sometimes it’s necessary to add, subtract, multiply or divide, but when should it be addition, when should it be subtraction, when should it be multiplication and when should it be division, that we’ll have to carefully  think out. But if someone is been proved to be more experienced, more reliable, we’ll differ to their assessment of things, to their judgment. As Guru Mahārāj would sometimes say, “We shouldn’t be overly confident in our own judgment of things, or own assessment, but differ”.

I’ve told this before, Sanatan Goswāmī asked Jagadānanda Paṇḍit, “I came here to be with Mahāprabhu, for the following reasons that’s not happening, in fact, I am getting the opposite result, I am thinking it would be better for me to return to Vṛndāvan. What do you think?”. And Jagadānanda said, “Yes. I also think you should return to Vṛndāvan”. But that’s being said, Mahāprabhu when He heard, He was enraged, because Sanātana Goswāmī is so senior, and Jagadānanda Pandit, he considered a boy. So, out of Sanātana Goswāmī’s immense humility, that he was submitting himself to someone at junior position to take direction from them, upset Mahāprabhu. But the point can still be taken that Sanātana Goswāmī despite his seniority and his supreme qualifications, his humility allowed his to take guidance from someone in an inferior position to him.

Audience: Mahārāj, I just think it’s very high example.

Goswāmī Mahārāj: Of course it is, I am aware of what I am saying. In this moment, I may not be interested in having like a personnel meeting. But what I am saying is the truth, in other words, we are all here for the spiritual culture, and we will apply spiritual theory and culture to everything we’re doing, otherwise what makes us any different than any other people. We didn’t come here because we have some superior management, structure and human resources department, that’s not why are we here.

Sometimes if someone is sincere, but Śrīla Gurudev appears to be reluctant to correct him, maybe others are pressuring him to correct someone and he is avoiding that, his response was, “I think, if someone is sincere, that they are getting internal inspiration for correction," that’s also a possibility. But we have to apply common sense also, if something is unclear if the chain of command, the chain of sevā is unclear, then submit to the higher and get it clarified respectfully. Because we may not know, there may be some other plan. As we’re told, Saraswatī Ṭhākur were saying, “I wanna lakh of rupees to build Bag Bazaar Māth, collect lakh of rupees to build this temple”. And then one devotee, named Jaga Bandhu Prabhu, who they sometimes affectionately called JBD, Jaga Bandhu Das, he gave three lakhs, and all the devotees were dancing, and they told Saraswatī Ṭhākur, “Prabhupad, you’ve asked for one, but one gave three," but Saraswatī Ṭhākur was not dancing and everyone was a little perplexed, “Why?”. And he said, “That’s not what I wanted, I wanted that a hundred thousand man would each give a rupee and that there by get some sukṛti, a hundred thousand of people, a lakh of people would get sukṛti. Instead one man, he’s done the whole thing [laughs].

It was still good, it was a good thing, but he had some other thing in mind, that’s also possible.

Hare Kṛṣṇa