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Seva by Srila Bhaktisiddhanta Sarasvati Thakura Prabhupada 
Answer: Seva is not an activity or dharma of the mind or body. It is the dharma of the soul. There are no business dealings in seva. Rather, when service is rendered solely to give happiness to Sri Krsna, without even slightly desiring one’s own happiness, then only is it genuine krsna-seva. So the essence of seva is this: it is the unadulterated, unmotivated and uninterrupted instinct of the soul. Unless we perform such unadulterated devotional service to the lotus feet of sri guru, it is impossible for us to comprehend the essence of Vedanta. Apart from the devotees of the Supreme Lord, none can become guru. And this is the factual truth, not merely imagination. Bhagavan Sri Krsna has said, “In whatever manner someone serves Me, I serve Him in the same manner.” Devotees in kanta-rasa (the mood of a beloved consort) render seva to Sri Krsna by dedicating every part of their body to Him. And Sri Krsna completely immerses every part of His body in that service as well. Yet, even after giving Himself fully, He considers Himself indebted to them. Hence, the absolute completion of surrender and the pinnacle of excellence in seva exist in kanta-rasa alone.
Answer: The impulse to serve (seva-pravrtti) will only awaken and swell by remaining engaged in service. If one has no desire at all to serve sri guru and Sri Krsna, then where is the question of that desire increasing any further? If our consciousness (citta-vrtti) remains absorbed in the lotus feet of sri guru, then no matter where we live, our impulse to serve will swell. Otherwise, the inclination to gratify our senses and the urge to enter into mundane life will be all that swells in us. By constantly engaging in the service of sadhu and guru, all spiritual perfections will become easily accessible to us. But if we instead remain busy in preserving our mundane existence, or serving maya, or if we are constantly preoccupied with arranging personal comforts and conveniences, then all sorts of inauspiciousness and trouble will manifest in our lives and make us restless. Apart from associating with and serving devotees, there is no other way to make our bhakti swell. We may reflect, “I have taken shelter of sri guru and Sri Krsna, but I am not the least bit interested in serving them.” If we take refuge in the path of bhakti but do not engage in bhakti itself, if we do not submit ourselves to performing various kinds of loving service to those we have resolved to worship, then what hope can we have for attaining any true welfare? First, we must take shelter at the lotus feet of sri guru, and consider ourselves to be laghu.* This is the sole meaning of taking shelter. The purpose of one who takes shelter is to render service by adopting the role of a servant. Yet, how have we engaged ourselves? It is only possible to reach absolute reality (purna-vastu) by offering everything we possess at the lotus feet of sri guru. But, what to speak of giving him everything, we do not even wish to give him anything. Likewise, it is only by words that we profess to want Bhagavan and His mercy. But there is no point in trying to cheat Antaryami, the Supreme Soul, who knows and dwells in the heart of all beings. _____________________ How will the inclination to serve Sri Krsna increase if we are unable to perceive the lotus feet of sri guru? If, even after beholding sri guru‘s sublime lotus feet, I still maintain the mood that every woman I see is an object of my enjoyment, or if my inclination to engage in worldly life has increased, then I have surely fallen down. I could not elevate myself, so I verily remained on the lower platform. If someone has truly taken shelter at the lotus feet of sri guru and is performing loving service to him, then, without doubt, he will gain the opportunity to serve Sri Krsna, he will obtain transcendental knowledge of Him, his instinctive loving service will be enhanced, and he will drown in the bliss of loving service. We should engage in those activities that diminish our urge to accumulate material objects and minimize our desire for worldly life. If we do that, the misconception that we are doers and rightful enjoyers will no longer remain. We will then be able to see that this world is meant for Krsna’s enjoyment and that all women, whom only Krsna is meant to enjoy, are our supremely worshipful gurus. The inclination to serve Bhagavan will only awaken when our mundane ego of being the doer and the enjoyer wanes. So the inclination to serve will not manifest as long as our desire to enjoy worldly life remains strong and we remain totally preoccupied with worldly pursuits. When someone is eager to serve Bhagavan, he will consider himself to be the son of his guru. At that time he will no longer maintain his worldly father-son relationship. Only then will he achieve true welfare, for his residence in the matha will become genuine and thus he will find real shelter.
Answer: A living being can only engage in serving Sri Hari when the Lord Himself bestows mercy upon him. If in all the generations that came before ours, no one was able to overcome all the difficulties in their lives and perform hari-seva on their own, then how can we, or any generation to come, expect such a thing? Hari-seva is not a joking matter. The four prides of man namely high birth, great opulence, profound learning and physical beauty are like women who will surely confine us in their traps lest they are engaged in serving Sri Gopi-jana-vallabha, the beloved of all the gopis. Instead of seeing ourselves as inseparably related with Bhagavan, we see the entire world and every pleasant thing within it as objects meant for our own enjoyment. And this mood of enjoyment causes us so many troubles. Rather than awakening the desire to become the servant of Bhagavan, this mood awakens in us the desire to become the lord of this world or to subject it to our perpetual control. Everyone here wants to become worshipful, or a master of others, but this craving alone is avaisnavata, the quality of being non-Vaisnava. There is a bond connecting the servant to the one who is served, and that bond is itself bhakti, the very service being rendered. If one harbours the false pride of being another’s master, how can he engage in service himself? Service can only be performed by a servant. A materialist non-devotee considers, “It is I who will be the active agent as I engage in hearing, chanting, remembering and beholding the Lord.” But only when we give up the notion that we are the doer, only when we dedicate all of our endeavours to serving the Lord, shall every part of our lives become untroubled. As servants of Bhagavan, we shall constantly remain in the association of devotees and engage in serving Him twenty-four hours a day. We shall depend on the lotus feet of Bhagavan in every respect, for the conciliation of all calamities or any form of trouble is found in perfect reliance upon the arrangement of Bhagavan. In this world, we serve each other in four kinds of relationship: the relationship between husband and wife, between parent and child, between friends, and between servant and master. These transitory relationships exist in this world because we are bereft of svarupa-jnana, knowledge of our soul’s intrinsic form. All these worldly relationships seem pleasing at first but inevitably lead to despair. O Madhava! The consequence of our mortal lives is disappointment. But by relating with Bhagavan in any one of these four kinds of relationship, we will achieve eternal welfare. Moreover, hari-seva is only possible in such a relationship. A soul can only proceed from this mundane world to the Vaikuntha planets after he commences his service to Bhagavan. But if he hankers to be served by others, he will remain attached to this world and suffer the threefold miseries of mundane existence. We are not Krsna. We are not the master but the servants. Sri Krsna is eternally our only worshipful master. We are His eternally purchased slaves. The moment we forget this fact and begin a campaign against serving Him, we encounter samsara, the endless, mundane cycle of repeated birth and death. Thereafter, gripped by the threefold miseries, our suffering is perpetual. This miserable cycle of repeated birth and death is the door to hell. In samsara, there is nothing but self-centredness and sense-enjoyment. Since simply forgetting Sri Krsna leads one into samsara, it is said: cari varnasrami yadi krsna nahi bhaje Sri Caitanya-caritamrta (Madhya-lila 22.26) If one observes his social duties according to his station in life, but does not worship Krsna, then just by carrying out his own duties he descends into hell.
Answer: We should perceive this world and all the objects within it as instruments meant for serving Sri Krsna. Everything in this world is an asset meant for serving Him. When the day comes, by the mercy of sri guru and Sri Krsna, when we are allayed of our infatuation with secondary reality*, that which appears to be separate from Krsna, and we are able to see that this world is made entirely of Sri Krsna, that very day we will visualize this same world as Goloka. We should see all womenfolk as Sri Krsna’s beloved consorts (kanta), and meant only for Him to enjoy. We should never imagine that they are in any way meant for our own enjoyment, for they are krsna-bhogya (meant for Krsna’s pleasure), and never an object meant for a jiva’s enjoyment. We should see our parents as Sri Krsna’s parents, and we should not consider our son to be our own servant, but rather one of Bala Gopala’s childhood servants. In this way, we will not see this world as it outwardly appears, for we will be having darsana of Goloka. _____________________
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Next Issue – Year 3, Issue 8: “Submit to Me, The Source of All Existence”, 29 August 2010
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