SB 7.5.12 – Everyone Should Appreciate the Service of Others

Giriraj Swami: 

oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya
oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya
oṁ namo bhagavate vāsudevāya

[Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam 7.5.12]

sa yadānuvrataḥ puṁsāṁ

paśu-buddhir vibhidyate

anya eṣa tathānyo ‘ham

iti bheda-gatāsatī

TRANSLATION

When the Supreme Personality of Godhead is pleased with the living entity because of his devotional service, one becomes a paṇḍita and does not make distinctions between enemies, friends and himself. Intelligently, he then thinks, “Every one of us is an eternal servant of God, and therefore we are not different from one another.”

PURPORT by Srila Prabhupada

When Prahlāda Mahārāja’s teachers and demoniac father asked him how his intelligence had been polluted, Prahlāda Mahārāja said, “As far as I am concerned, my intelligence has not been polluted. Rather, by the grace of my spiritual master and by the grace of my Lord, Kṛṣṇa, I have now learned that no one is my enemy and no one is my friend. We are all actually eternal servants of Kṛṣṇa, but under the influence of the external energy we think that we are separately situated from the Supreme Personality of Godhead as friends and enemies of one another. This mistaken idea has now been corrected, and therefore, unlike ordinary human beings, I no longer think that I am God and that others are my friends and enemies. Now I am rightly thinking that everyone is an eternal servant of God and that our duty is to serve the supreme master, for then we shall stand on the platform of oneness as servants.”

Demons think of everyone as a friend or enemy, but Vaiṣṇavas say that since everyone is a servant of the Lord, everyone is on the same platform. Therefore a Vaiṣṇava treats other living entities neither as friends nor as enemies, but instead tries to spread Kṛṣṇa consciousness, teaching everyone that we are all one as servants of the Supreme Lord but are uselessly wasting our valuable lives by creating nations, communities and other groups of friends and enemies. Everyone should come to the platform of Kṛṣṇa consciousness and thus feel oneness as a servant of the Lord. Although there are 8,400,000 species of life, a Vaiṣṇava feels this oneness. The Īśopaniṣad advises, ekatvam anupaśyataḥ. A devotee should see the Supreme Personality of Godhead to be situated in everyone’s heart and should also see every living entity as an eternal servant of the Lord. This vision is called ekatvam, oneness. Although there is a relationship of master and servant, both master and servant are one because of their spiritual identity.

COMMENT

So, Lord Chaitanya is Krishna in the form of a devotee, and His philosophy is acintya-bhedābheda-tattva, which means inconceivable simultaneous oneness and difference. We are one with the Lord in quality because we’re spiritual, but we are different in quantity because the Lord is infinite, and we are infinitesimal. Because we are one in quality, we have ground for a relationship. You can’t have a relationship with someone unless there’s some common ground, so the common ground between us and the Lord is that we’re both spiritual. But because He is great and we are small, the relationship is defined as that of master and servant, He’s the master and we are servants. But all of us are servants. Lord Chaitanya teaches,jīvera svarūpa haya-kṛṣṇera nitya-dāsa, that the constitutional position of the living entity is that he is the eternal servant of Krishna. And as eternal servants of Krishna, we are all the same, we are all one. We are individuals, but we are one in the sense that we are all eternal servants of Krishna. 

And with that understanding, there’s no question of friends and enemies like ordinary people have friends and enemies. If someone is favorable to their egoistic desires, that person’s their friend, or if someone is in the way of the fulfillment of their selfish desires, then that person can become their enemies. I have a god-brother named Bhurijana dasa, a very thoughtful, intelligent, and Krishna conscious devotee. He said that everyone has the psychology of going through life as if it were a movie, in which he or she was the hero. Everyone feels that everyone else should be the supporting cast, and they should make all arrangements for him or her to show their wonderful qualities and activities. So if every one of us is thinking, We’re the heroes or heroines, and everyone else should be supporting us, then there’s going to be conflict because I think, You’re not playing the role properly; you’re not supporting me. And you think, Well you’re not playing your role properly; you’re supposed to be supporting me.

That’s because the central point is missing. In conditional life, everyone makes himself or herself the central point. As Bhurijana Prabhu says, it’s like everyone is going around with the mentality, Excuse me, I have an important message, I am the center of the universe and everyone should do what I want. That’s the same idea. So, when Krishna’s the central point, then there can be harmony amongst everyone else, but when each of us was thinking we should be the center and everyone should support us, then there’s going to be conflict.

PURPORT (continued)

This vision is called ekatvam, oneness. Although there is a relationship of master and servant, both master and servant are one because of their spiritual identity. This is also ekatvam. Thus the conception of ekatvam for the Vaiṣṇava is different from that of the Māyāvādī.

COMMENT

The impersonal philosophers or speculators, whose ultimate goal is to merge and become one with the impersonal spiritual light which is actually emanating from the transcendental body of Krishna—that’s also a conception of ekatvam or oneness, but that is a very different conception because there’s no. . . In fact, it’s a type of spiritual suicide because one tries to merge, become one with God and cease to exist as an individual. It’s almost impossible to attain that state, and even if one does, it’s temporary because later Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam says that those who imagine themselves to be liberated in the impersonal conception, fall down because they neglect—these are prayers to Krishna—because they neglect the service of Your lotus’s feet. As the Gītā says, kleśo ‘dhikataras teṣām, that that impersonal path is very difficult, but even then, if by chance one is able to attain some impersonal realization, liberation is temporary because of the neglect in the service of the lotus feet of the Lord.

It’s just like, in any situation to be happy we need variety, we need friends, and we need loving relationships. And in that impersonal brahmajyoti, that’s missing. So the living entity feels restless, he wants some activities, and he feels lonely, he is stuck in this impersonal effulgence. That’s why that’s actually not a permanent situation of liberation, and the living entity in that situation, patanty adhaḥ, does fall down again. But coming back, if he’s fortunate, he can get the association of a pure devotee and become himself a devotee. That will achieve real liberation, which is to be reinstated in one’s constitutional position as eternal servant of Krishna.That’s called svarūpa, realizing one’s eternal position. That is defined also in Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam:hitvā anyathā rūpaṁ. That means, giving up all others false identities, sva-rūpeṇa avasthiti, being established in one’s constitutional position. That is real liberation. 

PURPORT (continued)

Hiraṇyakaśipu asked Prahlāda Mahārāja how he had become antagonistic to his family. When a family member is killed by an enemy, all the members of the family would naturally be inimical to the murderer, but Hiraṇyakaśipu saw that Prahlāda had become friendly with the murderer. Therefore, he asked, “Who has created this kind of intelligence in you?”

COMMENT

So the history here, this is very old history, but Hiranyakasipu had a brother named Hiraṇyakṣa, who’s also a big demon. Hiraṇyakṣa was creating a disturbance in the universe as later Hiranyakasipu did, and Vishnu, in the form of Varahadeva killed Hiraṇyakṣa. So, Hiranyakasipu was already inimical toward Vishnu but his enmity, his sense of enmity increased because Vishnu had killed his brother, Hiraṇyakṣa. Now, Prahlada,Hiranyakasipu’s son, was the nephew of Hiraṇyakṣa, so one would think based on the bodily relationship that he also would have been inimical toward Vishnu, but he wasn’t. In fact, to the contrary, he was a devotee of Vishnu or Krishna. This was very perplexing for Prahlada’s father, Hiranyakasipu, who was a big demon. Demon means someone opposed to God, opposed to devotional service, opposed to devotees. 

Therefore, Hiranyakasipu asked, “Who has created this kind of intelligence in you that you’re aligned with our enemies? Have you developed this consciousness by yourself? Since you are a small boy, someone must have induced you to think this way.” Actually, there is a history to this, which is that there was fighting between demons and devotees or demigods in the universe. Some of these concepts may seem foreign to us or alien to us because we live in a different time. But it says that in previous ages, in Satya-yuga, devotees and demons lived in different families. Then in the next age, devotees and demons lived in the same family, like we have in the Bhagavad-gītā, the battle of Kurukshetra, devotees and demons in the same family. Arjuna and the Pandava were devotees, and Duryodhana and Kauravas were demons. 

In Kali-yuga, which is the present age, devotees and demons live in the same person. We can all attest to by our personal experience, so we’re here to try to flame the spark of the devotee within. Now, coming back to the history, there’s a great fighting between the demigods and the demons. And as often happens in war, sometimes one side gets the upper hand, sometimes the other side gets the upper hand. In this particular point in time, the demigods, devotees, had the upper hand. Hiranyakasipu’s wife was pregnant, and so the demigods thought that the child within her womb must be another demon like his father. So they wanted to take possession of Hiranyakasipu’s pregnant wife, so that when the child was born, they could take custody of the child. But Narada muni, who’s the devarṣi, the sage among the demigods, intervened. He said that the child within this lady’s womb is a great devotee. 

The demigods have faith in the words of Narada, who’s their spiritual master, and they circumambulated that lady, offering respect to the child within. Narada took possession of the lady, and instructed her in spiritual science and Krishna consciousness, and Prahlada within the womb was hearing it. The children within the womb can hear, and that’s why often as devotees we read Śrīmad-Bhāgavatam, or scriptures aloud so that the child within the womb can hear. So, Prahlada received spiritual instruction from within the womb from Narada muni, and that. . . I mean, he’s a devotee by nature, Narada said, he is a devotee, it’s already understood, but his devotional spirit was enlightened by the knowledge he received from Narada muni within the womb. 

PURPORT (continued)

Therefore he asked, “Who has created this kind of intelligence in you? Have you developed this consciousness by yourself? Since you are a small boy, someone must have induced you to think this way.” Prahlāda Mahārāja wanted to reply that an attitude favorable toward Viṣṇu can develop only when the Lord is favorable (sa yadānuvrataḥ). As stated in the Bhagavad-gītā, Kṛṣṇa is the friend of everyone (suhṛdaṁ sarva-bhūtānāṁ jñātvā māṁ śāntim ṛcchati).

COMMENT 

That means, if you understand Krishna. . . Prabhupada quoted that verse but this part that Srila Prabhupada quoted means that if you understand Krishna to be your best friend, to be the well-wishing friend of every living entity, you attain peace. We want peace, and as the Bhagavad-gītā says, “Without peace, where is the question of happiness?” So that peace can be achieved as stated in this verse of the Bhagavad-gītā: bhoktāraṁ yajña-tapasāṁ. That means if you understand Krishna to be the supreme enjoyer, not us, bhoktāraṁ yajña-tapasāṁ sarva-loka-maheśvaram, if you understand Krishna to be the supreme proprietor of all planetary systems, which includes every part of this planet and including us. bhoktāraṁ yajña-tapasāṁ, He is the enjoyer; sarva-loka-maheśvaram, He is the proprietor; suhṛdaṁ sarva-bhūtānāṁ, He is the best friend of every living entity; jñātvā māṁ śāntim ṛcchati, such a person attends peace, shanti.

Once I was sitting and chanting japa rounds at the beach near my ashram in the Santa Barbara area, and a ladybug landed on my hand, and I don’t know where I got the idea that ladybugs are auspicious.

Devotee: They sure are cute.

Giriraj Swami: Yeah, they are cute. And then I was looking, and I was seeing there are a lot of pelicans, they fly and then they swoop down. It seemed very idyllic, very beautiful, but then I sort of. . . I don’t know how to say, Krishna removed that vision and replaced it with an awareness of the reality that these living entities are suffering. Okay, it looks great to us, they’re soaring in the sky, diving down, but they’re suffering. It must be hard to crash down into the water, they’re looking for food, that’s what’s going on, they are hungry, they’re only looking for food, even the little ladybug, she had. . . I was just calling her a lady because she is a ladybug by saying, “her,” but she would be having her own challenges in her life. 

I was sort of overcome with this feeling of wanting to do good for them, to help them, help all these creatures. And then I considered further, what can I really do? Yeah, I can chant Hare Krishna, but what can I really do? Then I thought that actually the one who can really help them is Krishna. As Srila Prabhupada often said,Krishna is their best friend, someone is a friend of another person who directs the other person to Krishna being a real friend. So yes, suhṛdaṁ sarva-bhūtānāṁ. Well, He knows all these living entities, I mean, I’m just getting a sense of a few of them, He knows every one of them. And I may have some sympathy for them but He loves them dearly, so He’s really the one who can help them. 

PURPORT (continued)

As stated in Bhagavad-gītā, Kṛṣṇa is the friend of everyone (suhṛdaṁ sarva-bhūtānāṁ jñātvā māṁ śāntim ṛcchati). The Lord is never an enemy to any of the millions of living entities, but is always a friend to everyone. This is true understanding. If one thinks that the Lord is an enemy, his intelligence is paśu-buddhi, the intelligence of an animal.

COMMENT 

This is also Krishna’s absolute nature. Internally, He’s the friend of every living entity but if someone acts as His enemy like Hiraṇyakṣa or Hiranyakasipu, Krishna will play the part of an enemy and kill them. But because of His absolute nature, being killed by the Lord means they’re liberated. Krishna’s absolute, and even being killed by the Lord, living with that inimical spirit, he’s liberated. 

PURPORT (continued)

This is true understanding. If one thinks that the Lord is an enemy, his intelligence is paśu-buddhi, the intelligence of an animal. He falsely thinks, “I am different from my enemy, and my enemy is different from me.”

COMMENT 

I think politics is based on the concept of differentiating between friends and enemies. 

PURPORT (continued)

“I’m different from my enemy, and my enemy is different from me. The enemy has done this, and therefore my duty is to kill him.” This misconception is described in this verse as bheda-gatāsatī. The actual fact is that everyone is a servant of the Lord, as confirmed in Caitanya-Caritamrta by Sri Chaitanya Mahaprabhu (jīvera ‘svarūpa’ haya — kṛṣṇera ‘nitya-dāsa’). As servants of the Lord, we are one, and there can be no question of enmity or friendship. If one actually understands that every one of us is a servant of the Lord, where is the question of enemy or friend? 

COMMENT 

You can see that practically if people became Krishna conscious, especially the leaders of the leaders became Krishna conscious, the world situation would change. 

PURPORT (continued)

Everyone should be friendly for the service of the Lord. 

COMMENT 

Direct instruction for us. 

PURPORT (continued)

Everyone should be friendly for the service of the Lord. Everyone should praise another’s service to the Lord and not be proud of his own service. This is the way of Vaiṣṇava thinking, Vaikuṇṭha thinking.

COMMENT 

Vaikuntha means the spiritual world; it literally means the place of no anxiety. So, if we have this mentality, then we’re not in the material world, we are in spiritual world. 

PURPORT (continued)

This is the way of Vaiṣṇava thinking, Vaikuṇṭha thinking. There may be rivalries and apparent competition between servants in performing service, but in the Vaikuṇṭha planets the service of another servant is appreciated, not condemned. This is Vaikuṇṭha competition.

COMMENT 

Now, competition is part of life, but there’s mundane competition, in which the person does not acknowledge the good quality or the good achievement of the other. Whereas in Vaikuntha competition or transcendental competition, one acknowledges the good qualities or the good work of the other person, but wants to do better, not for the sake of being better than the other, but for the sake of pleasing Krishna more. “Oh, this person has done such good service to please Krishna, so let me do even better service to please Krishna even more. ”That's spiritual competition, there’s no envy in that. And in material competition, there’s envy, “Oh, everyone’s saying he did such a great job, I don’t think he did a great job.”

PURPORT (continued)

This is Vaikuṇṭha competition. There is no question of enmity between servants. Everyone should be allowed to render service to the Lord to the best of his ability, and everyone should appreciate the service of others. Such are the activities of Vaikuṇṭha. Since everyone is a servant, everyone is on the same platform and is allowed to serve the Lord according to his ability. As confirmed in Bhagavad-gītā (15.15), sarvasya cāhaṁ hṛdi sanniviṣṭo mattaḥ smṛtir jñānam apohanaṁ ca: the Lord is situated in everyone’s heart, giving dictation according to the attitude of the servant.

COMMENT 

So we’re all individuals and along with our individuality, we have individual desires to serve the Lord in our own individual ways. And that adds to the beauty of the service, like in a bouquet of flowers, when there are different flowers, it’s very attractive. Yeah, all the flowers and the variety of flowers is very attractive, appealing, and pleasing to Krishna.

PURPORT (continued)

The Lord is situated in everyone’s heart, giving dictation according to the attitude of the servant. However, the Lord gives different temptations to the non-devotees and devotees. The non-devotees challenged the authority of the Supreme Lord, and therefore, the Lord dictates in a way that the non-devotees forget the Lord’s service life after life, and are punished by the laws of nature. 

COMMENT 

So the Lord is in everyone’s heart, and He helps the living entity fulfill their desires. And if someone wants to forget the Lord, the Lord will help that person, even these big atheists who come up with all these theories against the existence of God, they’re being helped by God within the heart. Because in that sense, He’s neutral, He will impartially give the living entity the intelligence to fulfill his desires. But then, there are consequences. 

PURPORT (continued)

The non-devotees challenge the authority of the Lord, and therefore, the Lord dictates in such a way that the non-devotees forget the Lord’s service, life after life, and are punished by the laws of nature. 

COMMENT 

But that punishment is also good for them because after being punished sufficiently, they might come to their senses and realize this isn’t working, I should surrender to Krishna, I should become a devotee instead of being punished. 

PURPORT (continued)

But when a devotee very sincerely wants to render service to the Lord, the Lord dictates in a different way. As the Lord says in Bhagavad-gītā (10.10):

teṣāṁ satata-yuktānāṁ

bhajatāṁ prīti-pūrvakam

dadāmi buddhi-yogaṁ taṁ

yena mām upayānti te

“To those who are constantly devoted and worship Me with love, I give the understanding by which they can come to Me.” Everyone is actually a servant, not an enemy or friend, and everyone is working under different directions from the Lord, who directs each living entity according to his mentality.

COMMENT 

We’re all servants, but we’re all individuals, and the Lord is inspiring each of us to render service in our own way, according to our capacity and our desire to render service. It all works together to please the Lord, and that’s a devotee’s interest, the interest to see that the Lord is happy. That’s the devotee’s happiness. 

Srila Prabhupada had a disciple named Bhavananda. Now, bhava means the material world, that which comes into existence. There’s another word, bhāva, which means ecstatic love of Godhead, and there is a name Bhāvananda, but Srila Prabhupada didn’t give this disciple that name, he gave the disciple the name Bhavananda, the material world. Bhavananda was sort of worried about what Prabhupada was saying by giving him that name. Srila Prabhupada replied that the devotees perceive happiness in the Lord’s happiness. And in the material world, the devotee can preach. Can’t really preach in the spiritual world because it’s already Krishna consciousness. In the material world, you can preach and that preaching, bringing new people to Krishna, gives Krishna the greatest pleasure, and that’s Bhavananda, the pleasure of the material world, preaching. That sort of comes back to the line of the purport, that the devotee tries to spread Krishna consciousness. All right, thank you very much, Hare Krishna. Are there any questions or comments? So, where is our senior speaker, Nityananda Chandra Prabhu?

Devotee: The understanding is that Krishna fulfills the desire of His servant, who sincerely wants to serve Him and make Him happy according to his nature and his propensity to offer service? 

Giriraj Swami: Yeah.

Devotee: And Krishna increases that desire within the individual? 

Giriraj Swami: Are you talking about the material world or in the spiritual world?

Devotee: Spiritual, like doing service to Krishna in a specific mood. 

Giriraj Swami: In the spiritual world?

Devotee: No, in this particular world when we’re offering service to Krishna. So I guess the question is Krishna understands each individual soul, is the friend of every individual, so He is sort of adding the spark to continue whatever service mood someone has, or He’s also helping to purify them. 

Giriraj Swami: Yeah. In the beginning, our motives may be mixed, like we may want to distribute a lot of books to give people Krishna. But by being a good book distributor, we may get a lot of praise, approval, and recognition. So our motives may be mixed, but in the process of devotional service, we should become purified. As we progress, we may become purified of the grosser desires, say, a new person may be eating meat, taking intoxicants, or gambling. Then as they associate with devotees and become purified to give up those. But there may be more subtle anarthas or unwanted desires, and those also have to be purified. Sometimes the example is given, when you make ghee, you put the butter on the fire, it melts, and then impurities come up and you remove the impurities and keep removing them until it is pure ghee. So in our practice of bhakti-yoga, impurities come up. It’s not bad that the impurities are coming up, so they can be purified and more will come up and eventually, we become pure like ghee. Any other questions or comments? Nityananda Chandra Prabhu, what is next? 

Devotee: We can serve out the feast. 

Giriraj Swami: Okay, that sounds like a good idea.