Bhagavatam-daily 233 – 11.11.39 – The counter for duplicity is not just honesty but also simplicity

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Thank you amayaya 11 11 38 here it is said 11 11 39 this is actually some margin of opale bhyam Krishna in the previous verse talked about making arrangements for his reward here now Krishna is talking about those arrangements and the mood Krishna is talking is the mood of infusion within our heart an attitude of selfless love and sacrificing service such an attitude is the greatest treasure facilitates rapid spiritual advancement as it is said in the word like a servant without any duplicity in this world often when a person acts like a faithful servant the person’s aspiration is to become the master in fact often the aspiration the desire, the ambition is often even to overthrow the master and become the master oneself but even in such an extreme desire is not what is characterizing a person but still there is the danger that the person is actually caught in seeing service as a transitional tool to something higher people often serve so that they can become a boss and then they can give up serving that sort of service is not what is a healthy foundation for spiritual growth if you think as I’ll serve our senior devotees till I become senior and others will serve me such an attitude will not enable us to taste the sublime joy of service because the very vision of service is a transitional tool presumes or the very conception the very notion of service as a transitional tool presumes that service is not pleasurable what will something else that is achieved through service is what is pleasurable but that is not the case in real life when we talk about real life we are talking about the transcendental life based on the reality of our eternal relationship with Krishna in that real life our happiness depends primarily on how sincerely and diligently we serve Krishna and to the extent we keep serving him sincerely and diligently to the extent our relationship becomes thicker, sweeter stronger and thus we can move onwards towards him with steadfastness and here it is said that by serving him some specific practices are mentioned that smear the sacred places with cow dung clean them properly arrange for their proper maintenance according to standards all these are also expressions of one’s devotional intent it says when we love someone we want the best for that person similarly when we love Krishna we want the best for we want to offer the best to Krishna and offering the best to Krishna means offering him things with as meticulous standards as possible so here it is said that serve without duplicity usually duplicity in our tradition is compared with its opposite or rather contrasted with its opposite which interestingly our Acharyas translate not always as honesty because that’s what we would normally think duplicitous means dishonest the opposite of duplicity would normally be translated as honesty but our Acharyas often translate it as simplicity so Saralta the Sanskrit or the Hindi word Saralta doesn’t exactly refer to simplicity of one’s dress and of one’s lifestyle although that can also be referred to it primarily refers to the simplicity of the mind simplicity of the mind means that the devotee’s heart is not complicated and these complications are not compounded by multiple desires running on multiple tracks and multiple directions yes a devotee’s heart may have multiple desires and multiple tracks but they are all running in the same direction towards Krishna a devotee may want to find newer and newer ways of serving Krishna but underlying it all is the common denominator, the desire to serve Krishna and because of that common denominator the devotee is always satisfied in trying to offer the best to Krishna whatever be one’s situation now the specific subject that has been mentioned in this verse that we should all try to serve Krishna to the best of our capacity and that best is expressed even through the objective quality of our service that again can be connected to the point of simplicity simplicity as contrasted simplicity as used when in a contrast in contradistinction to duplicity it refers to not entertaining multiple contradictory desires in our heart but instead cherishing the simple desire to please Krishna with whatever he has given us whether it be simple or opulent and thereby move closer to him the desire is simply to love and serve and please there is no desire to try to promote oneself to a bigger position through service now what is critical for us in our devotional journey is a steady practice of bhakti wherein the sincerity of the heart is expressed through the quality of the service now some devotees may be able to offer better quality service than us does that mean that they are better devotees than us or some devotees say this quality is poorer than us does that mean that they are lower devotees than us not necessarily but we talk about expressing the sincerity of service sincerity of the heart through the quality of service that primarily refers to the quality according to our capacity so if we do the best that we can do Krishna is more than Krishna is pleased with us because he is bhavagrahi and thus we can without the complexity of trying to be better than others which also brings the duplicity of trying to pretend to be better than what we are actually all that we can avoid by keeping things simple that I will offer the best that I have to Krishna