CC daily 209 – 7.50-53 – Serve according to capacity; don’t crave for services we cant do

Chaitanya Mahaprabhu is the Lord, but Chaitanya Mahaprabhu does not treat himself as such. Rather he treats himself as a subordinate.
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu ke karana bhojan. 52. Tahaar brahmani tandra naam shathira mata.
Randi bhiksha dena teho ashcharya tandra katha. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu has been requested by Sarvabhauma to stay on for a few days. Chaitanya Mahaprabhu has come to Sarvabhauma to take permission to depart for South India, ostensibly for searching for his brother, Eswaroop, actually for delivering South India.
Sarvabhauma expresses his agony, saying that a thunderbolt killing me or my son dying will be less painful than such a thing happening to me. Then you are separation. But still, you are the independent Lord, if you desire to go, I must accept.
But still, O Lord, please stay for a few days, so that I can serve you. And the Lord, Shithilahailama, the Lord’s heart becomes soft, and he is hearing a sincere, fervent, intense request, the Lord agrees to stay. And then Sarvabhauma invites the Lord to his house for prasad, and when he is invited thus, the Lord goes to his house and serves and accepts the prasad.
So, Sarvabhauma’s wife is Shathiramata, is the mother of, is known as the mother of Shathi. And Ashtavitandra Kathayam, the way she cooked and served prasad to Lord Chaitanya is an amazing story, Sarvabhauma says. And I will tell the story later.
In fact, one of the later chapters after Chaitanya Mahaprabhu returns from South India is, the Lord accepts prasad at the house of Sarvabhauma. There is a whole chapter over there. There is a story of Amogha also that comes in that.
So, Krishnaswamy is writing a structured book, and he knows what he is going to put later. Often, if a person, if, say, there is a trek leader, and that person is taking people on a trek, or sometimes the trek is tough to climb through rough terrain, and people, they get exhausted. But if along the way, there are some cookies, there are some sweets or some things which are attractive just strewn along the way, then along the way as the people find something like that, they feel, oh, this is good, I got something.
And suppose it’s a treasure hunt or something like that, then as if people get clues along the way, oh, that stirs them onwards. That’s one thing, now maybe I’ll find next thing. And like that, they keep moving onwards.
So, in the same way, here, Sarvabhauma is stating, here, Krishnaswamy is offering us glimpses of what is going to come in the future. And in that way, inspire us to keep reading. So, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu accepted Prasad at his house, and he said, I’ll tell that story later.
And then after that, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu again asked permission from Sarvabhauma, so that he could depart. Here, we are working, here we recognize that in different situations, different devotees will serve in different ways. The devotees, say like the associates of Lord Chaitanya, Dhyanandaprabhu, Damaudar, Mukunda, Jagadananda, they all desire to serve the Lord by accompanying Him.
Now, they were also travellers, they did not have a house where they could invite the Lord for Prasad. So, they wanted to serve the Lord, and the way they served was by assisting Him in whatever He was doing. And they felt one way would be by accompanying Him.
And the Lord very soft-heartedly, at the same time firmly, told them that He wanted to travel alone. And then they arranged for Krishnadas, the Brahmin, to go with Him. And in the case of Sarvabhauma, he is a householder, he has a house, he has his family there in Puri.
And the way he serves, he has his royal and administrative responsibilities. So, the way he serves Lord Chaitanya, first we see that he arranged. When Lord Chaitanya came and he was being misunderstood as an upstart, when he fell unconscious in Jagannath Temple, he protected him, and then he took care of him in his own house, and then he arranged for a residence for Lord Chaitanya.
And a Sanyasi, Lord Chaitanya, would not go or would not… As a Sanyasi, he was a mendicant, and he would take Prasad at different people’s house. So, the way a Sanyasi can serve a Sanyasi is by offering Prasad. And Sarvabhaumani, for him, the issue also did not come up of his traveling with Lord Chaitanya.
Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s associates who had come with him from Navadweep to Puri, they were saying, please let us come with you. Sarvabhauma did not even express that desire. He expressed agony that he was going to be separated from the Lord.
And he fervently requested the Lord, please allow me to serve you for a few days. And the way he served is by offering Prasad. And he offered such amazing Prasad.
Here the chapter’s focus is on Lord Chaitanya’s South India tour. So, the way he offered Prasad now, the similar magnificent way he will offer Prasad when Lord Chaitanya comes back from the South India tour. And at that time, Krishna’s Kaviraj Goswami will describe the Prasad serving pastime because right now his focus is on describing Chaitanya Mahaprabhu’s South India tour.
So, Sarvabhauma serves according to his capacity. In general, we can cause much distress to ourselves by craving for service that we don’t have the capacity to do. So, if we don’t have the capacity to sing, and if we think, oh, I should become a leading Kirtan singer, we may sentence ourselves to unnecessary misery.
Of course, whatever talent we have, we can surely try to develop it. But even within the service of the Lord, rather than craving for a service we are not capable of doing, we can focus on the service that we have the capability to do and do that. So, that way we avoid the dissatisfaction and also we express humility.
Yes, I am not God, I am not perfect, I can’t do everything. But whatever I can do, let me do. And in that way, we move onwards towards Krishna by using whatever talents he has given us in his service.
That can apply in the case of Sarvabhauma, it is applying to his position. It can also apply to our talents, our resources, whatever be our specific situation. So, we focus on the principle that whatever my situation, I will keep serving the Lord.
And in that way, we can keep moving onwards towards Him.