How can we avoid the ego’s feeling that service to others is demeaning?

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hare Krishna.
Question from Sudhir Prabhu. Is all service considered demeaning in the material world? Because in the material world also, people serve, maybe if we serve a professor properly, we get expertise in the subject, we serve some other people, that also gives us some happiness. And is service to the spiritual master also considered demeaning? Answer.
No, it depends on two things, who is doing the considering and what is it that is being considered. First of all, if a person is proud, then that proud person may consider anything demeaning. And a proud person may think even doing something which is not at all demeaning, just waiting for to clear the flight, for an airport for clearance, that person may consider demeaning.
Oh, they should give special clearance for me. So, that person who is doing the consideration is important, attitude is important. Some people are so arrogant that even small things can make them feel it is demeaning.
On the other hand, for a devotee, even a great insult can be considered to be not demeaning. A devotee may see it in a way that this is just Krishna letting something come to me. Srivastava Thakur, when others tried to blaspheme him, he said, okay, this is just Krishna giving my reactions.
He in fact said, you know, actually people are exposing my true nature. It was not his nature, but he says, now actually people are doing good because I was a hypocrite, but now people are exposing to the world my true nature. So, it can all depend on the person who is doing the consideration.
Now, second is also what is important is to recognize that certain activities are not at all demeaning. Service, in fact, is a part of the growth chart in any field. If you want to learn even a material field, we have to serve under someone, follow that person’s instructions, do this, don’t do this, do this.
And that is how we learn. So, it is actually very wrong to consider that all service is demeaning. A lot of services can be elevating, but that is the general disposition that people have that service is demeaning and that’s the wrong disposition.
So, even in material life also, by learning, it’s not demeaning, it’s elevating. Because by serving someone, we learn and we grow by that. Now, of course, in material life, the motive is often that I want to prove that I am greater than others or I want to become greater than that other person.
So, I serve my boss and my dream is that I can become the boss’s boss one day. And the way that person is ordering me, I want to order that person in future. So, that’s undesirable, of course, especially with respect to spiritual life.
A devotee never thinks, I want to become superior to my spirituality mentors. No, they are always advanced and I am always their servant and I always want to serve them. Now, is service to spiritual teachers demeaning? Not at all.
It’s glorious that service is the opportunity that will help us to make spiritual advancement, that will liberate us from the slavery to the senses and the mind which we are being subjected to right now. So, that service is glorious and we should grab every opportunity we get to do that kind of service because it will enable us to advance very nicely in our spiritual life. So, with respect to service to Krishna and His devotees, we should always recognize that it is something which is very wonderful and we should do it wholeheartedly and in that way, we will be able to make steady advancement.
So, overall this feeling that the idea of service is demeaning, that we can avoid by understanding philosophically the nature of the activity and by contemplating how we can do, how it may be our activity, our attitude also which is changing. So, by changing the perspective at the thing being done and by changing the perspective of the person oneself, one can avoid the feeling that service is demeaning. So, even then when we are doing some services as devotees, we may differentiate that this service is good, this service is not so good, this service is too humble.
I don’t want to do this. No, but then we have to understand that there are two factors. What is our psychophysical nature? We try to do service accordingly and secondly, doing some services also which are menial, that also keeps us humble.
So, that way, by keeping our ultimate purpose in mind, we can, that which is to develop love for Krishna and that whatever contributes to that love for Krishna is favorable, we can avoid the feeling that certain things are demeaning and steadily keep practicing, rendering whatever