How can we choose among various services that we can do?

Answer Podcast:

Transcript

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sometimes in spiritual life we may have so many ways so many desires so many ways about how to serve Krishna how can we decide which is the way Krishna wants us to serve broadly speaking there are two main things there is guidance from outside and introspection from inside so in general bhakti means swakarmana tamabhyarja siddhim mindati manavah worship him worship Krishna with your work so we have to find out whatever is our nature and serve Krishna according to that nature nature means it doesn’t necessarily have to be brahman kshatriya vaisheshudra that sort of nature but just what are our talents what are our qualities what are our interests we serve Krishna accordingly so in the early stages of our spiritual life when we come we just do whatever our senior devotees tell us to do and that is good because that teaches us the basic principle of subordination of obedience and it gives us the exposure to bhakti in general but over a period of time we will ourselves find that we gravitate towards certain services we like certain things so while we are doing what we are told to do we should also be observing what am I good at so just like suppose there is a cricket team and a person first joins a cricket team that person is just happy to be in the cricket team whether I am an opener a middle or bottom I am just happy to be in the team but that person has to stay in the team that person has to over a period of time get a clear role and make a tangible contribution are you going to be an all-rounder are you going to be a finisher come in the final over then just hit some shots are you going to be a fast bowler or whatever and now that is something which some people can use guidance but then that person also has to feel inspiration I want to become a fast bowler so I want to become so and so so now this is something which nobody else can tell sometimes we may be introduced by certain senior devotees and we may feel that I want to become like that devotee but then it is not necessary that the devotees have introduced us we are going to have the same talent that they have we are going to have the same interest that we have we are always grateful to them but we cannot always become like them so over a period of time we observe ourselves and see what are the services that we feel inspired to do what are the talents that we have and it takes time so we in general should be open to services but we can’t expect to be able to decide some of us may have some special talents by which we might be able to decide very soon but for many of us it may take some time and it may not be just one or two just one talent alone we may be doing 2-3 different services also so if we have 3-4 different options we may decide ok I will do this for 3-4 months then I will try this for 3-4 months and if we are making any major decisions in our life it is good to write to keep a journal during that period I will keep a journal ok how was I feeling when I was doing this did I feel satisfied did I feel