Is service done in passion service or is it just self-gratification?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
it is good to have goodness when we do services sometimes I feel that I have a lot of passion I want to do big things arrange a big festival then is it is it desirable see there are two distinct aspects one is that what our present mood is and second is what is the best mood for performing bhakti so now yes bhakti which is performed in goodness is more sustainable, more joyful less agitating for others also but we cannot artificially change our mood whatever mood I am in I cannot just wish away that mood I cannot just suddenly come from passion to goodness I will rise from passion to goodness through a gradual process of purification and if we have passion then I have to channel that passion in Krishna’s service if I don’t do that then that passion will make me want to do big things in worldly life I have that urge to do big things then if I am not making a big festival for Krishna, I am building a big temple for Krishna let me make a big business for myself, let me make a big house for myself like that passion has to go somewhere so when the passion is there it is better to channel it in Krishna’s service so in that sense if we have the desire to do big things, let’s do big things for Krishna that is good now of course the desire to do big things can also come from transcendental passion and the desire to simply glorify Krishna that is what it is for pure devotees but for us it may not be so pure right now now while we are dovetailing our passion in Krishna’s service, two things we need to take care of is that that we don’t minimize or deride devotees who may not have that much zeal to do things I am doing so much, this person is doing nothing, so when we start doing a lot, we may start feeling that way about others because whatever mode we are in, we evaluate success and failure in terms of that mode, now if I am in goodness and my interest is in Shastra I will look at the others they don’t know any Shastra, what is the use of their Bhakti they may be doing book distribution, they may be doing fundraising, they may have built big temples so I shouldn’t evaluate everyone from the perspective of Shastric knowledge alone it is important, not the only important thing similarly with respect to doing big things, I may evaluate everyone, you have been preaching here how many people come for your program how many people are there in your Yatra how many people are in my Yatra so that will be the evaluation based on passion you could say we see just the number, the size the infrastructure, that kind of things the physical things so that we avoid while we don’t get into comparative inferior mentality based on passion and second is that there will be other people in the team who may not feel inspired to work at that pace so we shouldn’t force them we will find people who also like to do a lot of big things and we get them in the team somebody who can’t work at our pace, they may do some other services which they can do at their pace so they may feel a little sidelined but then that is ok, if you give them room to do some other services at their pace that is ok, so that is the main thing if we have passion we can’t wish it away but we have to make sure that it doesn’t make others uncomfortable too much so I have seen for myself also when I write if I had, I am writing this Gita daily if I had not made a target to write everyday I would not have been able to write much whenever I get time, whenever I get inspiration I will write, if I had said like that I would not have been able to write, so having that deadline helps me but you know for others, for many others everyday I have to write, every week I have to write this becomes too much tension for them so the same thing which becomes a tension for others can be inspiration for some others so we should assume that what is the inspiration for me is also an inspiration for others, it might just seem like a big tension for them, so we have to be careful to not impose our pace on others or evaluate others based on our pace and performance if we are not doing that then we can certainly channel our passion in bhakti and then gradually we become purified and if we take periodic breaks within to evaluate what we are doing, then that itself will bring some mood of goodness into it ok, I did this festival, ok this is what happened this happened, this happened then ok, maybe this could have been done differently if you see that Amrit Manthan Leela it is said when they had to churn the milk ocean the different moods entered into different people into the snake Vasuki ignorance entered and went to sleep in the demons passion entered and in the devatas goodness entered, interestingly both of them were pulling from two different sides and they needed to have equal force otherwise the churning rod would have got imbalanced, so it seems that goodness and passion both could exert equal force so we think that in passion only I will be able to work in goodness I will not be able to work, but it is not like that even in goodness we can work and work equally in terms of quantity as passion is concerned but it will be better in quality also so if we introspect ok, this is how I did things, maybe if I had done this, this, this, it could have been better that way if you think you might be able to, even within those activities minimize the passion and bring in and increase the element of goodness ok