Is serving according to our nature selfishness?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
yes sir, according to our nature is selfishness yes, it is enlightened selfishness because that way you could say whole of Varanasi is selfishness Ramana is told not to do brahminical duties Kshatriya is told to do Kshatriya duties Krishna very strongly says twice he says the same thing better do your duty according to your nature don’t do someone else’s duty even if you get defeated and destroyed while doing your own duty that’s better than prosperity rather even adversity in one’s own duty is preferable than doing someone else’s duty so the process of bhakti or even the process of selflessness does not mean that the self has to be miserable selflessness really means that the self gets short term pleasure the self gets long term pleasure and we pursue the thing that gives long term pleasure instead of pursuing those things it gives short term pleasure so doing what we like to do is may be according to some it is lower level of surrender possible but the practical reality is that if we look at our first generation some devotees who have survived and they have become great souls but as they spiritual masters or sanyasis gurus we will see each of them is individual in their own right and each of them according to their mood, their inspiration their nature and they also discovered this over a period of time and there is a large number of people who just couldn’t continue and large number of Prabhupada disciples are no longer in the movement for various reasons the thing is that we see that those who have sustained those who are advanced even after becoming advanced they are not just following one stereotype they are all doing according to their inspiration each spiritual master is serving in their own way so even at a very advanced stage also one’s individuality and service according to one’s individual inspiration remains so what to speak of at our level where our conditioned nature is much much stronger how can we be expected to just put aside our conditioned nature entirely so usually it’s a matter of discussion and negotiation by which you can find out this is what the movement needs this is what the institution needs, this is what the individual needs so ideally the two overlap that is the best and we stay as an intersection of the two sometimes we may do something more for which is really not which is not really of interest but the institution requires it to do it and sometimes we may do something which is just for our growth for which there may not be immediate institutional contribution so for example somebody learns Sanskrit now is there any immediate contribution to that through institutional outreach? Not really but as one learns Sanskrit and then after that one starts preaching one’s preaching gets more authority one becomes more authentic in one’s understanding of scripture that’s very good so we shouldn’t do anything which is directly in defiance of our authorities but at the same time we should also not think that selfless service means suppression of our own nature selfless service means that what we would do according to our nature we do that for Krishna’s pleasure so if I had been giving public speeches maybe by my own past nature I have the capacity to speak in public but in the past I would have been delighting in my glory I used to give classes but now at least I hope that I try to pass on the glory to Krishna and Vaishnavas so the selflessness is not necessarily in terms of giving up our nature means something else selflessness essentially means doing according to our nature but primarily for Krishna’s pleasure and especially in terms of giving the credit for that to Krishna