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I welcome you to this evening's satsaṅg, which is dedicated to questions and answers. The question concerns sevā. Sevā means service. A devotee from Vancouver, Canada, has asked: What does it mean to do sevā? How should one understand it? Sevā means service. There are two kinds of service. One is selfish, performed with some material expectation. The second is selfless, done solely for your spiritual development. Serve every entity; help them come out of their troubles and solve their problems. If someone is handicapped, help them. All temples, ashrams, and monasteries are created for sevā. Sevā is the highest dharma—duty or religion. In every religion, there is the subject of helping, of sevā. As I often say, helping hands have more value than folded hands. Help. God once placed two things on a scale: liberation and service (sevā). Sevā was weighed as greater than liberation itself. That is why God and the holy saints come to this earth: to help. God comes for helping. God needs nothing. God helps us, supports us, and fulfills our wishes. God performs selfless service. Thus, we understand sevā in a different way. How does a devotee (bhakta) ask God how to serve and how to have that service accepted? As a disciple of the Master, what should the disciple ask? Not for money or worldly things, but for what? Our beloved Sat Gurudev, the Hindu Dharm Samrāṭ, Swami Madhavānandajī—you see his picture here—asked his master, our grand master, the incarnation Bhagavān Śrī Dīp Nārāyaṇ Mahāprabhujī. What a human can imagine, what God can do, Mahāprabhujī could do. Read the Līlā Amṛt. Our holy Gurujī wrote a bhajan song about sevā. How should a disciple behave towards Gurujī, Gurudev? What should a disciple ask the master? The first thing Gurujī says to Mahāprabhujī is: Dīp Dayā Layārāja sun lījo, Dīp Dayā Layārāja sun lījo. The disciple says to the Master: "O Master Bhagavad-Dīp Nārāyaṇa Mahāprabhujī, O Gurudev, merciful one, please listen to my prayer. Be merciful to me with thy mercy. Please bless me with satsaṅg." Satsaṅg means to be with the truth, with the holy saints—not where there is gossip, not where worldly desires are awakened, but with the truth, with God. Please bless me that I always come to satsaṅg. Even if only two people are together, speak nicely, positively, divinely. That is nectar for our soul. O my Gurudev, bless me with satsaṅg and keep me away from negative people who backbite, criticize, speak badly, or write badly about others. O Lord, protect me from these people. Let me come to the satsaṅg. What more? My spiritual practice is through discipline and vairāgya—detachment. Our problem is our deep attachment to this world. We are attached to many things; this is the cause of all our problems. So, renounce everything. Practice spiritual sādhanā. O Lord, O Gurudev, make my practice, my sādhanā, unbreakable and without interruption. I may quit my food, but I should not quit my spiritual practice. The universal light, the deep flame, should always be in my heart. This flame should not be blown out. The eternal cosmic light should be in my heart at all times. O Gurudev, remove my doubts. The darkness of doubt: when we have doubt, the light goes out and we suffer. Where there is love, there is no doubt, for love removes negative things. The light of devotion, belief, love, and wisdom should always be in our heart. O Mahāprabhujī, thy divine form should always be in my eyes. Wherever I look, I see thee. I do not wish to see anything else, but in everyone and everywhere, I see you, O Lord. This sevā I want; this I am asking you. What is he asking? Lord, always be in my visions. For you know, my Lord, that my service to thee... O Mahāprabhujī, please listen to my prayer. With ascending and descending breath—in and out—only Thy name. Inhalation: Gurudev. Exhalation: Gurudev. Inhalation: Gurudev. Exhalation: Gurudev. Gurudev, Gurudev, Gurudev. Inhalando Gurudev, exhalando Gurudev. Not a single breath should go empty—without thy name, O Lord. What more can I do? Remove malefic shapes from my intellect, my feelings, and my thoughts, O Lord. Remove mal—impurities—so that I never think impurely, but always with pure thinking. Mal: physical, emotional, mental, spiritual—all such impurities. Through our negative thinking, layer upon layer covers our consciousness; we cannot see and cannot come close to God. We cannot remove it ourselves. Suppose this room is dark and we ask the darkness to please go away. It will not. But the Master, the Gurudev, will come and turn on the light. Then there is no darkness. It is God's blessing, God's mercy, that can remove our impurities. Otherwise, we remain stuck in the dirt. Then vikṣepa—doubts, disturbances, worldly problems about job, money, family, education. O Lord, please remove all these problems. And āvaraṇa—a curtain. Just as a blind or curtain prevents us from seeing outside, we have the darkness of ignorance; we cannot see. Only God can remove this curtain of impurity, problems, and ignorance. O Lord, remove this from me so that I may see Thy divine form at all times. May each and every heartbeat have the sound of thy name: Oṁ Guru Dīp, Guru Dīp, Guru Dīp, Guru Dīp, Guru Dīp. This is the mantra for healing your heart and inner fear. That divine light is constantly within us. This is a very simple mantra for the ascending and descending breath. After repeating it for some time, it will become: Gurudev, Gurudev, Gurudev. If you have any problem, repeat it mentally. Make this experiment. Everything will be okay, but with that trust: I am Thine, I am Yours. I surrender to Thee. Everything is Yours. Adhika badi jo śrī dīpa dayālaya rājasura dhyāna aṭal rahe śubha caraṇam. O Mahāprabhujī, O Gurudev, O Lord, my concentration, my attention, my meditation should always be at thy holy lotus feet. At all times, I have shelter in thy holy feet. Every second, O my Lord, my love for thee should increase; it should never decrease. Then you are swimming, floating in what is called Bhakti Sāgara—the ocean of love, the ocean of devotion. When this awakens in us, life becomes completely different. You know everything that Mahāprabhujī will do. All we must do is dedicate and surrender. No doubts, O my Lord. Still, if you do not accept my service, though I do all this... You know, my Lord, why you do not accept me? If you do not accept my service directly... Somebody, I have written it wrong here. Yes. Dāsan ke dāsāham ho. Ho yeh praśan merī sevalī jo... Dīpadaya ke dasan ke dasaham. If you do not accept my service directly, then let me serve your servant. Through serving your servant, accept my service to thee. This is a very important point. It means you should be very kind, humble, and helpful to the disciple of your Master. Be very kind and humble in relation to your Guru's disciple. Have no jealousy towards the disciple, or your brother or sister. Do not judge their qualities. Surrender yourself to the devotee of your Master. When you help and serve your Guru's devotee—your guru brother or sister—without doubt, ego, conflict, or selfishness, when you serve them, help them, respect them, love them, and support them, this is your service to your Gurudev. If you do not respect your Gurudev's brothers and sisters, then your Gurudev suffers. You cause pain to Gurudev. You want to be alone with Gurudev. If you have five children and one is against all the others, would you throw all five out of the house? Similarly, the disciples are equal to the Gurudev. On the day you think negatively about other disciples, you lose Guru Bhakti. At that time, darkness appears in your consciousness. And what happens? What is the darkness? Fear appears. When fear is there, anger comes. When anger is there, you can do nothing. Then jealousy comes. Jealousy is a fire; it will destroy you. When you are jealous, even if you do not show it, your psyche and heart will suffer. This is very important: towards your guru brothers and sisters, not only respect but adore them. It does not matter how he or she is. I know you are the best one. Why are you the best? Because you are the best, so you can help all. You are the wise one, so you can guide them. You are the strong one, so you can support them. This is the sevā. There is a story. I do not know the complete story, but it was about Jesus and two women. One was sitting beside Jesus, and one was working hard in the kitchen. I have forgotten which one it was, but Jesus said that the one working in the kitchen had chosen a better place. The one just sitting beside Him, thinking "I am close to Him, I am very important for Him," was acting from ego. Jesus said the one working had chosen a better way. So, O Mahāprabhujī, if you cannot accept my service, let me serve thy bhaktas. Through serving your bhaktas, please take my sevā to you as it is. That is why, when I took sannyāsa and became a swāmī, and all bhaktas who became sannyāsīs also took the mantras and dedicated their lives... you see, for the last 45 years I have been traveling around the world. Even if there are only two people, I travel for two days by aeroplane to go to these two disciples, bless them, and stay with them for two or three days. For me, it is about quality, not quantity. So, I dedicate my life to serve my Gurujī by serving you. I give you satsaṅg, teach yoga, meditation, mantras, prayers, bhajans, etc. What is that? This is my service to you, which means my service to my Gurudev, for I bring the truth of my Gurudev. This is dedication, not temporary. Sometimes I ask people, "What is the name of your guru?" They say, "I don't know. My guru died many years ago. I don't know the name. But he had a beard like you, Swami." They see only the beard. But the Guru never dies. As long as Gurudev is in physical form, he is with you beside you. When he leaves the body, he is within your heart. So he never dies. Immortality is always immortality. That is it. Eso es. Tere dāsan ke dās raham ho. This word "āp ke"... it doesn't, doesn't... so "tere dāsan ke." Tere. "Āp ke" is a respectful word, but it does not fit here. In which way can I serve you, my Master? How should we love or serve the Gurudeva? Bring his message, this divine message, to the world. Without showing tiredness, do not say, "I can't anymore." Until the last drop of blood and the last breath, I will be Thine. One master sang a bhajan: "O Gurudev, will thou come? Will thou come? Just for once, come to me. O Gurudev, will you come to me? Sorry." So, the bhakta looks day and night: "Will thou come, will thou come, just for once come to me? For all my heart, open wide, I give for thee. Will thou come, will thou come, just for once come to me? Will my days fly away? Will my days fly away without seeing Thee, my Lord? Night and day, night and day, I look for thee, night and day." This is for bhaktas. Others cannot write such a song. This was written by Paramahaṁsa Yogānanda. And you know, devotees (bhaktas) can have jealousy, as I told you before. When Paramahaṁsa Yogānanda came from India to America and lived in Los Angeles, his master loved him very much. But other devotees began to criticize: "Now he's living in America, he changed the culture, he doesn't think of you, Guruji, he's just enjoying his life there." Doubts, blackmail. So his Master wrote a letter saying, "You are very far, and I don't feel you," and so on. "People say that you have left me." Yogananda was so sad that his Gurujī would say this; he could not leave him. So he wrote a letter to Gurujī: "Gurudev, I will be Thine always. Devotees may come and devotees may go, but my Lord, I will be Thine. I may go far, far beyond the stars, but still, my Lord, I will be Thine. Master, even if I die in a far distance, even if I die, look into my eyes. They will mutely say, 'I will be dying.'" That is devotion. That is love. That is a bhakta. That one will come to the brahmaloka. Others are like dust; you can just broom them away. So, the first step of development is to love your guru brothers and sisters. Meditate, remember, repeat the mantra of the Gurudeva. There is a next bhajan coming... This bhajan is missing here. No, it is okay. It is not complete... It is complete. O Lord, O Mahāprabhujī, O the giver of everything, Mahāprabhujī, please do not disappoint the hope of thy devotee. Nirāś—disappointment. Nirāś means you go a long way because someone told you that under a cactus tree there are five kilos of gold, and they give you the address. You travel for five years, find the place and the cactus, but there is no gold. What a disappointment. So after all this, Gurujī said, "O Merciful Mahāprabhujī, please, do not disappoint my hope." I ask only for one thing, only one thing. I do not ask for anything else, and this one thing is: Śrī Mādhavānanda Maṅge Caraṇokhi Bhakti. Mādhavānandjī Gurujī said, "I beg only one thing. I ask only one thing: please give me service to Thy Holy Lotus Feet. That. Only one thing I ask you in every life: if I have to be born, please give me devotion and service to thy lotus feet, and accept me as your servant." This is called service. That is the meaning of Sevā. So when you receive the name Sevā Purī or Sevā Devī, it means something great. It is not easy. It is not easy to serve. You know, in the hospital, sometimes patients are in great pain and are not friendly, but still, nurses are very kind. So it does not matter how it is; our duty is to serve. So if you are a Seva Devī or a Seva Purī or Seva Nanda, I have given you a very hard task. Keep on holding, and by the blessing of our Gurujī, you will be successful. Every name I give the bhaktas has the same aim, so never doubt, never have any kind of misunderstanding. You know what you have seen. When you have seen God, you can only say, "I saw God, but what I saw, you have not seen." I can only tell how divine He is. These are the high duties of bhaktas. So we are sitting in the boat of satsaṅg. We are swimming in the ocean of bhakti sāgara, and the water is nectar. Nectar is immortality. All my dear ones, I bless you in the name of Mahāprabhujī, Devapurījī, Gurujī, Alagpurījī, and wish you all the best. Tomorrow is the last satsaṅg—tomorrow or the day after? We have two satsaṅgs more. Tomorrow we will take up a different subject. Do not miss it; I think it will be at the same time. I have other duties; the Mexicans keep me very, very busy. But I try to keep the time, though technology tortures us. So please wait. More love and blessings.