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Seva

Selfless service purifies consciousness and is the essence of spiritual success.

Karma yogis who serve with love gain more benefit than mere intellectual understanding. In a story, when students chose seva, Krishna waited and took the remaining task of clearing the used leaves, stating it held the most benefit. Another account describes a disciple's exhaustive daily service to his guru, sometimes feeling tired. When offered any boon, the disciple asked only for the guru's service in every life, a wish granted though the guru remarked he could have asked for more. Service must come from the heart; refusal can mean never being asked again. Serving all is service to the divine.

"Whoever does seva, whoever has a consciousness of seva, purifies their consciousness more quickly."

"If you want to give me something, then give me in every life your seva."

Filming location: Strilky, Czech Republic

We have a number of karma yogīs who worked with great love, and they are the beauty of our āśram. They made the āśram so beautiful—cleaning the garden, the park, the vegetable garden, working in the kitchen, and washing the corridors several times a day. After every interval, when you walk with your shoes and return to sādhanā, the karma yogīs were cleaning the corridors, washing with water that flows only from the heart. That is love for seva; others cannot do it. Without love, one will not do it. These karma yogīs will have more benefit from the sādhanā than one who merely understands sādhanā. Yoga is successful through karma, and without karma there is no success. Doing seva in the ashram is especially indescribable. When Śrī Kṛṣṇa finished his schooling with his master, Guru Ṛṣi Sandīpa, all the students were to go home and lead their lives. Ṛṣi Sandīpa organized a great festival. Many ṛṣis, yogīs, sādhus, paṇḍits, and others were invited for eating and satsaṅg. Can you imagine all the holy saints coming together? All the brahmacārīs of the school, or gurukul, took over the seva. Ṛṣi Sandīpa asked everyone, "Who would like to do what kind of seva?" Some said, "I will welcome the guests." Others said, "I will show the guests their place to sleep or sit." Some said, "We will cook." Others said, "We will serve." Others said, "We will serve water." Others said, "We will wash the holy feet of all the saints who come," and so on. Kṛṣṇa was standing there. Ṛṣi Sandīpa asked Kṛṣṇa, "What are you waiting for?" He said, "I am waiting until all my brothers have made their choice. I will take whatever is left." All work was taken. Kṛṣṇa said, "Master, there is one very important work no one has chosen: to remove the plates after eating." (The word 'dirty' is not proper for those plates; they are not dirty.) It was the tradition to eat on a banana leaf, which is most pure from the viewpoint of hygiene. Everyone gets a big piece of banana leaf with rice, vegetables, purīs, samosās, kachorīs, pakorās. They also make a little bowl from leaves for soup, khīr, raita, and such. After eating, they gather it all and throw it into the fields for recycling. Kṛṣṇa said, "I will do this work, because there is more benefit in it." Seva is very important. Whoever does seva, whoever has a consciousness of seva, purifies their consciousness more quickly. Some people escape from seva. There are many disciples; sometimes when I ask for some seva, they just wait until somebody else says, "Yes, I will do it." I do not want to mention names because they will say again, "Swamijī attacks us." But seva is very great. In Līlā Amṛt, once Mahāprabhujī—full of light, radiance, and divine glory—came out of his room with great mercy. You can imagine it was like lightning. Mahāprabhujī asked Holī Gurujī, who was sitting outside on the ashram veranda. Holī Gurujī sat on the veranda with a knitting machine, making bedsheets and cloths. Gurujī also did tailoring work in the ashram. Gurujī said that in the morning when he got up, he first had to clean Mahāprabhujī’s room, then make the fire, warm water, and prepare for Mahāprabhujī’s bath, then clean his dress, and then do the pūjā. Mahāprabhujī would wash his feet, perform āratī, prayer, and tilak. Then Holī Gurujī’s duty was to go to the forest to collect firewood, go to another village for alms and return, and then work at tailoring or similar tasks. He cleaned the whole ashram yard—about 3,000 to 4,000 square meters—every day by sweeping. The rest of the time, he massaged Mahāprabhujī’s holy feet, sang holy bhajans, wrote some posts for Mahāprabhujī, and so on. Holī Gurujī had a very busy day from night until 12 or 1 o’clock, beginning at 3:30 in the morning. Holī Gurujī said that when he was living with Mahāprabhujī, he sometimes thought, "Will I ever sleep enough in my life?" Because Mahāprabhujī always called him: "Come, read that book." After reading half a page, "Leave it for today. Go and sleep." After half an hour, call again: "Bring me that postcard which came last week, and read what he was writing inside." And like this, always: "Bring a glass of water. Now, look outside. Which star is how far? What is the time? Then go to sleep." Again, he would call: "Look outside. Why are the dogs barking?" Perhaps some bhaktas had come. That was the līlā. That is God’s Līlā. That is Guru Kṛpā. Gurujī said he was so tired, sometimes so angry. Holy Gurujī said, "Unnecessarily, why does he disturb me?" But Gurujī said, "Now he has enough time to sleep. I didn’t realize. Those divine, blessed days—you never know how precious is Gurudeva’s presence." One day, Mahāprabhujī came out of his room and asked Gurujī, "What do you want? If you want, I will give you the kingdom of all three worlds." Gurujī stood up, made praṇām to Mahāprabhujī, and said, "Lord, if you want to give me something, then give me in every life your seva." Mahāprabhujī said, "It will be. But you should have asked something more, something different." Mahāprabhujī went into his room. Gurujī said to me one day, "You see, he could have wished for anything—siddhis for flying, all kinds of siddhis, all mokṣa. Anything he could have wished would have been fulfilled immediately. But nothing is more joyful than being with Gurudeva. If you have his seva, then your life is successful." Therefore, in one of the bhajans, Gurujī writes, "Tīśā Gurujī." When Mahāprabhujī left this world, Gurujī said that for some minutes it was so difficult he thought he would also take his life. But he remembered again that Mahāprabhujī had said, "Serving all is seva to me." Therefore, he decided to spread Mahāprabhujī’s divine teaching everywhere. So seva bhāva, the feeling of serving, should come from the heart. And when once somebody refused, Mahāprabhujī never asked again. That was the last time, because Mahāprabhujī could feel what was going on in the heart of the person. Mahāprabhujī used to do so much work himself. It was a divine life with him.

This text is transcribed and grammar corrected by AI. If in doubt what was actually said in the recording, use the transcript to double click the desired cue. This will position the recording in most cases just before the sentence is uttered.

The text contains hyperlinks in bold to three authoritative books on yoga, written by humans, to clarify the context of the lecture:

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