(2/9) Master's Ego vs Servant's Ego

His Divine Grace Om Vishnupad
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Sri Vyasa Puja Day, Tarakeswar, evening class
29 September 2019, part 2
Translated from Bengali

Mahaprabhu personally taught how to distribute prasad to devotees. He distributed it with His own hand: He would first distribute all the prasad to the devotees, and Himself, He would take whatever was left over.

I told you earlier today that if you do not have a proper consciousness that you are taking prasad – if you think that you are eating, then instead of honouring prasad, you will be simply eating fried eggplant. When you are taking prasad, you must chant the glories of prasad. Prasad-seva is also service! You must offer prayers, chant the glories of prasad, and then take it. 'Oh, he has got much paneer, and I have got only potato!', 'Oh, they did not give nice things to this row!' – people make all kinds of complaints like that. They like to create servants around them. They come and complain, 'Oh, they did not clean a room for me!' Many devotees and Vaishnavs are coming here for the festival so that you can serve them, but instead you just eat quickly and go away. I often go upstairs and watch, and I see these things... This is how people are. They give anxiety to Vaishnavs and commit vaisnav-aparadha... They are heading for a downfall as it is, and by behaving like that they are only further clearing the road leading to their downfall.

Everybody can do service. Come and do what you can. You can clean, you can help bring water, you can help hand out the plates. If you cannot distribute prasad, then you can always come earlier and help with other services. Instead, you only always think, 'If I come earlier, I will sit first and get prasad sooner!' There are such people in this world... Not everybody comes to this world to serve the Lord: not everybody feels attraction and attachment to the Lord. Still, if such unfortunate people take some prasad and hear some Hari-katha, they can get the highest benefit.

We must always think about this. Service to Vaishnavs is a very remarkable, very notable matter.

Another thing is that everybody must serve according to their right. If you have no right to cook at the Deities' kitchen (if you have not taken the second initiation), you still have the right to help outside: you can sit outside and help cut vegetables, you can wash the dishes, you can wipe the floors in the rooms or on the veranda, you can help clean up after distributing prasad. You can also clean the place where the plates are thrown. If you think, 'Oh, I do not want to do this dirty work,' then it is ego. Nobody understands that it is such great fortune to touch Vaishnavs' plates. Nobody realises this... Not everybody is actually fortunate enough to do the cleaning service.

Everybody thinks, 'I have become a Vaishnav.' You come to gurudev one day, take initiation, and you think that you are a Vaishnav now and everybody must serve you. This is the mood people show. But you must serve yourselves – you must show service mood. 'Acharya' means teaching others by your own example: it means practising what you preach. If we were not like that, there would not be so many people here now. This is how I am personally carrying on my life, by the mercy of Gurudev. Gurudev is engaging me in service to this day.

Very often some concocted ideas come to our minds (mano-dharma). It does not matter whether you stay at the temple or at your home, it happens to everybody. Somebody can think, 'Oh, I am an educated person, but they are not giving me any good job', 'I know a lot, but they are not giving me any responsible service.' All responsibility comes from above. Some people come to stay at the temple, but their master's ego has not left them: such people think, 'I was the head of the family at home, everybody listened to me and did what I told them, but when I come to the temple, they tell me to sweep and do the cleaning. It is unacceptable.' It means that you still think that you are the doer and you are the master – that kind of ego has not left you yet. In that case, even if you are physically at the temple and even if you do some service, this is not living at the temple and what you are doing is not service to your guru. Remember this. If somebody has no pride, no master's ego – if they are gentle in their dealings and do everything happily (speak sweetly to everybody) – if such people are given the responsibility to manage the temple, then everything will be auspicious. Mahaprabhu told, 'You should lovingly serve Vaishnavs prasad, and if you do not have any prasad, then serve them love and sweet words.'

On the other hand, there are also people who are qualified to become temple managers, but they do not want to take on this responsibility – they want to always keep away. It is also wrong.

The problem is that people always want others to respect them, but if you do not give honour to others, you cannot get honour yourself. It is necessary to treat others with honour. If you cannot respect others, nobody will respect you. You must give honour to others; you must be respectful and forgiving. Forgiveness, humility and the feeling of being poor are Vaishnavs' ornaments. If you offer obeisance to somebody, what loss is it to you? There is no loss. [His Divine Grace reiterates in English: If you pay obeisances to others, if you give honour to others, you will not lose anything; rather, you will gain more.] If you can be like this, you will get everything. Always be like this.

Otherwise, you have not got rid of your master's ego, but you want to be a temple manager – if you feel taste for this, you are chopping off your own legs. If you still want to be a master, how can you become a temple manager? A temple manager is a person who always serves everybody.

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Length: 43 min
Language: Bengali

READ OTHER PARTS:

1) Relentless Pursuit
2) Master's Ego vs Servant's Ego
3) Servitor's Ambition
4) Do Not Waste Time
5) 'I Am Sold to You'
6) Kirtan: Devotees' Heartbeat
7) Loving Search
8) Esoteric Sacrality of Sannyas
9) No Shortcuts