Service Anxiety

By His Divine Grace
Srila Bhakti Nirmal Acharya Maharaj
Sri Nabadwip Dham
29 May 2013

Sometimes we are afraid of Krishna, we are afraid of the Lord, but you should not be afraid of Him. You should join your lifestyle with Krishna, with the Lord, because Krishna, the Lord Himself, is your family member. This is the main thing. We should know it—we have come from the Lord, we are all sons of the Lord. If we get good association, then we will understand we are members of His family.

Sometimes we do puja [worship the Lord with reverence], but it is not necessary—when we have a family, a husband, children, etc. we take care of them as our own family, so a devotee also takes care of Krishna as a member of his family. That is the main thing.

We are afraid to serve Him thinking, "Oh, what if I do something sinful, what if some offence comes, what if something bad happens if I serve Him wrong?..." but our Guru Maharaj, and Prabhupad also, said that there is no offence for a surrendered soul. For example, once Krishna wanted to test His devotees. He pretended that He was sick and asked for some feet dust of His devotees. There are many devotees—Narad, Brahma, Siva; Krishna has Satyabhama, Rukmini, and the rest of 16,108 wives in Dvaraka, but none of them wanted to give their feet dust. They thought about themselves, about their own happiness, "Oh, if I give it, I will be committing a sin!" They did not think about Krishna, about their husband, "He is very sick, He is suffering so much, but if I can give some of my feet dust he will be cured!" They did not think about that. On the other hand, Vraja gopis did not think about themselves—they thought about Krishna, that is why they did not hesitate, they gave the dust from their lotus feet.

Mahaprabhu had a servitor called Govinda. Govinda would massage Mahaprabhu's feet because sometimes Mahaprabhu would get very tired after dancing and feel some pain. He did it every day. (That is what is called sincerity—when you do something, you should do it every day.) One time, Mahaprabhu danced the whole day, and He fell asleep inside His room in front of the door. He lived in Gambhira at that time, in the house of Kashi Mishra in Puri, and that room had only one door. Because He was lying in front of the door, Govinda could not go inside. He was thinking what he could do, to jump over or what else. He asked Mahaprabhu,

"Prabhu, please move a little so that I can come inside..."

"I cannot do that, I am very tired."

"I am doing this service every day, I always massage Your feet..."

"What you will do is your business, I cannot tell you what you will do or not do."

Then Govinda thought, "I do it every day, so what can I do?" He took his uttariya, cloth, put it on top of Mahaprabhu's body, and jumped over it into the room. Then, he collected whatever dust fell on his cloth, put it on his head and sat down to massage Mahaprabhu. He massaged Mahaprabhu's body for half an hour or an hour, and Mahaprabhu got a good rest.

At midnight, Mahaprabhu suddenly woke up and saw Govinda in the room. Govinda always slept outside Mahaprabhu's room, so He asked him,

"Govinda, why are you still inside? Why did you not go to rest? Why did you not go to take prasadam?"

"Prabhu, how shall I go crossing You??"

"How did you come? You crossed Me..."

"I came inside to serve You, to massage Your feet. It is my duty, my service. I may be hungry, I may be sleepy, but I cannot cross You for my own self. There is no place to pass the door, You are blocking it; if You do not move, I cannot go outside."

We must understand the siddhanta (conclusion) of Chaitanya-charitamrita—for our own self, for our own enjoyment and happiness we cannot commit any offence, but for the service to our Guru, for the service to Krishna, we can accept any kinds of offences. This is the lesson taught by Mahaprabhu and Chaitanya-charitamrita.

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