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Is personal service to Swami higher than participating in Swami's mission?

[Ms. Thrylokya asked:- Paadanamaskaaram Swami, there are two kinds of services (Karma Samnyasa) to God (Swami). First is, participating in Your mission of propagating spiritual knowledge to the world. Second is, to do personal service to You. Only a few devotees get the opportunity to do Your personal service and the rest of us have the opportunity to participate in Your mission. I assumed that both are equal in pleasing Swami but Phani Sir contradicted my assumption saying that He would prefer personal service to Swami than participating in Swami's mission. Kindly clarify.]

Swami replied: Mr. Phani is correct because he was in My constant association and well aware of the concepts of My spiritual knowledge. The reason for this is that the personal work of God is 100% related to God only. If you see the mission of God, it is 50% related to the welfare of the souls and 50% related to God because God is pleased by the mission. Gita says that the perfect devotee shall have 100% concentration on God only, which is called as single pointed devotion (Eka bhaktiḥ viśiṣyate – Gita). If God ordered you to do the work of the mission and if you do it, it is equal to doing God’s personal work. If God did not order you to do the work of the mission and still if you do it, your concentration on God is not 100%. Your faith in God is not perfect. You have a doubt on God that God may be highly selfish and is asking me always to do His personal work only and He is not bothered about the welfare of the world. Hanuman is said to be the best example for single pointed devotion (Eka Bhakti). Rama wanted to test His devotion (infact, Rama wanted to show the perfect devotion of Hanuman to all others). Ravana fought with Rama and on the first day, Ravana got defeated in the hands of Rama. Rama told him “If you bring My Sita tomorrow, I will leave this war and return to My native place”. Rama told this while all including Hanuman were hearing. If Hanuman doubted Rama to be selfish without caring for the welfare of the world (because the welfare of the world will take place only if Ravana was killed in the war), Hanuman should have replied to Rama “You take Sita and go back. I have joined You in this war not just for the sake of Your personal work but also for the sake of the welfare of the world by seeing Ravana being killed. I will fight with Ravana and kill him”. But, Hanuman did not say this and followed Rama blindly.

In your question, you mentioned about sacrifice of service to God (Karma Samnyasa) only, in which some may get the opportunity and some may not get the opportunity. For example, the monkeys surrounding Rama got the opportunity to build bridge on the sea and sages doing penance for Rama in the forest did not get such an opportunity. A devotee staying close to Rama may have the opportunity to press His feet and fan Him. Such opportunity will not be present for the devotees present far from Him. Since you limited to karma samnyasa only, your question is valid. But Karma yoga consists of both karma samnyasa and karma phalatyaga. It is also told in the Gita that karma phalatyaga is greater than karma samnyasa. Karma samnyasa involves sacrifice of energy and karma phalatyaga involves sacrifice of matter. As per E=MC², a lot of energy is equal to very small matter. Gita also says that karma phalatyaga is the highest and after that, there is no effort on the side of the soul resulting in a full stop (tyāgāt śāntiranantaram). For doing the sacrifice of fruit of work, there need not be any type of inconvenience for anybody who is far or close. If the devotee is totally unable to do sacrifice of fruit of work, the point here is not the magnitude of the sacrificed fruit, but its percentage in the total possessed that brings the actual value of the sacrifice. A beggar donating one coin is doing 100% sacrifice and a rich man donating thousand coins is doing only 0.1% sacrifice. In this view, one need not think that God has gone into the hands of rich people. Anyway, 100% concentration on God is the most important spiritual effort. Ego and jealousy create some diversion in this line, God appears with some negative qualities also to test the devotee. If true love is the attraction towards God based on His positive qualities, the climax of true love is the same attraction towards God in spite of the appearance of some negative qualities.

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