Service

Service has several different meanings - it may mean the act of serving someone, a ceremony organised for a particular purpose are the two most common meanings. However, in this post I want to focus on the act of serving someone, specifically Kanha. We all know that serving God is the highest form of service. However, many people shy away from the idea of having to serve anyone, even God because we associate service with menial tasks that are beneath us. But Kanha knows this, He knows the meaning of service and He wants us to serve Him fully and with all our hearts. I recently read an account of the incident with Draupadi and the never-ending sari that Kanha sent to her. The story says that Kanha did not help Draupadi until she put both her hands up to pray to Him, trusting that He would cover her body. Prior to that, she used one hand to protect her modesty and the other to pray to Him. This is what Kanha wants from us, complete surrender to His will and we do not have to feel like we are losing anything when we do this, because, like Draupadi, we have everything to gain from surrendering to Him - He will always help us in the end and He will always take care of us in ways even better than we imagined. What then does it mean, service to God? Service to Kanha involves several things: 1. Prayer and worship to Him - bhajans, direct prayers, meditation 2. Aarti and polishing of His murti or picture 3. Telling His stories to others 4. Serving others in His name 5. Incorporating His name and His will in everything that we do. The last one is of course the most difficult. We all like to keep our worship, our work and our play separate. But Kanha is always with us, whether we accept it or not He sees everything that we do and we have to find a way to account for our actions to Him in the future. We must hold ourselves accountable to Him for everything that we do - good and bad and as we begin to accept that Kanha is all around us all the time we will begin to talk to Him more regularly and eventually incorporate Him in everything that we do. We will realise that our actions all have consequences and we will begin to do only things that will please Him. This is our ultimate goal. Jai Shri Krishna!