Why Serve God??

[Guest guest]

Dear Ramanuja Dasas,

 

Over the weekend, several of us had the opportunity to witness the

historic opening of Sri Ranganatha Temple, a vision come true by the

Grace of the Divine Couple and by the prayers and hard efforts of dozens

of devotees.

 

Despite events like this, often times our minds are found questioning

the reason why human beings put aside personal aspirations, quality time

with their families, and social commitments to friends to devote

themselves to the cause of Ramanuja Darshanam. What is it that moves

them? What is that they gain from it? What is it that moves them

towards a life that for some, goes against the grain of even what their

own families sometimes believe in?

 

These perplexing questions were brought to my mind over the weekend in a

conversation that I was having with one of my fellow devotees here in

Denver. While my own limited knowledge could not provide an answer, I

did find a wonderful posting in Bhakti that said it all for me. For the

benefit of those who have not read this in already, here is the article,

which was written by one of the newest members of our Society, Sri

Maruthi Pavan of Hyderabad.

 

adiyEn Ramanuja Dasan

--------------------------

 

SriMate RaMaanujaaya Namaha,

 

I wanted to pen something more about Service to God.

The general saying is that " Service to God is Service

to Mankind " .

 

But according to my Master Sri Chinna Jeeyar swamnji,

it is the somewhat like this. " Serving the Mankind

considering that it is service to God " . ( " Maadhava

Seva gaa Maanava Seva " as told in Telugu )

 

I fully agree that according to our Vishistaadvaitaa,

it is the service to God which takes prominence.

Every living being in this Universe is existing and

breathing because of the compassion of the Lord. Out

of Love towards all of us, HE is ready to help and

serve any one irrespective of his history, background

etc. These are cleary shown in incidents like saving

Prahlaada, Gajendra Moksham and many more uncountable

and innumerable cases. I would like to discontinue on

talking about the pains that the Lord takes for us,

because I do not have words to express his Love

towards us.

 

All our great aachaaryaas and alwars could recognize

this mad love HE has for us and that Upakaara Smriti

made them serve him in return. When a real devotee

offers service to Lord, he doesnt do it for some gain

or even as a duty. It is spontaneous due to the Love

he has for the almighty who keeps working continuously

for us day and night. The best example is Sri

Srinivaasa Perumaal of Thirumala. From time immemorial

he is standing there offering abhayam to all his

children. Now a days he just sleeps for 5 minutes.

Before he goes to bed, he is woken up and his day

starts again. But he doesnt care for all that pain. It

is because of his love towards us. I wish that he

could get some more rest and sleep everyday. Some

authority at the TTD has to take this into

consideration. Everybody comes there only with their

wishes, people sing his glories and great qualities

but how many people recognize the pain he is having?.

When he comes in the form of our aachaaryaas, he again

similarly strives through out his life for us.

 

It is this mad love he has towards us, that our

aachaaryas recognized. When you really realize it, you

start serving and loving him madly. If a person says

that he loves the Lord and stays quiet, it is not true

Love. He is not fully into it. It is like a river in

floods which cannot be limited by its banks. It has to

break the banks and flow.

 

Examples of this can be seen in all our Alwars singing

Mangalaa saasanams ( like Thirupallandu )to the Lord.

So very clearly Service to God is the highest thing.

It is like the service a mother does to her children,

service of a loving couple to each other, service that

two close friends do for each other. There is no

expectation of any gain or anything in that.

 

Now coming to serving the Mankind :

 

Every Atman is linked to God. God in turn is linked to

every Atman. So through this law, every Atman is

indirectly related to every other Atman ( It is only

through their link with the Lord ). When you realize

this, you start feeling Love for all the beings. Then

you start serving them, because you now know that

service to Lord's loved ones gives him more joy then

serving him directly. Our Mother Goddess Lakshmi takes

care of all of us as her children, because of her

shesatva bhaavana to the Lord. Any one who is his is

also hers. She is the first teacher to all of us after

the Lord. Similarly just due to compassion towards all

of us, all our great aachaaryas have left Vaikuntham

and came down to serve us. Any body who is dear to HIM

is equally dear to them. So they keep on striving to

bring us on the right path and make us experience the

great joy which they experience in Lords company.

Great examples of such divine personalities are Sri

Ramaanujaa and all our alwaars and our aachaaryas.

They could not bear any harm being done to any entity.

Raamaanujaa's brother ( I think it is Govinda bhattar

) put his hand into the mouth of a snake, to remove a

small stick which had got stuck in its mouth, to

relieve it from pain. He didnt even bother about its

true nature while protecting it.

 

So I feel that, both the services are interlinked and

inseperable. One cannot find a difference between

them.