।। कृष्ण सेवा सदा कार्या मानसी सा परा मता ।।krṣṇa sevā sadā kāryā mānsī sa parā matā- Siddhantmuktavali (Shri Mahaprabhuji)
Shri Mahaprabhuji teaches us such a wonderful thing, "Always engage in the seva of Krishna; in seva, the state of 'mansi' is the best. This is interpreted in such disastrous ways by Vaishnavs that it can hamper your bhakti altogether.
Often times, seva is the first thing we skip in our day to day life. Have to attend a marriage? skip seva, have to go watch a movie? skip seva, have to take kids to the garden? skip seva, sometimes even Facebook and other social time-sinks lead us away from seva.
Obviously such indifference towards seva is wrong. Ignoring seva for other things is wrong. You must feel guilty when you do it. Krishna is at our homes as our child, as our family. Would you ignore your family like that?
There is a slight sliver of hope if you at least feel guilty about it, such repent shows that you care and are upset if you are unable to do seva. However, many in our Pushtimarg have made themselves comfortable under the above shloka by misinterpreting it to justify their laziness. As a result not only they do not do seva, they have stopped feeling any kind of repent for it and live a life in a house with walls made up of self ignorance and misinterpretation. What they have done is, started doing 'Mansi' seva! They think of doing seva and don't actually do anything. They imagine the entire process of seva in their heads and conclude seva as done for the day after their imaginary escapade in vraj with Krishna. This is so stupid. She Mahaprabhuji has said मानसी सा परा मता, meaning manasi is the ultimate, if this lazy interpretation of manasi is true, does aapshri mean to say "do seva all the time, but if you dont do it and just think about doing seva, that is best, that is ultimate." this is laughably stupid. Not only in seva but in any activity. Can you just 'imagine' feeding your baby and be done? Can you just 'think' of studying and will you learn? Is just 'imagining' being in Paris sufficient?
To such fools, I invite you to a vacation trip to Europe with Five star accommodation and business class flight tickets with a personal chauffeur and a concierge. Shall you join me? We shall do it in mansi though.. if you can do seva in mansi like that, I don't see why you can not enjoy Europe like that too!
In seva, mansi is a state in which is experienced through extreme dedication in seva, ultimate love for Krishna and maximum involvement of time in seva and bhakti. Raja Askaranji did not experience manasi by his own will, he was dedicated in seva to such an extent that even when an arrow hit him in the stomach, he didn't feel pain, he didn't even react, he was in seva and he was deeply engrossed in the lilas of Krishna. Such level of dedication is required in achieving mansi. It doesn't just happen by imagining seva in your mind...
Hope you stop doing that 'mansi' seva after reading this, for those of you who still want to do mansi seva, my Europe vacation tour offer is still open to you....
(Originally posted at facebook.com/vatsal.goswami and pushtiprakash.blogspot.in)
