Should we accept the slavery to God?

Śrī Nitin asked: Śrī Bharat Krishna asked me that whether we accept the slavery to God forever or sometime or never? Please give an answer to this.

Swāmi replied: When this question rises in the mind, such a person will never become a slave to God or to anybody in this world. The idea of slavery shall come naturally without any force from outside or from inside. Slavery is karma saṃnyāsa or sacrifice of service. Hence, slavery belongs to practice, which is of two sub-divisions:- i) Sacrifice of service. ii) Sacrifice of fruit of service. Hence, after the spiritual knowledge (first step), the second step is the inspiration or devotion. After the second step, the third final step is practice or karma yoga in which sacrifice of service or becoming servant is a sub-division. Hence, after knowledge and devotion, the final step is the practice which is either to become servant or to sacrifice the fruit of outside service or both. A house holder is expected to become servant and also sacrifice the fruit of his work or service done outside. A saint can do only service and not sacrifice of fruit of work because he lives on begging others only. Therefore, service to God is common to both householder and saint.

Sacrifice of fruit of work is certainly far far greater than the sacrifice of service or work. Fruit of work involves matter and service or work involves energy. As per E=mC², very little matter is equal to lot of energy. Does this mean that a rich person having lot of matter or money is more preferred by God than a poor person having no money or matter? In such case, how Jesus told that a camel can pass through the eye of the needle, but, a rich man can’t reach God? It is also seen that a begging lady donating 1 coin to God (Jesus appreciated this beggar saying that her donation is the highest.) and a poor lady donating one small fruit to Śaṇkara got salvation. This is not a contradiction to the above concept because it is not the magnitude of sacrificed money or matter, but, it is the percentage of the share of the sacrificed item in the total possessed by the devotee. This means that the beggar donating one coin did 100% sacrifice because the total possessed by him was that one coin only. Other rich people donating thousands of coins were not blessed by God because their sacrifice was not 100% since they possessed lakhs of coins. This removes the misunderstanding that God’s grace is related to money. A begging saint having not even one coin can sacrifice service only and in his case, such total sacrifice of service is equal to sacrifice of total money possessed by a rich devotee.

Hence, service is the inevitable third step for any devotee whether the devotee is a begging saint or a rich house holder. Therefore, every devoted soul must participate in God’s work and do service. Among such serving devotees, the rich devotee can also sacrifice fruit of work and poor devotee need not sacrifice fruit of work. Therefore, the inevitable meaning of third final step or practice is to serve God by becoming His servant. Slavery is condemned in the worldly but not in the spiritual life. In spiritual life, the devotee must always aspire to remain as servant to God not only in this birth but also in the future birth. Even a liberated soul is born along with the incarnation of human incarnation of God and is expected to participate in God’s service assisting the human incarnation or Sadguru. The service becomes slavery when there is total surrender from the side of the servant. Such slavery is condemned in pravṛtti or worldly life. In worldly life, you can do service but not slavery. But in spiritual life if you have become a slave to God, which means that you have surrendered totally to God in your service, there is no further step than this in the spiritual effort to be put up by the spiritual aspirant.

(While Swāmi is answering, Śrī Hrushikesh told that slavery to God means the self-imposed slavery and not the slavery imposed from outside called bonded slavery, as is done in the worldly life.)

[A comment by Śrī Hrushikesh]

Swāmi replied: In the case of slavery to God, you should not use even the word ‘self-imposed’. The reason is that such slavery to God is ‘self-desired’. Self-imposed means that you are imposing something on yourself against your desire. For example, your desire is to smoke or to drink wine. Now, you are imposing force on yourself to resist the desire on smoking or drinking. Here, in the case of God, slavery is self-desired and not self-imposed. This means that just like your spontaneous and forcible desire to smoke or drink wine, the slavery to God must be also your spontaneous and forcible desire. The Vaiṣṇava cult in Hinduism says in the prayer to God that the devotee shall become the servant of servant of servant of servant of God! (tat bhṛtya bhṛtya paricāraka bhṛtya bhṛtyaḥ). This means that the spontaneous desire of the devotee in the climax of devotion is to become a slave of slave of slave of slave. When this is the truth of climax devotion, such question shall not come to the mind of a devotee even in dream. Hence, in spiritual life there is no place for imposition and the entire place is only for the word self-desire. The reason is that God never has the idea of exploitation of devotees since there is no such necessity to the omnipotent God even in dream. The words like servant and service are used in very low level whereas words like slave and slavery are used in very high level. Service has resignation and retirement whereas slavery has neither resignation not retirement. Service has payment of regular salary and retirement benefits. Slavery has no such facilities and is always the true love, which is one-way traffic.