SANKALP CAMP : Session 3 : Secret of fulfilment through Love and Service

In this session, we will understand what is the method of approaching God and what should be our motivation in
worshiping Him. By carefully understanding this point and adopting the right consciousness and right conception,
our true relationship with God can be easily awakened.
Right Consciousness : In the previous sessions, we have understood that the right
consciousness (seva vrtti not bhoga vrtti, service attitude not the enjoying mentality) that the
world we live around does not belongs to us; it belongs to Krishna. We are not proprietors, but
only custodians of God’s property. This is right consciousness. But many demonic people in
the past and present like Hiranyakashipu, Bali, Ravana, Hiranyaksha wanted to possess Lord’s
energies and were destroyed. Now it is not that only such demons have possessive mentality.
Anyone who looks at the world with an eye of exploiting or enjoying the resources ignoring the
original owner God, is considered to be of wrong consciousness due to enjoying mentality. This
means one should see the world around to engage everything in Lord’s service, not for personal sense
gratification. This is right consciousness.
Take, for example, our dwelling, which is made of earth, wood, stone, iron, cement and so many
other material things. If we think in terms of Sri Isopanishad, we must know that we cannot produce
any of these building materials ourselves. We can simply bring them together and transform them
into different shapes by our labor. A laborer cannot claim to be a proprietor of a thing just
because he has worked hard to manufacture it. The conclusion is this: everything belongs to
Krishna. Not knowing this fact, in modern society there is always a great quarrel between the
laborers and the capitalists. If we want peace of mind, world free from wars, home free from ego-
trips we need to adopt this right consciousness. Whole world is now looking for eco-friendly
farms and ego- friendly relationships! That cannot be without putting Lord in the center.

Right Conception : The right conception is God is Master and we are His servant. Wherever there are conscious
living beings, there is surely a master who maintains them. Master is the pivot around whom everyone and
everything revolves around. For example :
At home, father is the master; In a school, a Headmaster is the master.
In a Company, CEO is the master; In a state, CM and in a Country, PM.
Similarly in all the millions of universes, there are millions and trillions of living entities.
Naturally, their Master is God, the Supreme living entity and all living beings are His servants.
Lord is called vibhu, or infinitely potent, and we are aëu, or infinitesimal and dependent. This is
further confirmed in the Vedic literature by the statement nityo nityänäà cetanaç cetanänäm/ eko bahünäà yo
vidadhäti kämän (Kaöha Upaniñad 2.2.13).
When one ignores the Master and acts whimsically for one’s personal enjoyment, then one invites trouble and
misery. Forgetting God and becoming envious of God’s children, Hiranyakashipu, Kamsa, Duryodhana, Alexander,
Hitler etc thought that they are the centre of the universe and everything revolves around them. Due to this wrong
conception, they created havoc for millions of living beings; also they themselves suffered too. Hitler after
committing heinous crimes finally committed suicide.
ACTIVITY : 1 : Fill in the box with the right number of the words give below by identifying the right one :
1.ego-friendly 2.enjoying mentality 3.eco-friendly 4.service mentality 5.Master 6.Servant 7. God 8. We

(a) (b) (c) (d) (e) (f) (g) (h)

Right Conception is ____(a)_____ is ___(b)___ and ___(c)___ are __(d)__.

Right Conciousness is ___(e)___ not ___(f)___ .
Whole world is looking for __(g)__ environment and ___(h)___ relationships.

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Everyone wants to love someone or something somehow
People are fond of love novels, love songs, love movies and they have a
strong desire to love someone at any cost and they desire to receive
reciprocation from that love. A child loves the mother and mother
reciprocates with the love of the child. A kid loves the father and father
reciprocates with that love by becoming his horse and carrying his son on his
back. Not only we want to love but we want to serve those whom we love
too.
Lower animals like dogs, donkeys, cows, bulls etc serve human beings. A
Graduate Engineering Trainee serves his boss and tries to please him by
staying late at night. He leaves the Company only after his boss leaves. His
boss is serving the company and trying to please the MD.
An old man whose wife has passed away, children are married and settled
abroad, has no companion to express his love and service; still he gets a pet
dog from market and shows his love by caressing, feeding biscuits and taking
it for a walk.
If we go on searching in this spirit, it will be seen that everyone is loving and serving someone.
Whether one is a Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Jain or whether one is rich/poor,
educated/illiterate, beautiful/ugly, born in high class family or low-class family, strong/weak
everybody is rendering service to someone and loving someone. Even a ferocious animal like
tiger or lion shows love to their offspring.

Where can our Expanding Love find its fulfilment?

A new born child loves his parents, then his brothers and sisters and his own caste people. One may then
identify with one’s state/language/caste and join ‘brahmana sanga’ or ‘Tamil samaj’ or ‘Maharashtriyan
samaj’ and do some service to people whom he considers ‘his own’.
As he daily grows up he begins to love not only his family but his neighbors, then his state people and
then his country people or even the whole human society. One may become a patriot of a nation or a
social welfare worker of all humanity to render some service.
But the loving propensity is not satisfied even by loving all human society; that loving propensity remains
incomplete. A man may say that he loves all humanity, but he may eat cow or goat flesh not knowing all
living beings are children of one Supreme Father, Sri Krishna; therefore one’s love remains incomplete
until one comes to the point of loving the Supreme source of everyone and everything, Sri Krishna.

ACTIVITY :
1. In this world boy loves a girl, girl loves a boy; mother loves child, child loves mother; therefore we can
conclude that……………..
a) Basically we have to learn to love one another and live happily; that is the goal of life
b) Love for humanity is the greatest goal of life as we should treat people of all countries alike
c) Love for God, Krishna makes our love complete; otherwise love for all without Krishna is
incomplete.
d) Love for even all humans is incomplete because such lover may injure lower creatures for eating,
who are also children of God.

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2. After having observed the world around us, we can conclude that……………
a) We should love all and serve all humans, as that is the natural propensity of any gentleman
b) When someone loves us, all we need is to learn to reciprocate with that love; that’s all
c) If we say we love someone, that love has to be shown by our service; similarly if we say we love
God, we have to show our love for God by serving and pleasing God.
d) In all living beings, we observe that the innate nature is to love and serve. Originally the soul’s
nature is to serve God; having forgotten that duty, the soul has diverted his love and service to
other living beings.

Selfless Love vs Selfishness

When your mother serves you food, she does it out of love. No one is paying her salary, nor does she
demand it. Similarly, when you carry the luggage of your parents, you serve them voluntarily; you don’t
ask for coolie charges.
On the other hand, when love is not the basis of relationship, then one may not want to serve. A man
working for a company is very happy when his boss goes out of station for a week, so that he can relax
and enjoy independently. The boss wants to pay less and get more work done, while the employee wants
to get more salary and do less work. This exploitative relationship brings frustration to both.
Also we have seen our mother working hard in the kitchen trying to cook items that are more
nourishing, more tasty, more relishable for giving pleasure to children and husband. She doesn’t mind
sweating and struggling to cook a variety of items out of love. On the other hand, when we travel in
trains, we sometimes see a vendor carrying Bajji or Pakora releasing great fragrance catching the
attention of our nose! The vendor shouts, “garam poori, garam sabji, garam bajji, garam pakora” claiming
that all items are `garam’ or hot. When you buy and eat them you get a severe stomach ache the next day
because he had just heated a three day old stuff and brought it to sell you simply to make money! Besides
that he might have used re-cycled oil which is not healthy. The vendor is not concerned about your
health even in the least; he is concerned only about your pocket.
Here is the difference – your mother is concerned about pleasing your heart and she wishes to see you
healthy. But the vendor is concerned about your pocket, not about you or your health. Although pocket
and our heart and one behind another, we all intuitively know very well that mother serves us with love
and vendor sells us due to greed for money with no concern for us.
This exchange of love of mother or father or friend is what that touches our hearts; and that is the love
we all wish to experience at every moment and we keep hankering for when we go out in the world. But
this love lasts for some 80 to 100 years as long as we live in this material body after which we all have to
give up our current material body and take birth in another new family, where we get another temporary
mother and father.
On the other hand, if we can learn to awaken our original love for God, then we can stop the cycle of
birth and death, return back home back to Godhead and exchange pure love with God, the global mother
and father, Lakshmi-Narayan, Radha-Krishna or Sita-Rama, for all time to come, without any
impediments. When we forget the global Mother-Father, we are awarded a local temporary mother and
father in every lifetime.
Scriptures give us a clarion call, ‘uttishtatha jagrata, prapya varan nibodhata’, ‘wake up from your sleep,
O! human! And take advantage of your human form and perfect your life by returning back to Godhead’.
Thus anybody can understand that we are all looking for genuine loving everlasting relationship, that is
unmotivated, uninterrupted and which can touch our hearts and souls and give us the most thrilling
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experience. The Shrimad Bhagavatam (1.2.6) states that the ultimate goal of life is to achieve that type
of pure love of God :
sa vai pumsam paro dharmo yato bhaktir adhoksaje
ahaituky apratihata yayatma suprasidati
“The supreme occupation [dharma] for all humanity is that by which one can attain to loving devotional
service unto the transcendent Lord. Such devotional service must be unmotivated and uninterrupted to
completely satisfy the self.”

GOD: One Person called by Different Names

When we talk about love of God, people wonder that feeling love for mother or father is more easy as we
see them and have exchanges with them; but God seems to be a remote personality with whom we don’t
have regular contact or encounter; then how can we love Him? We, often, don’t even feel the need for
loving Him unless we are told by some godly people that we should express our gratitude to God because
He has given us so much. Let us now know about God and how we come to love Him with our hearts.
By definition, God is the Supreme Being and is the greatest as regards
any quality, attribute, characteristic etc. In other words, there is no one
equal to or greater than God in any quality, attribute or characteristic.
For each of His qualities, God has a name. Water is called by different
names in different languages, ‘paani’ ‘jalam’ ‘neeru’ ‘water’, but the
substance is the same. Similarly God is called by different names like:
‘Jehovah’ meaning ‘The Almighty’, ‘Allah’ meaning ‘The Greatest’ ,
‘Rama’ meaning `The Reservoir of All Pleasure’ and so on by different
people according to their cultures, languages etc. All these names
undoubtedly refer to the same supreme person - God, but each of these names refer only to a specific
quality of God. A simple definition of God is: `janmady asya yatah' `God is the one from whom
everything emanates' [Shrimad Bhagavatam 1.1.1]. He is therefore the source of all qualities.

Is there any name of God that encompasses all His qualities? The
equivalent word in Sanskrit for God is ‘Bhagavan’ and the meaning of the
word ‘Bhagavan' is explained by the great authority, Parashara Muni, the
father of the great sage Vyasadeva, as follows: The Supreme Personality of
Godhead who possesses (1) all riches, (2) all strength, (3) all fame, (4) all
beauty, (5) all knowledge, and (6) all renunciation is called Bhagavan.
(Bhaga means ‘opulence’ and ‘van’ means ‘one who possesses’) There are
many persons who are very rich, very powerful, very beautiful, very famous,
very learned, and very much detached, but no one can claim that he
possesses all riches, all strength etc. entirely except God. The presence of
one or more of these opulences in a person even in a minute quantity makes
him attractive in the eyes of others, therefore anyone who possesses all the
above six opulences in full is naturally `all attractive’. The equivalent
Sanskrit word for `all attractive' is `KRISHNA'. Hence Krishna is the name
which gives the most complete description of God.

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Who Is God ?
In the Bible, Jesus always called himself the son and representative of God, Christ. He
never claimed himself as the Supreme God. Jesus Christ comes from the Greek word
Christos, and Christos is the Greek version of the word Krishna. Krishna is a Sanskrit
word meaning "the object of attraction." So when we address God as "Christ," or
"Krishna," we indicate the same all-attractive Supreme Personality of Godhead. When
Jesus said, "Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name," that name of God was
Krishna or Christ. "Christ" is simply another way of saying "Krishna,"

In the Koran, Mohammed calls himself a prophet or a messenger of God,

‘Khoda’. He teaches the ‘rooh’ (soul) is purified by the flowering of ‘ishqh’
(spiritual love). The place where Payagambara Saheb, the prophet was taken by
Khoda, the Supreme Lord, is not influenced by ‘jisam’ (matter), but even there
‘rooh’ is ‘banda’, a servitor, and Khoda, is the master. Therefore, the
relationship between ‘Khoda’ and ‘banda’ is eternal. To attain this status by purification is known as
mukti according to Islam.

The question therefore begs itself: who is God? Only God Himself knows this answer completely, and
therefore we should hear from Him.
In the Bhagavad-gita, which is the summum bonum of all Vedic literatures, you
will never read, ‘Sri Krishna uvacha’, but, ‘Sri Bhagavan uvacha’. This means that
it is implied naturally that Sri Krishna is that Supreme Personality of Godhead
who is full in six opulences. Sri Krishna specifically asserts His supremacy over
the well-known gods or demigods of the Vedic pantheon. Unfortunately, many
people think of Lord Sri Krishna as an ordinary person, while some admit that He
was an extraordinary person with great mystic powers! But actually according to scriptures, Lord Krishna
is neither an ordinary person nor an extraordinary person, He is the Supreme Personality of Godhead,
the Supreme Controller, the Supreme Proprietor, the Supreme Enjoyer, the one
whom no one can ever equal or surpass in any aspect.
Lord Krishna is called ‘Poorna Purushottam’ which means He is the complete
manifestation of Godhead. There is no Truth above Him according to Bhagavad
gita. He proved it by showing the Vishwarupa darshan (Universal form) explained in
Bhagavad gita 11th chapter. Both the Universal form as well as the four handed form
of Lord Vishnu emanate from Krishna’s form. He also showed the whole universe
within His belly to mother Yashoda. No ordinary mortal can exhibit such feats in
the wildest of dreams.

Is God Personal or Impersonal?

Whether God is personal or impersonal has been a subject of raging controversy throughout the ages.
You are a person, I am a person, even the butterfly is a person. In fact, every living entity is a person.
When all of us are persons, then how can God, the one from who m all of us have originated, not be a
person? Your father is a person, his father is a person, his father is also a person, then how can the
Supreme Father not be a person? How can the Absolute Truth, which is Complete be incomplete by not
having form, which His own emanations, namely the material world contains?

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Can we love some impersonal air or light? Imagine if your mother or father looks like one tall beero or a
pillow with no face or hands or legs; will you be able to love them?

God is not just some energy; God is the energetic Person behind all energies. For example,
The impersonal beam of light falls on a movie screen; behind the impersonal beam is a projector and
behind the projector, there is a man, operator of the projector; similarly behind the impersonal energies
of God, there is God, the Supreme Person.

When a stone comes flying into your room and hits your TV screen, what will you do? Although the
stone carries the energy, you will stick your neck out of the window to look for the ‘energetic’ boy who
flung the stone. Thus there is always energetic behind the energies.

Government of any country is impersonal; but behind there is always a Prime Minister to whom all
Government officials are supposed to report to. Similarly brahmajyoti is an impersonal effulgence
emanating from the body of Supreme Lord (BG 14.27).

In Bible it is said that, ‘God made man in His own image’; thus God has a beautiful form : ‘om sri
krishnaya om sac cid ananda rupaya’ ‘The Supreme Personality of Godhead is Sri Krishna and His form
is one of eternity, knowledge and bliss’. (Gopal Tapani Upanishad).

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