Live the Bhāgavatam · SB 11.10.6
Mukti· LiberationReplace Ownership With Loving Service
“The servant or disciple of the spiritual master should be free from false prestige, never considering himself to be the doer. He should be active and never lazy and should give up all sense of proprietorship over the objects of the senses, including his wife, children, home and society. He should be endowed with feelings of loving friendship toward the spiritual master and should never become deviated or bewildered. The servant or disciple should always desire advancement in spiritual understanding, should not envy anyone and should always avoid useless conversation.”
What the purport teaches
- A disciple should be active, humble, free from envy and eager for spiritual understanding. Loving friendship with the spiritual master should remain firm, and useless conversation should be avoided.
- No one is the permanent proprietor or ultimate creator of family, home or society. God creates the bodies and material elements on which these temporary relationships depend.
- Before death takes these things away, we should voluntarily engage them in loving service to the spiritual master, Lord Kṛṣṇa’s bona fide representative. Then they become causes of happiness rather than lamentation.
Try this today
Use one possession today for a small act of service in keeping with the spiritual master’s guidance.
Ask yourself
What do you think of as 'mine' that could instead be engaged in loving service?
Carry the question through the day, then answer it in your own words before sleep.
From Canto 10, chapter 14 onward, the translation and purports were completed by Śrīla Prabhupāda's disciples after his departure, and published by the Bhaktivedanta Book Trust.