who is a menial servant

What does menial service mean? Who is a menial servant?

There is a tendency to think that picking up a trash bag is considered menial service and conducting higher management like work is not so menial. Is this what Srila Prabhupada meant when he said menial servant. In Bhagavad Gita ch 4 text 34, he writes in his purport “One has to approach a bona fide spiritual master to receive the knowledge. Such a spiritual master should be accepted in full surrender, and one should serve the spiritual master like a menial servant, without false prestige”. The key word is “without false prestige”. That is the qualifier for menial service. So we can pick a trash bag puffed up with false prestige thinking “I am doing such menial service for the temple” or we can “sit in a high management position with absolutely no false prestige thinking oneself as the instrument of guru and Krishna”. The person executing the latter service will be considered a menial servant.

Therefore, the service per se does not qualify the servant as menial but the consciousness with which we execute the particular service determines our degree of menial position. In other words, to the degree we have no false prestige (but seeing ourselves as an instrument of Krishna) in executing our service to that degree we are considered a “menial servant” of guru and Krishna. We can be the president of the country and have absolutely no false prestige or we can sweep floors and be super puffed up. Krishna recognizes our consciousness in which we work and not the work per se.

Hare Krishna