Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare / Hare Rama Hare Rama Rama Rama Hare Hare

Friday, October 12, 2012

meaning of my blog title

It has been five years since I started this blog and has never occurred to me to describe its title - Servant of the Servant.

I and my wife both agreed to use this title because this is a subject matter very close to our spiritual master's heart - H.H.Radhanath Swami. In most, if not all, of his lectures, his drive home point is always this - to be the servant of the servant. So I and my wife thought we can keep the same title for the blog.

Beyond that, there is a deeper philosophical meaning. Lord Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, an incarnation of Krishna, appeared some 500 years before. As part of His earthly pastimes, He used to dance in ecstasy before Lord Jagannath during Ratha Yatra. It is said that once Mahaprabhu offered prayers in front of the Lord and one such prayer is as follows.

nāhaḿ vipro na ca nara-patir nāpi vaiśyo na śūdro 
nāhaḿ varṇī na ca gṛha-patir no vanastho yatir vā 
kintu prodyan-nikhila-paramānanda-pūrnāmṛtābdher 
gopī-bhartuḥ pada-kamalayor dāsa-dāsānudāsaḥ 

I am not a brāhmaṇa, I am not a kṣatriya, I am not a vaiśya or a śūdra. Nor am I a brahmacārī, a householder, a vānaprastha or a sannyāsī. I identify Myself only as the servant of the servant of the servant of the lotus feet of Lord Śrī Kṛṣṇa, the maintainer of the gopīs. He is like an ocean of nectar, and He is the cause of universal transcendental bliss. He is always existing with brilliance.- CcMadhya 13.80 

As you can see, the essence of the prayer strikes at the very existence of our identity & reality. Normally, we identify ourselves based on temporary bodily designations such as man, woman, rich, poor, hindu, christian, indian, american, gandhian, lutheran, wife, husband, father, mother etc and not based on our original (primeval) identity, as Mahaprabhu prays - that we are all the servants of the servants of Lord Krishna (or God).

Unfortunately, today, we have completely forgotten our original identity as servants of God, and are preoccupied with our other temporary identities such as father, son, hindu, rich, poor, american etc. When our consciousness is flooded with these temporary designations/identities, then the living being is forced to enjoy and suffer in this material world both of which causes frustration at the end.

Therefore, the blog title, as you can see is not a sectarian idea but a constant reminder for me and hopefully others to go back to the root of our existence & reality that we are servants of God, nay, servants of the servants who serve God!!

Hare Krishna

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