(Article from The Harmonist (Sree Sajjanatoshani) VOl.XXXII, October 23, 1935, No.4)
When seen in its true perspective, the word “niswartha” or selflessness is found to be a mere wrangling of words and is like the ‘castle in the air. The profession of selflessness is merely a means to an end viz., the gratification of one’s senses with comparative ease. If any selfish person is taken in by such profession, my interests can be easily secured at the expense of his. Are maternal and fraternal affection, friendship and love between man and woman really selfless ? Had there been no selfish pleasures in them, none would have acted under their impulse. Instances are not rare when for selfish pleasures men have not hesitated even to lay down their lives. Pleasures arising out of the performance of religious functions are also equally selfish. Love for God is a particular kind of selfishness. What is ingrained in one’s nature is “swartha” (self-interest); because “swabhava” (nature) means what pertains to one’s own interests. ‘Swartha’ or self-interest is ‘swabhava’ or nature, and ‘niswartha‘ or selflessness is unnatural.
Following the above line of reasoning, we can understand that as ‘swartha‘ or self-interest is our eternal inherent nature, we will be ever seeking the interests of the bodies of ourselves or of those related to our bodies in the forms of wife, sons, wealth, house and other transient enjoyable mundane things, or we will be busy after the interests of transcendental Godhead or those of persons inseparably connected with Him.
Persons who cannot fully surrender themselves to Kṛṣṇa or enjoy the association of sadhus and those who as such, have not been properly initiated by them are apt to honour the interests of their bodies and homes. A matha ( seminary ) is a place where the culture of the service of Kṛṣṇa is given a full play and where His servitors have full scope for His service by constant performance of the congregational chant of His Name ; or, in other words, where Godhead ever dwells with His own. Only the most fortunate few are found to possess a natural unobsessed hankering for the unalloyed service of the matha.
If even after our initiation by the real spiritual preceptor we continue to stick to our home interests as our principal function and attened to matha interests as something secondary, then we are far away from a glimpse of even the threshold of the sphere of our eternal good. Some may be under the impression that it is only the sannyāsīs, brahmacārīs and the varṇaprasthas that have cut off their connection with the world, and are to look after the interests of the matha ; and, as householders, their proper duty is to look after their home interests and it should suffice for their purpose if in a secondary way, they do any service of the matha for acquiring fame as devotees or for self-aggrandisement in course of such sham performances. They think that if they agree to any greater demands of service by the matha, it is likely to go against their home interest. Ideas of this nature are apt to dominate the minds of all persons who have not actually surrendered themselves to the guidance of the real spiritual preceptor, or who have gone through the formality of initiation for extraneous reasons, but who actually live far away from the preceptor’s mode of thinking.
Whether we are householders, sannyāsīs or brahmacārīs, unless the interests of the matha give us sufficient food for contemplation, meditation, recollection and for all purposes, there is no chance of our being freed from the trammels of the Delusive Energy of God, or of obtaining love of the Lotus Feet of Kṛṣṇa. Hearty participation in the interests of the matha should be the criterion to judge a person’s love for Śrī Hari, Śrī Gurudeva and the Vaiṣṇavas. To say that a man has devotion for Śrī Gurudeva or for Śrī Kṛṣṇa independently of any attachment for the interests of the matha, is sheer self-deception and a method of practicing deception on others.
It may be that as a sanyasi, brahmachari or a varṇaprastha or as an inmate of the matha and under the guise of showy performances for the interests of the matha, we can make our home interests of prime importance and those of the matha as secondary, or can fulfill our own selfish purposes under the garb of serving matha interests. Such underhand policy is a bar to our spiritual progress and eternal good. To try earnestly to satisfy Hari, Guru and the Vaiṣṇavas with full self-surrender after divesting oneself of all extraneous desires for the gratification of oneself, is to serve the interests of the matha. The ideal of service of the matha should not be that, as a change from the day’s hard labour for one’s home interests one should spend a part of the evening at the matha, or to think that one’s being on the list of membership of the matha is sufficient for all purposes or to imagine that in one’s own home one is doing the same service that is done by the inmates of the matha, or to think that it is enough if one regularly pays one’s monthly subscriptions to the matha, and occasionally carry out the orders of the matha, and so on and so forth.
Like a householder serving the interests of his home with a heart fully engrossed therein, an honest inmate of the matha should serve the interests thereof with far greater and far more sincere attachments and aptitudes. Without sincere attachment for the interests of the matha and without heartily throwing oneself into the same to make a vain show of serving the matha is to try to cheat the Guru and the Vaiṣṇavas, or is like purloining from the smith the steel that has been supplied for the making of the blade of our weapon. One who is fully interested in the affairs of the’matha is a ‘mukta jiva‘, and one who is the reverse of it, is a ‘baddha jiva‘. Without immense good luck at one’s back, one cannot be expected to be an out-and-out servitor of the matha or to make it his life’s goal.
Householders are desirous of the fame of a devotee and oftentimes play dodges with the inmates of the matha, when – they are asked to serve the matha in any way, by giving the plain denial to such demands on the ground that they have to carry on the ‘seva’ of Śrī Gauranga or Śrī Nārāyaṇa in their own homes. Men of such vitiated judgment may, at times give something to the matha, but it is doubtful if such contributions are likely to find favour with Godhead.
Heaven and hell are the respective lots of those to whom the interests of the matha are all-attractive and those who are equally attached to the interests of their households. The least attempt on our part to minimize our exertions towards the fulfillment of the wish of Śrī Guru, under the pretence of serving our household deities, is to live far away from serving the interests of the matha and to run away from the path of our eternal good. Every good householder should certainly perform the “archana” (worship) in his home. But under the garb of worship none should try to gratify one’s selfish desires by relaxing one’s efforts in furtherence of the interests of the matha. Any attempt of a like nature will prove a bolt shutting aginst the offender the door of salvation. It is true that a householder should not give up archana and deviate from the sadachara (right religious conduct). But it should be clearly remembered that such household performances can bear good fruit only if they serve the interests of the matha ; anything not contributing to such service should be rejected as being full of offence.
In every case, whether one is a householder, a sanyasi or a brahmachari, to culture the natural desire of serving the matha, the place of the unalloyed service of Hari, Guru and Vaiṣṇavas, is the surest way to one’s eternal good. Unless the identification of one’s interests with those of the matha be established in a natural way, love of God remains a far-fetched idea that cannot be brought to play with any amount of force or compulsion ; because love like ‘swartha‘ is natural. It requires no extraneous impetus to learn self-interest. It expresses itself as a matter of course.
Though their number is not legion, still not a few wealthy householders have shown, ardent and sincere interest in collecting funds for the service of the matha at considerable sacrifice of their own home-interests and without the least expectation of any prospective addition to their private income. Nevertheless there are also many persons who are in the habit of advertising their contributions to the matha and waiting for a return, in praise or congratulations, from the Guru or Vaiṣṇavas. If they do not receive any return of this nature they are apt to be biased against the matha and be taken themselves to the exclusive pursuit of their home-interests with a vengeance.
Sometimes it so happens that the pressure of duties imposed by the matha or even mild censures, either direct or indirect, prove sufficient to make a person cut off his connections with the matha. But if the fire of enthusiasm for the service of the matha is once truly enkindled within us then on no occasion and on no account can we dream of living away from the matha concerns. That we can have other more congenial places of resort viz., our homes, or that there can be a second alternative other than the matha, is an idea which springs from aversion to Godhead and can never arise in the heart that feels any real attraction for the service of the matha. The ordinary run of people, who have not crossed the threshold of the realm of devotion and are averse to Godhead by temperament, look upon the ideal of serving the interests of the matha as opposed to the interests of their homes, a transgression against moral and prejudicial to their supposed interests. But such speculations that are only too rife among men who are not cognizant of the real nature of the service of Kṛṣṇa but, like ignorant brutes, care only for selfish aggrandizement in the forms of ‘bhoga‘ (enjoyment) and ‘tyaga‘ (abandonment), have no place in the minds of those who have received real initiation at the lotus feet of the spiritual preceptor. If it be actually realised that serving the matha is identical with serving the Absolute, there will be no other alternative but to take up the life-long vow of service with heart and soul and in whatever stage of life man may be this is the true form of service of the spiritual preceptor.
No one who is less concerned in the interests of the matha or who has a very slender connection therewith can obtain real contact with Śrī Gurudeva. One who is indifferent to such interests can never find the clue to the trend of mind of Śrī Gurudeva, his conclusions, his practices and preaching and his ideals. Men of this type may pay flying visits to the matha for private selfish ends. But they are unable to fathom the depth of the “Leela” of Śrī Guru and the Vaiṣṇavas and are liable to commit offence at the feet of the devotees and even lose the fruitive results of their past good deeds. They are apt to cherish the desire of receiving favours and honour from the inmates of the matha and failing to have them often feel aggrieved and lose all respect for the latter. This is as it should be, because the matha people are not willing to deceive them by a show of artificial courtsies. But the royal road to earn the grace of Śrī Gurudeva and, for the matter of that, our eternal good, is to adopt the course of heartily serving the interests of the matha.
The less the care of a man for the interests of the matha, the greater will be his defects or loopholes enabling Maya (the Delusiva Energy of Godhead) to establish her domination over him. The result of coming under the clutches of Maya shows itself in diverse ways ; in making one’s weakened heart susceptible to evil association and practices, turning one into a hypocrite, the vain attempt to throw dust into the eyes of Śrī Gurudeva, and making one ultimately surrender oneself to the cult of mere animal convenience. To try to serve our home interests through the instrumentality or medium of the matha is even more detrimental to our good. A man of this nature cannot be expected to be an aspirant for the service of Hari, Guru and Vaiṣṇavas. To uproot or weed out such an evil from our hearts it behoves us all to be strictly on our guard against its sinister approach and to pray submissively and constantly to Śrī Guru and the Vaiṣṇavas for the attainment of our eternal good. In fine, our constant engagement in the service of the matha is the same quantity of our progress in spiritual life, and any false step towards serving our selfish home-interests in opposition to the interests of the matha is an approach towards death.