11 / Aspects of Transcendental Service
Servitorship
In the opinion of the  karmīs  (fruitive workers), offering the results of  karma  is called servitorship. But according to  Vaiṣṇava ācāryas  like Rūpa Gosvāmī, servitorship means to be constantly engaged in some kind of service to the Lord.
In the  Skanda Purāṇa  it is said that those who are attached to ritualistic activities, the four orders of social life and the four orders of spiritual life, are considered devotees. But when devotees are actually engaged in offering service to the Lord directly, these must be  bhāgavatas , or pure devotees. Those who are engaged in fruitive activities, or prescribed duties according to the four orders of social and spiritual life, are not actually pure devotees. But still, because they are offering the result to the Lord, they are accepted as devotees. When one has no such desire, but acts spontaneously out of love of God, such a person must be accepted as a pure devotee. The conditioned souls who have come into contact with the material world are all more or less desirous of lording it over material nature. The system of  varṇāśrama  and the prescribed duties under this system are so designed that the conditioned soul may enjoy in the material world according to his desire for sense gratification and at the same time gradually become elevated to spiritual understanding. Under these prescribed duties of  varṇa  and  āśrama  there are many activities which belong to devotional service in Kṛṣṇa consciousness. Those devotees who are householders accept Vedic ritualistic performances as well as the prescribed duties of devotional service, because both are meant
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