11 / Aspects of Transcendental Service

Servitorship

In the opinion of the karmis (fruitive workers), offering the results
of karma is called servitorship. But according to Vaisnava acaryas like
Ripa Gosvami, servitorship means to be constantly engaged in some
kind of service to the Lord.

In the Skanda Purana 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 ac-
tually engaged in offering service to the Lord directly, these must be
bhagavatas, or pure devotees. Those who are engaged in fruitive activi-
ties, 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 condi-
tioned souls who have come into contact with the material world are
all more or less desirous of lording it over material nature. The sys-
tem of varnasrama 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 varna and asrama there are many activities which
belong to devotional service in Krsna 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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