The devotee wants to serve the world. Why? It is not because the people of the world are suffering. The mature devotee sees the world as God. He knows that serving the world is service to God. Because of this understanding, he is happy. If he thinks that he is serving the world, the result will be a lot of problems.
In rishikesh Swami Shivananda had established an ashram. One of the volunteers in that ashram suffered a dog bite and unfortunately developed Rabies. Shivananda was a doctor before taking sanyasa. Therefore he looked after that volunteer himself. Even in these days of advanced medical care, we don't have any good treatment for rabies. Seeing the way Swami Shivananda was caring for him, others admired him. Surely the swamiji likes this devotee so much!
After a few days of this felt that it will be better to send him home and continued to treatment there. When they put this idea to Shivananda, he agreed and sent him home with some money. Then, he continued to look after the affairs of the ashram. Now and then he used to enquire about the progress of the patient. But the treatment was not effective, and the volunteer died. The news was duly conveyed to Shivananda, but to their surprise they found that Shivananda was not moved emotionally. He continued to do his work without showing any grief or anxiety.
When the devotee has reached the highest state it occurs to him that everything that is happening in the world is God's play. Therefore he doesn't take pride in what he is doing. Nor does he regret, if something goes wrong. All that he knows is that he is serving God. Such an attitude is real surrender. we should try that develop such an attitude.
During his training period, or even when we have advanced to higher levels - in no state we need to forego our social life. But whatever actions we do, we have to surrender the result to God and accept whatever the outcome is as His prasada.
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