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If you engage yourself in the service of Krsna, you'll find new and new encouragement. That is spiritual. If you find it hackneyed, then you must know that you are not yet serving spiritually, you are serving materially

Expressions researched:
"if you engage yourself in the service of Krsna, you'll find new and new encouragement. That is spiritual. If you find it hackneyed, then you must know that you are not yet serving spiritually, you are serving materially"

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Lectures

Bhagavad-gita As It Is Lectures

If you engage yourself in the service of Kṛṣṇa, you'll find new and new encouragement. That is spiritual. If you find it hackneyed, then you must know that you are not yet serving spiritually, you are serving materially. Formality, stereotype. But if you feel new and new energy, then you know that you are serving spiritually. This is the test. Your enthusiasm will increase, not decrease.


Lecture on BG 2.21-22 -- London, August 26, 1973:

Yan maithunādi gṛhamedhi sukhaṁ hi tuccham (SB 7.9.45). So this materialistic life means sex life. Very, very abominable, tuccham. If anyone has understood this, then he's liberated. But if, when one is still attracted, then it is to be understood that there is still delay in liberation. And one who has understood and has left it, even in this body he's liberated. He's called jīvan-muktaḥ sa ucyate.

īhā yasya harer dāsye
karmaṇā manasā girā
nikhilāsv apy avasthāsu
jīvan-muktaḥ sa ucyate

So how we can become free from this desire? Īhā yasya harer dāsye, If you simply desire to serve Kṛṣṇa, then you can get out. Otherwise, not. That is not possible. If you desire anything else except the service of the Lord, then māyā will give you inducement, "Why not enjoy this?" Therefore Yāmunācārya says,

yad-avadhi mama cetaḥ kṛṣṇa-padāravinde
nava-nava-rasa-dhāmany udyataṁ rantum āsīt
tad-avadhi bata nārī-saṅgame smaryamāne
bhavati mukha-vikāraḥ suṣṭhu niṣṭhīvanaṁ ca

"Yad-avadhi, since the time, mama cetaḥ, I have engaged my life and soul, my consciousness, in the service of the lotus feet of Kṛṣṇa..." This verse is given by Yāmunācārya. He was a great king, and kings, they are generally licentious, but he became later on a saintly devotee. So his personal experience, he is saying, that "Since I have engaged my mind in the service of the lotus feet of Kṛṣṇa, yad-avadhi mama cetaḥ kṛṣṇa-padāravinde..." Nava-nava. And service, spiritual service means every moment new. It is not hackneyed. Those who are spiritually realized, they will find to serve Kṛṣṇa means new enlightenment, new enlightenment. Nava-nava-rasa-dhāmany udyataṁ rantum āsīt. Here, in this material world, you enjoy. It becomes hackneyed. Punaḥ punaś carvita (SB 7.5.30); therefore you are disappointed. But if you engage yourself in the service of Kṛṣṇa, you'll find new and new encouragement. That is spiritual. If you find it hackneyed, then you must know that you are not yet serving spiritually, you are serving materially. Formality, stereotype. But if you feel new and new energy, then you know that you are serving spiritually. This is the test. Your enthusiasm will increase, not decrease.