WHEN MASTER BECOMES A SERVANT..

"If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap. If you want happiness for a day, go for a picnic. If you want happiness for a month, get married. If you want happiness for a lifetime, serve others." - Chinese Proverb

When and where have we seen a master take the role of a servant? Probably never or if at all, very rarely. Here, I would like to briefly touch upon a few touching stories from the life of Lord Krishna, who even though is The Supreme Master of everything and everyone, still happily chooses to play the role of a servant to His devotees. 

THE RECEPTIONIST
Much, much before the Mahabharata war, when Yudhishthira was performing the Rajasuya sacrifice to be crowned as the undisputed emperor of the world, all his friends and relatives were assigned different departments to take care of, depending on thier tastes and inclinations. Bhima was in-charge of the kitchen, Sanjaya was in-charge of the protocol and of taking care of Kings from various lands, Duryodhan was in-charge of receiving gifts, Kripa was in charge of distributing gifts. Guess what was the role that Krishna chose? Lord Krishna chose to be at the entrance, to welcome every saint who came to the sacrifice by personally washing their feet with His own hands because the Lord knew that blessings of these pure souls was essential for the success of Yudhishthira.

THE MESSENGER
Just before the war, Yudhishthira wanted to do his best in every way to avoid the war and see if any compromise could be achieved. The question was - who would go as a messenger to give the proposal for peace. Lord Krishna without a second thought volunteered to do this role. Mind you, the role of a messenger is not at all a respectable role, only inferior people who were not that powerful were chosen as messengers. But Lord Krishna without any trace of pride, happily agreed to do this role as a service to His dear devotees - the Pandavas. God is showing by His own example that the real juice of life is in service - it is the only happiness in this world. One should be eager for it and be ready to grab any opportunity to serve especially great souls.

THE DRIVER
If being a messenger is a low role, being a chariot driver is still lower. But Lord Krishna didn't want to miss any opportunity to serve in order to reciprocate with the love shown by Arjuna, His unalloyed devotee. He unhesitatingly accepted this role to obey the commands and be a menial servant of Arjuna, so much so that the cover page of the Bhagavat-Gita portrays this scene of Lord Krishna advertising Himself as a servant of His devotee. Srila Prabhupada, the Founder-acharya of ISKCON would jokingly say - "Devotees don't want to be God, they are more ambitious - they want to be the master of God." But for that to happen, you have to first be a selfless servant of God.

THE FOLLOWER
An interesting contrast between the side of the Pandavas and that of the Kauravas is clearly visible in who they chose as the commander-in-chief of their respective armies. In the camp of the Kauravas it was such a prestige issue as to who will be the commander. Bhisma, Karna and many others were eyeing for it. Duryodhan had a great difficulty choosing the commander in such a way that no one is offended as to leave his side. But in the Pandavas camp, they unanimously agreed to have Drstadyumna, a young but competent lad as their commander. Neither Lord Krishna nor any of the other experienced stalwarts had any issues with it. For them, it was important for the team to win and for that they were ready to work under anyone capable of the job. This more than anything shows how Lord Krishna wanted to have others succeed and get glory. This is an important feature of a great leader - that he creates other great leaders. In fact even before the war started, Lord Krishna predicted the doom of the Kauravas by showing Arjuna, how all of them were entering into the fearful mouth of His Universal form. It was as if He was telling Arjuna - "I have already killed your enemies, now you just do the act of fighting and take the credit."

THE STRATEGIST
After the war, it was time for Yudhishthira to take blessings from his uncle Dhṛtarāṣṭra before ascending on the throne. But this wasn't going to be a simple task. After all, how do you expect to get blessings from one whose children have been killed by you and more importantly who is going to mediate the meeting. The Pandavas again had no other shelter than Lord Krishna Himself. Before the war, during the war or after the war, they were fully dependent on the Lord's favor and Lord Krishna also was ever ready to serve the Pandavas. Lord Krishna asked Vidura to approach Dhṛtarāṣṭra with the proposal to meet. Dritarashtra agreed to meet and bless the Pandavas but had a condition - that he would meet them at Duryodhan's private chamber. Lord Krishna smelled some mischief in this. He at once set off with Vidura to inspect the chamber of Duryodhan. There He was surprised to see, life-size metal dolls of Bhima which Duryodhan used to practice on. Lord Krishna knew exactly what Dhṛtarāṣṭra was up to and He knew exactly what had to be done to outwit him. He arranged the chairs and placed one of the dolls of Bhima close to the chair on which blind Dhṛtarāṣṭra would sit.

On the next day, Dritarashtra faked tears of joy on the victory of the Pandavas and congratulated them and called them one by one to be embraced by him. When it was time for Bhima to come, Lord Krishna stopped Bhima from going and instead pushed his metal replica. Dhrtarashtra was burning with such hatred for Bhima, who killed all his sons that he put his entire might to kill Bhima in his tight embrace. Little did he know that he was embracing not the original Bhima but his duplicate version. How can Lord Krishna ever fail in protecting His devotee. Lord Krishna tells Arjuna to bodly declare in the Bhagvat-Gita that "His devotees will never perish." Such is the love shown by the Lord to His devotees. Udhava, the cousin of Lord Krishna recollecting the merciful nature of the Lord, asks this rhetorical question - "Who is that who will not surrender to such a wonderful Lord?"

THE HEARER
After the coronation of Yudhishthira, when Lord  Krishna sensed that the time for departure of Bhisma has arrived, He put everything aside and took with Him all the Pandavas and Draupadi to spend the last moments with His pure devotee. How can the Lord forget the love and devotion shown by His devotees and not be with them at their time of need! Lord Krishna induced Bhisma to speak his realisations and share his wisdom with the world. Bhisma spoke pristine knowledge springing from the core of his heart for six consecutive days and Lord Krishna along with the others stood there patiently hearing every single word spoken by Bhisma with rapt attention. What is that the Lord doesn't know, still to reciprocate with the love of His devotee, He enthusiastically heard the class delivered by Bhisma. This is the greatness of this Master of all masters - that He has no trace of ego. It's easy to be humble when you are nothing but to be humble when you are great is not easy, what to speak of being humble when you are God. That's mind blowing.
Much can be said of the humility and kindness of the Lord, but to summarize, the Lord is so indebted to the love and surrender shown by His devotees that He is ready to do anything to serve them. This is His favorite job - to serve His servants. Lord tells in the Srimad-Bhagvatam that "My devotees know nothing but Me and I know nothing but them." The devotees go to any extent to serve the Lord and the Lord goes to any extent to serve His devotees. This is an eternal transcendental competition - the war to serve. This is what the spiritual world is all about - competing to serve. The world will be such a beautiful place if this kind of competition and fight exists - fighting to be a servant and not a master. This is a fight that will end all other fights.
-  Achyut Gopal Das