There are two kinds of duties in our life. One duty is to serve the illusion, and the other, another duty is to serve the reality. When you serve the reality, that is called real sannyāsa. And when we serve the illusion, that is called māyā. Now, either to serve the reality or to serve the illusion, I am in such a position that I have to serve. My position is not to become the master but to become the servant. That is my constitution.
Everyone in this material world, he's a servant. Nobody is master. One thinks that "I am the master," but he is actually servant. Suppose if you have got your family, if you are thinking that you are the master of your wife, of your children, of your servants, of your business, that is false. You are the servant of your wife, you are the servant of your children, you are the servant of your servants. That is your real position. Any case you take. The president, he is considered to be the master of your country, but actually he is the servant of your country.
So if you go on analyzing that our position is always servant . . . so either we shall become the servant of illusion or we shall have to become the servant of God. But if we remain the servant of illusion, then our life is wasted. Everyone is servant of illusion. He's servant of nobody but servant of illusion. He is expecting some profit. For serving, he is expecting some profit, but that profit is transient and illusion. Therefore he is servant of illusion. And when a person becomes to his real senses, transcendental senses, or jñānam, when he becomes actually the person in knowledge, then he becomes the servant of the reality. Because I am servant always, this way or that way.
So knowledge means, "Then why shall I serve the unreal illusion? Let me serve the reality. If my business is to serve and nothing to be . . . never to be master, always to serve, then why I shall serve the illusion? Let me serve the reality." That sense is called knowledge. So anāśritaḥ karma-phalam. Sannyāsa, renounced order of life, means one who is in perfect knowledge, he can take sannyāsa. Otherwise, if he takes all of a sudden the renounced order of life, he will create misery for himself and misery for others. In full knowledge, that sannyāsa.
So here, how that full knowledge is exhibited after sannyāsa, that is explained here by the Supreme Personality of Godhead. What is that? Kāryam: "It is my duty to become Kṛṣṇa conscious and to serve the cause of Kṛṣṇa. Oh, that is my duty. That is my real duty." When we come to this knowledge, then we become mahātmā, or the great soul. Vāsudevaḥ sarvam iti sa mahātmā sudurlabhaḥ. You'll find in the Bhagavad-gītā. Bahūnāṁ janmanām ante jñānavān māṁ prapadyate (BG 7.19): "After many, many births, when a person, when a soul, is perfectly elevated to the platform of real knowledge, transcendental knowledge," then what does he do? "He surrenders unto Me," Kṛṣṇa says: "He surrenders unto Me." Bās . . . why?
Vāsudevaḥ sarvam iti (BG 7.19): "You are everything, Vāsudeva." Vāsudeva means Kṛṣṇa. This is Kṛṣṇa consciousness. But Kṛṣṇa says: "Such . . ." sa mahātmā sudurlabhaḥ, "such great soul is very scarce, rarely found." But any intelligent person, if he understands this philosophy that, "My ultimate goal of life is to surrender unto Kṛṣṇa. Why not surrender immediately? Why shall I wait?" Bahūnāṁ janmanām ante. "Why shall I wait for so many births?" So that stage is called real sannyāsa.
Kāryam. Kāryam means "It is my duty." I am not forced, but voluntarily, out of love, transcendental love. Just like mother serves this child out of love. There is no question of salary or remuneration. The mother loves this child. Similarly, you can love the Supreme Lord in many ways.
You can love the Supreme Lord as master, you can love the Supreme Lord as friend, you can love the Supreme Lord as child, you can love the Supreme Lord as your husband. Any way. There are five different rasas, or humors, in which we are eternally related with the Supreme Lord. And when we are actually in the liberated stage of all knowledge, we can understand that, "Our relationship with the Lord is in this way." That is called svarūpa-siddhi. That is real self-realization. That is real self-realization.
Everyone has an eternal relationship with the Lord, either in the conception of master and servant, or in the conception of friend and friend, or in the conception of parents and the child, or in the conception of husband and wife, or in the conception of paramour and lover, and the beloved. So these relationships are there eternally.
Now, the whole process of spiritual realization is to come to this stage, transcendental stage. This relationship with the Supreme Lord is pervertedly reflected in this material world. And therefore we have got this relationship here, master and servant. But because it is perverted, therefore that relationship is not master and servant.
That relationship is with the money and the benefit. There is no love. There is no love. Here in this material world, the master and the servant, that relationship continues so long the master is able to pay the servant. As soon as the payment is stopped, the relationship of master and servant also stops. Therefore that is not eternal.
(aside) Come on. Sit down here.
That is not eternal. Similarly, here also there is relationship between friend and friend. But in slight difference of opinion the friendship breaks. The friend becomes enemy. Therefore it is perverted reflection. Similarly, the relationship between . . .
(aside) Come on here.
Relationship between mother and son. A slight difference of opinion breaks the relationship, and the son becomes out of the relationship of mother, mother becomes out of the relation . . . every way. Husband and wife, a slight difference of opinion, there is divorce, separation.
So no relationship here in this material world is actual. Always remember that all relationship in this material world is perverted reflection of that relationship which we have got eternally with the Supreme Personality of Godhead. It is simply reflected. Just like the sunshine. The sunshine is reflected in the glass, and that reflection comes to your . . . in my apartment, at six o'clock, the sunshine comes from the western side . . . er, eastern side. So in the evening the sunshine cannot come from the eastern side. The sunshine comes from the western side. But it is coming because it is reflected through a glass in the opposite house. This is the idea of reflected. That reflection of the sunshine is not real, but it appears just like sunshine.
Similarly, all our relationship here, either as master and servant or as friend and friend or as parents and child or as husband and wife or as lover and the beloved, any relationship, whatever we see here, that is the perverted reflection of our eternal relationship with God. So when we come to that I mean platform of understanding, then we are perfectly in knowledge.
So when that knowledge comes here, it is stated, he takes the service of the Lord, Kṛṣṇa consciousness: kāryam. Kāryam means "It is my duty." Because I have got my eternal love relationship with Kṛṣṇa. There is no question of remuneration. Of course, remuneration is there thousand times more than what remuneration we get here by rendering our service. Kṛṣṇa, thousand times . . . not thousand times, because there is no limit.
There is a nice story of a great devotee, Bali Mahārāja. Bali Mahārāja was a very powerful king, and he conquered over the heavenly planets. So the denizens of the heavenly planets, they appealed to the Supreme Lord to save them that, "We are now conquered by the demonic king, Bali Mahārāja." So Bali Mahārāja . . . and Kṛṣṇa, Kṛṣṇa took the shape of a dwarf and went to Bali Mahārāja for begging as a brahmin boy. And He . . . He approached him, Bali Mahārāja, "I want something from you. You are a great king. You give in charity to the brahmins. So I want something from you."
So Bali Mahārāja said, "Yes, I shall give You. What You want?" "Now, I want land of three . . . in the measurement of My sole, three sole measurement. That's all." So He was a boy, His sole was sole . . . not very long. So Bali Mahārāja said, "What You will do with a small piece of land?" But He said, "Yes, that will suffice Me. If you promise this three measurement of My three palms land, that will suffice." Then Bali Mahārāja agreed, and by His two measurement of the palm, He covered the whole universe.
Then He's asking, "Bali Mahārāja, now whatever you have got, you got, now it is finished by two feet, by two measurement of my palm. Now where I am going to keep My third, third one?" Then Bali Mahārāja understood that it is the favor of the Supreme Lord. He said, "My dear Lord, yes, I have now lost everything. I have no other property, but I have got my head. Please kindly keep on it." You see.
So the Lord was very much pleased on him, and He offered, "Bali Mahārāja, then what do you want from Me?" "No, I never expected anything from You. I could understand You wanted from me everything, so I have offered my everything. That is finished. I don't want . . ." Then Lord says: "Yes, but from My side, I have got something to offer you. I shall remain as your order-carrier servant in your door."
So He remained always . . . just like we are sitting here, there may be some doorman, He, Lord became his doorman. So that is the return. If we offer something to Lord, oh, that is rewarded in many millions of times. So we should not expect. The Lord is always serious to return the service of the servant, of His devotee. So there are many devotees. This devotee, Bali Mahārāja, is surrendered everything for the service of the Lord. So he became a famous king. Sarvātma-snapane abhavad balir vaiyāsakiḥ.
So now, anyone who thinks that "Service of Kṛṣṇa, or service of the Lord, is my duty, duty," he is the man in perfect knowledge. Sa sannyāsī. Sa sannyāsī ca yogī ca. And he's actually yogī. We have heard the names of so many yogīs, but here Kṛṣṇa says in the Bhagavad-gītā, "He is actual yogī." Who? "Who has surrendered himself fully unto Me and he is engaged in My service as a matter of duty." That's all.