11.33 – We are never too small to do a big service and never too big to do a small service
“I am not qualified to do that service.” Such thoughts may hold us back when the opportunity to render a significant service presents itself.
It is true that none of us are qualified to serve Krishna. He is supremely pure, whereas we are pathetically impure. Due to our contaminated cravings and perverted passions, we frequently don’t feel like serving Krishna. Even when we feel like serving Krishna, we don’t have the sincere devotion that will make our service pleasing to Krishna.
Nonetheless, Krishna makes his grace our qualification for serving him. The Bhagavad-gita (11.33) assures Arjuna that all his enemies have already been killed by Krishna’s prior arrangement, indicating thereby that all our disqualifications will also be similarly removed by Krishna’s grace.
That’s why if Krishna calls upon us through his representatives to render a service, we shouldn’t think that we are too small to do a big service; Krishna’s grace is supremely big and it empowers us to do the needful.
The awareness that Krishna’s grace is our qualification counters not only the pseudo-humility that keeps us away from Krishna, but also the false pride that similarly distances us from Krishna. We are never too big to do a small service. Because we are always in need of Krishna’s grace and that grace is available not just through the big services but also the small services. In fact, small services offer us the opportunity to connect with Krishna without the desires of prestige that may motivate us while rendering big services.
Thus does Gita wisdom imbue us with equal vision towards all services, big and small, because we realize that they all offer us life’s biggest opportunity – to connect with Krishna and relish supreme fulfillment.
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Therefore get up. Prepare to fight and win glory. Conquer your enemies and enjoy a flourishing kingdom. They are already put to death by My arrangement, and you, O Savyasaci, can be but an instrument in the fight.