Question: I have a question from my step mother. Jamie, you call her Yamuna. Her question, She said she read in the Bhagavad-gita, I should endeavor without expectation of any results. And so she has devoted her life to helping people in different ways in her professional life and spiritual life. But sometimes she feels lonely. So how to give up this loneliness, how can she continue when the work feels lonely? She doesn’t want to feel sorry for herself or to feel alone. So she wants to give all efforts to guard and not feel any loneliness. How can she do that?

Jayapataka Swami: So these are two things – one is that like the service she is doing helping people. What you do in devotional service, you don’t expect any particular result. We don’t have desire for labh, puja pratista – for profit, for appreciation or for position. That is one thing. You do it because you want to please Krsna. The second thing is you are feeling lonely. That is a personal thing. And I will need to talk to you to understand your situation. Sometimes, people feel lonely for different reasons. If you are at work, you are God conscious you can always feel the presence of Krsna in our life. Then we won’t feel lonely, but that is a very elevated position, that is different than expecting some result for your service. So if I can understand more about your loneliness then I can advise you, that is a different thing. It is not the same thing if we think that by doing this service, I won’t feel lonely. Being lonely is our motive. I want to do this service for Krsna so that I feel not lonely then it is acceptable. We should not want any result for our service. But apart from that, we may need a capable situation and sometimes attending, reading, by different practices of devotional services we don’t feel alone. I don’t know how much you are practicing, I don’t know whether you are, you know, doing activities more in the mode of goodness or in the transcendental mode, that is difficult for me to understand, exactly your situation and problem. But in general we should do our service without expecting anything in return. Like we should offer appreciation to people but we should not expect them to appreciate us. They may or may not. If we don’t have that expectation of what we have done, some will appreciate, some won’t. We try to do our best. We should not expect any appreciation. If we get it, it is the Lord’s mercy. if we don’t get it, that is not for us. Alright? Haribol!
25-NOVEMBER-2019 NEW PANIHATI DHAM, ATLANTA, USA