You may think of duty as activities one is obliged to perform as a part of their job. You are to do it no matter what and it does not matter whether you like it or not, because at the end of the day there will be a paycheck coming to you in the mail. Many interpret the meaning of duty simply to be some menial work one is required to do in order to earn their livelihood. If you google “duty,” one of the definitions provided is simply, “a task or action that one is required to perform.”
Of course, duty has a higher meaning as well: a sense of moral or legal obligation to act in certain way. Acting morally per one’s codes of justice may not necessarily elicit monetary gain; in fact, the result could be the opposite. When desires of monetary gain are not our primary modus operandi for acting in the world, we can live in accordance with our true values. However, many people hold different moral values, so how can we know if we are acting from a universal truth rather than a personal mental speculation? Furthermore, what is legal in one area of God’s green Earth may be illegal in another. So is following the law in a particular jurisdiction within a particular country really acting in duty? There must be laws transcendental to these personal and societal regulations. We can only take pleasure in a sublime sense of satisfaction from being aligned with higher self-evident principles, that govern the Universe.
The definitions of duty aforementioned found in the standard dictionary are shallow and unsatisfactory. This is because they don’t rest on sabda-brahma but instead on mental speculations. Here is how His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada defines different types of duty:
There are two kinds of sva-dharmas, specific duties. As long as one is not liberated, one has to perform the duties of his particular body in accordance with religious principles in order to achieve liberation. When one is liberated, one's sva-dharma—specific duty—becomes spiritual and is not in the material bodily concept. (BG 2.31, purport)
Duty is often defined as obligations towards somebody else – the family, community, state, country, society, and so on, emanating from the kinship one feels in their day-to-day relationships to humanity at large. This is certainly true; we hear from Bhagavatam that from the moment we are born we have incurred many debts to our parents, to the great sages, to the demigods, etc. Everyone has a particular duty and society can run smoothly only when its members perform their duties properly. Interwoven with this concept is the more important idea - that we have duty to ourselves as spirit souls, parts and parcels of Krishna. Our most important duty is to remember our true self and to be true to ourselves. When this duty is our first priority, all subordinate duties will automatically follow.
Çré Caitanya Mahäprabhu confirms, jévera ’svarüpa’ haya—kåñëera nitya-däsa: [Cc. Madhya 20.108]. ”Every living entity is an eternal part, an eternal servant, of the Supreme Personality of Godhead.” (CC Adi 17.123, purport)
The Vedic concept of duty is not simply working a boring job you have to do for survival, a blurry moral folklore that changes constantly, or selling your talents to a corporation in an exercise of willful exploitation like the majority of people do in contemporary society. Instead, duty is a sacred responsibility bestowed upon us coming from the Supreme Lord Himself. When done properly and sincerely, this duty will purify you and reinstall you in your original position of sat-cit-ananda, eternally in the blissful spiritual world. As Srila Prabhupada often insisted, Krishna consciousness is not an artificial imposition on the human being. It is already there, lying dormant within in our hearts. The process of sadhana-bhakti is the wake-up call for us to give up the darkness and come to the light.
Pure love for Krsna is eternally established in the hearts of the living entities. It is not something to be gained from another source. When the heart is purified by hearing and chanting, this love naturally awakens. (CC Madhya, 22.107)
The purpose of duty is to understand our true position, to see the ultimate goal, and to adopt the proper method for attaining it. It is similar to what the modern self-help Gurus advertise: think what would be the ideal you in 5-10 years time from now, figure the appropriate steps forward and just focus on attaining the goal - your ideal self, the best version of you. Only problem is that neither them, nor their clients, have a clear understanding of what the supreme goal of life is.
We, on the other hand, have the tremendous good fortune to know the truth. As pretentious as it sounds, let us remember that is not some new-age truth that we have concocted ourselves. On the contrary, this spiritual knowledge is a great science that has been passed down in disciplic succession and practiced for thousands of years, starting with the Supreme Lord Himself. His desire is to spread this knowledge all across Earth with the goal of relieving all living entities from unnecessary suffering. Thus, we have a great responsibility to share this knowledge with all.
So, what are we doing with this knowledge? Do we apply it ourselves properly? Do we enthusiastically share it with others? After reading the many great books left by Srila Prabhupada, our problem is no longer that we are in ignorance; our challenge is to move from theoretical understanding to dynamic practical application. Our most burning issue should be: when will we finally start doing what we know we should have been doing all along?
We should try to accept our most important duty, the process of sadhana-bhakti, as our saving grace. We should see it as it is - as our way back to home, back to Krishna, back to our true identity. If we perform it properly according to the instructions of Srila Prabhupada, gradually our work will evolve from a boring and troublesome chore to a natural and spontaneous joy. This spontaneous expression of pure love is the way of the advanced devotees. For example, mother Yasoda does not have to turn the alarm on in order to wake up in the morning to perform her service to Krishna. She does not use the snooze button either. Rather she gets up ecstatically, beaming at the opportunity to serve and love Krishna. This is the stage when duty is performed out of spontaneous love. This is the stage we should all aspire for.
One may ask, why it is so hard to perform our duty properly? What is the problem? Why do I need an alarm clock to get up for Mangala Aarti? Arjuna asks similar question Krishna in Bhagavad-gita. We all know the answer:
The Supreme Personality of Godhead said: It is lust only, Arjuna, which is born of contact with the material mode of passion and later transformed into wrath, and which is the all-devouring sinful enemy of this world. (BG 3.37)
We have the call of duty and the call of lust. Whenever put under pressure by Maya, we are supposed to take shelter in our prime duty – the chanting of the Hare Krishna Mantra – even more vigorously. If we surrender to the Holy Name we will gain enough strength to avoid falling down and this will give us confidence to act in the same way when the future challenges arise. If we do this we will be above the modes of material nature and will be properly situated to begin the real devotional service:
One who engages in full devotional service, unfailing in all circumstances, at once transcends the modes of material nature and thus comes to the level of Brahman. (BG 14.26)
Even our material duties in varnasrama should be performed with the ultimate goal in mind. Otherwise they are just waste of time:
The occupational activities a man performs according to his own position are only so much useless labor if they do not provoke attraction for the message of the Personality of Godhead. All occupational engagements are certainly meant for ultimate liberation. They should never be performed for material gain. Furthermore, according to sages, one who is engaged in the ultimate occupational service should never use material gain to cultivate sense gratification. Life's desires should never be directed toward sense gratification. One should desire only a healthy life, or self-preservation, since a human being is meant for inquiry about the Absolute Truth. Nothing else should be the goal of one's works. (SB 1.2.8-10)
Srila Prabhupada comments:
“Seekers of the Absolute Truth are never allured by unnecessary engagements in sense gratification because the serious students seeking the Absolute Truth are always overwhelmed with the work of researching the Truth. In every sphere of life, therefore, the ultimate end must be seeking after the Absolute Truth, and that sort of engagement will make one happy because he will be less engaged in varieties of sense gratification.”
