Question: When we are in a mood of surrender, is it possible to spiritualize all activities that do not break the four regulative principles? I ask because I am a student at a University, and am seeking to engage in my studies with a mood of service. While it is indirect service, what should be the appropriate mindset towards secular schooling?
Answer by Romapada Swami: Yes. Not only is it possible to spiritualize, but it is the very purpose and culmination of all branches of education and all departments of human activity to be engaged in service to God. This is explained by Narada Muni to Vyasadeva in Srimad Bhagavatam 1.5.22. The purpose of all branches of study is to glorify the Supreme Lord.
In the beginning one may not know exactly how to utilize these different activities for the Lord’s glorification. This spiritual science needs to be systematically learned by careful study and practice of Krishna consciousness. In the meanwhile, one can pursue these activities as a matter of duty for self-purification, and in the spirit of the following scriptural directions. Lord Krishna describes in the Gita how by performing one’s own duties one can worship Him (BG 18.46). The opening chapters of Bhagavad-gita, particularly chapters 3–5 detail how performance of such occupational engagements in a dutiful, detached spirit, without sense of doer-ship and proprietorship, gradually leads one to the platform of Krsna consciousness.
